Insights for Capricorn

As the World Turns

December 21:
Sun enters Capricorn: 4:20 AM EST
When I think of how patriarchy has twisted and turned archetypes into their opposite meanings, Capricorn easily comes to mind. The essential human trait of this earth sign is one that nature uses all the time: sustainability. Which is to say, the right use of resources (not simply the use of resources) in such a way we sustain life. How this reversal has overtaken what we actually know to be true is the story of how the mind creates reality over and above and beyond our common senses. Like all earth signs, Capricorn means to understand reality through the gates of perception: our senses. It’s quintessentially practical. Somehow patriarchy confuses the quality of presence with the notion of presents and so we go sort of mad in the season of Capricorn, trying to find things to give to people rather than ways to offer the gift of our focused attention to their existence. Capricorn can be an indication of great magic. Not the sleight-of-hand kind that depends on illusion, delusion and trickery but rather the total perception of here and now – The still point of the turning world, where “past and future are gathered”; fleeting though it is.
So start right where you are, with what you actually have and with the notion that you can and will manage it for the Good of All, including yourself but not at the expense of others. It’s not about being king of the mountain, more like being the mountain itself and drawing on the strength and determination of the mountain within.
This year as the Sun travels through Capricorn it will sextile Saturn and Neptune, trine Uranus, oppose Mars (retrograde).
Read all about it below.

December 24
Jupiter square Saturn
Every excess will require a balancing, a reckoning, and have consequence. Christmas Eve may tempt us to throw caution and good sense to the wind. This square suggest we are not thinking clearly and Mercury underscores that as it comes to oppose Jupiter and square Saturn in a couple of days. It doesn’t seem possible to open to the totality of suffering and fear that is permeating our thought streams and choking our feelings or to really ignore it. Just what you can handle is good enough.
This is the second of three squares between Jupiter and Saturn, the first was in August of 2024 and the last will be in June of 2025. It is born from the ‘seed’ of the conjunction which occurred in December of 2020 at 00* of Aquarius; a promise that we are indeed on our way into a New Age. Gonna take a lotta love to get there.

There is magic afoot on the eve of the day when we can actually see, if we look, the Sun miraculously and in tiny increments beginning its journey toward greater and greater light. It’s the magic of the mundane, the best kind of magic.
Having lost so much, we might stand with the angels on the head of our pins, neither here nor there, neither past nor future and allow the magic of presence to overtake the tyranny of presents.

December 26
Mercury opposite Jupiter     
You want to find truth in your mind? Even one truth from the noise inside that mind of yours? Truth amidst the mess of memories, arguments, algorithmic commands pointing you this way and that? Hopes, fears and the mess of stories going ‘round like a deranged carousel? Stop right where you actually are. Put down the loaded weapon (your attention on the screen). Step away from the seemingly sentient machine and go outside. Look up at the sky which goes on forever. Breathe the air. Wonder what it’s like to be a tree in winter or where the raccoons are today. That’s the kind of truth that can set you free.

December 27   
Mercury square Saturn
If you managed to find a coherent corner of your mind yesterday, today asks us to think about the hard stuff. The troublesome monster hiding at the back of the closet, nibbling on your precious treasures; the papers piling up on your kitchen table, even the obligation to have fun during the last week of a very difficult year. End of the year stuff congeals but it’s not a blight on your week. More like a call to turn and face what seems intimidating so you can shrink it down to size.

December 28
Venus square Uranus
There is nothing to be done about regret. We all feel it sometimes: all the things we could have done better: all the money we might have saved: the utter emptiness of certain kinds of pleasures in the wake of its aftermath.
There are three days until the end of this year and two days until the New Moon. Today was made for us to open our arms and embrace the full catastrophe even as we learn from the natural world. Sky’s the limit. Things end. New things begin. This, too shall pass. Are we “captives on a carousel of time” or dancers of the spiral dance which has no end, no beginning? Only ebb and flow, wax and wane, comings and goings: Enormous, relentless, glorious and annihilating. Oh My! Lions and tigers and bears, all over again.

December 29 
Chiron stationary direct
Here is the Great Teacher, mentor to all seekers, stopped in their tracks. Turning and turning toward the next lesson. Reminding us that the Greatest Teacher is always and without exception our own experience. To be human is to be wounded. To learn from our wounds is to grow wise and wiser still.

December 30
New Moon: 09* Capricorn: 05:26 PM EST
Uncertainty is not a comfortable land to travel through. Now is a good time to bow and honor the force of gravity even as you align yourself with the uplifting powers of grace. We are as dense as rock and as spacious as the cosmos. One year ends and another will begin soon enough. Draw up from the root before making and taking your good intentions into the next turn of the wheel.

December 31
Mercury trine Chiron
Make some noise. We are all here in the crazy chaos of the moment. You belong here in this world just like everyone else. Enthusiasm is not fanaticism if your intentions are truly wise.  

January 2 
Venus enters Pisces
Where is beauty? Within or without? Is it always a reflection of the soul? What is longing? Why is it impossible to assuage? Is mysterious the same as beautiful?

January 3
Mars opposite Pluto   
It is important to know and to acknowledge when you are being bullied so you can think about how you might respond. At the moment, it seems that the entire planet is being bullied by the billionaire bros and their pawns, the power brokers.
Pluto is unbelievable strength. Mars is courage. We will need lots of strength and courage as we persevere in the face of our challenges. We need more than endurance if we are to give birth to a New Age. It’s not called labor for nothing.

January 4
Sun sextile Saturn
We are here. We are alive. Each of us is capable of some things and not others. So be it. Is life a gift or a burden? How we carry it depends a lot on what we imagine we are carrying. Oddly. Systemic failure is scary especially when we are caught in the system that is failing. What tips and techniques help you along your way?

January 6
Mars rx re-enters Cancer
Mercury square Neptune
As Mars slips back into Cancer approaches a trine with Neptune for the second of three times. (see below) Mercury, the Trickster, offers a bit of aggravation just in case we missed something. It’s not a polarized ‘either/or’ world even though we can’t really count on a reasonable ‘both/and’ approach. Maybe it’s just a world, dark in some places, light in others; alive with wonder and misery. Paradoxical and cyclical, an endlessly turning kaleidoscope of what we call reality. We spend a lot of time being dissatisfied, reaching for something better, all the while knowing that what feels best is to care for and about each other.

January 8
Mercury enters Capricorn
Sun square Chiron
You didn’t make the world the way it is. You will not unmake or remake it either. Of course that’s not true. You/we are making the world all the time: When we cook and sew, choose what to wear and what to buy, the ways we dispose of our garbage. We are crafters, just like the Maker of All Things. Living is craft.

January 12
Mars rx trine Neptune
We are almost at the mid-point of Mars’ retrograde adventure (see below.) What longings do you have to do better? To face and challenge your biggest fears? How willing are you to touch your feelings as you continue on the journey? Even and especially to acknowledge that you are both tender and fierce? Given that all that lives, lives on One Planet imagine the possibility of containing multitudes.

January 13
Full Moon: 24* Cancer: 05:26 PM EST
Sun trine Uranus      
Calling all angels… It’s time for radical shift. Are you careening into change? Steady on? Embracing Chaos? Consider the notion that what feels like chaos might be change, moving faster than our ability to adjust. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, be the change.

January 14
Venus square Jupiter    
These two planets are considered by astrologers of old to be the greater (Jupiter) and the lesser (Venus) benefics (bestowers of blessings).  It’s hard to imagine that Venus is good with being the ‘lesser’ of anything, especially in a time when we are all tired of waiting for handouts from Jupiter, given that he’s only handing out what is ours to begin with. Jupiter’s lying, rapacious behavior seems all he is good for of late. Today calls us to sort through our blessings and pay attention to what feels good vs. what seems to feel good but only in the way of scratching an itch, calming a craving or the absence of a toothache. We are conditioned to be addicts, to pull the lever and get the pellet. That tension you are feeling wants the mind and the soul to recognize each other across a seemingly impossible divide. Awareness and acknowledgment (your way) of the elegant simplicity of bodily existence through which you sense the world is the ticket.

January 15
Sun opposite Mars rx
The absolute mid-point of Mars retrograde is upon us: Sun sets, Mars rises. Observe it through the night if you aren’t sleeping. See it in your dreams if you are. Symbolically we are called at this time to ask the hard questions. Every quest turns on a question which is way more important than the answer.

January 17
Sun sextile Neptune
Everything is grist for the mill of awakening. It is our mission to learn from experience. All longing takes us there as well as every stubbed toe, satisfying meal, accomplishment and failure. 2025 is no different.

January 18
Venus conjunct Saturn
We have a body which is real as anyone who ever had a headache or enjoyed love-making knows. The psyche, our soul is just as real.

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.

Insights for Sagittarius

November 21:

Sun enters Sagittarius: 2:56 PM EST
Sun sextile Pluto
There will always be travelers, wanderers and seekers, story tellers, grifters and change-artists, visionaries and those who cannot grow past the life stage of the young and the restless. What we often miss about Sagittarius is the melancholy. The split between the life of the party and the brooding introvert. This too is part of the Sagittarian landscape. All journeys eventually come upon the dark wood, the long night of soul searching, the fire swamp, the outrage of injustice. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, the judge. Depending on circumstances and temperament Sagittarius can draw the blessing or the thunderbolt. Wisdom is the only cure. All journeys offer the getting of wisdom. We are pilgrims not tourists on this planet but it’s all to easy to forget this unless and until we come a cropper with unwanted or unexpected circumstance (a shooter, an earthquake, a cancelled flight, an election that doesn’t end the way you wanted). In a world that over emphasizes security, which hungers for power and is motivated by greed, Sagittarius is fettered and unfree. Definite cause for melancholy.
As the Sun sextiles Pluto right out of the gate you might consider that any opportunity to challenge your notions of freedom and security, power and acceptance of things as they are is a gift horse. Do not look it in the mouth…  

This year as the Sun travels through Sagittarius it will sextile Pluto, trine Mars, square Saturn, conjunct Mercury (retrograde), oppose Jupiter and square Neptune. A busy month.
Read all about it below.

November 22
Venus sextile Saturn    
What sustains you? How do you build things, values, choices into your life that enable you to continue? How does that effect the ability of others to do the same for themselves? In a world which devalues so many human resources these questions are worth some consideration.     

November 25
Mercury stationary retrograde
Mercury retrograde, days before a New Moon paints a picture of Beginner’s Mind as it calls us to drop expectations of how bad or good things are and will be. For many of us a shadow has fallen over the world and our expectation is that nothing good can come of it. For others it’s the beginning of hope. Neither of these is true or false. Beginners mind means we don’t know anything and therefore can learn everything. Beginner’s mind allows us to see, to envision without fear or will controlling our vision. Mercury: trickster, ferry person between this world and other worlds as well as the god of our never-ending stream of thoughts needs a chill pill: at least for the next few weeks.

November 27   
Sun trine Mars
Venus square Chiron

If you love somebody
Then that means you need somebody
And if you need somebody
That's what makes you weak
But if you know you're weak
And you know you need someone
O it's a funny thing
That's what makes you strong

Is strength found in our resistance or our vulnerability? Are we stronger when we are hard and rigid or when we are open or willing? Are hate and fear stronger than love? There is no answer of course; different situations require different kinds of strength. The wisdom is in our ability to infuse action with kindness, no matter. Sometimes wisdom feels like reaching for a star, that is pointy and out of reach. Nevertheless we keep reaching.

December 1 
New Moon: 09 degrees Sagittarius: 01:21 AM EST
He said, she said, they said… The question isn’t, “What should I say?” There is no question. It’s more a matter of aligning yourself with the motion of it all.    Can you dance?   
We are all like the Fool in the tarot. We are travelers journeying through life, innocent, ignorant and constantly learning from our mistakes. Or not. A lot depends on if we are tourists or pilgrims. We are inclined to envision how, what and even where our learning should take place. But that is not always where the path takes us. Make an intention for the New Moon even as you wisely accept that it will unfold in ways you cannot see from here.

December 2
Mercury rx trine Chiron
Venus trine Uranus
Fire (Mercury/Chiron): Earth (Venus/Uranus). Whatever the miss-step or the miss-take of the moment might be, your task is to dance and know that you are dancing, like old Mr. Tambourine Man who ‘danced beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free’. Some of us have better balance and are more attuned to rhythm and rhyme than others but we are all equally engaged in the dance of life. No one sits on the sidelines. No matter what you think, you are alive in the world.

December 4
Mercury rx opposite Jupiter
Sun square Saturn
Venus sextile Neptune             
Sometimes, maybe all the times, things don’t add up in the world of human emotion and projection. We miss-understand, we lose our keys, we send the email to the wrong person. It’s an uphill battle. We can’t hear ourselves think over the din of trying to get it right. Even so, there is something that tastes good or looks beautiful. Something that cuts through the relentless effort and confusion which reminds us that life is precious. We can choose to let it slip through the barriers and allow it to go straight for the soul.

December 5
Sun conjunct Mercury rx
The spirit of the times is a horse no one is riding with ease. Don’t kid yourself. Awareness comes straight from the heart. Let your mind marvel at the power and the courage of a heart that believes in possibility and potential but not in the folly of unending progress or perfection. Let the power of a song liberate your heart and move your body. Shake out the noise so you can hear the signal, get the message, honor the still, small and powerful voice of wisdom.

December 6
Mars stationery retrograde
Mercury square Saturn
We are the world and our path has come to a bend, a fork or maybe a barrier. Consider the last two months – what a ride we have had! What theme has emerged for you? What voice did you hear calling you to courage or love? What is incomplete and needs more of your engagement? What call have you tried to ignore that won’t go away?  How has your passion been thwarted? If none of this registers then perhaps today is simply another brick in the wall. A way to pass the time of your life. But if your life is a creation, a work of art, you might consider what has been stirred up since early October. It will be with us for a while.

December 7
Venus enters Aquarius
Venus conjunct Pluto
Sun opposite Jupiter
Neptune stationary direct.
We have been through a lot. Pluto in Capricorn (2008 till November ‘24) showed us, that worship of the almighty dollar has created a strange world. Vandana Shiva, a brilliant, outspoken critic of that very system has made the point that capitalism has made capital (money) real and that by doing this we have made reality unreal, giving corporations personhood and making real people non-persons.  Have we actually entered the Matrix?
Today reminds us that we have become more alien(ated) from one another as our digital connectivity has increased: More emails, less time around the dinner table, more stories, less time to read or listen to them. These are Age of Aquarius issues. What does it mean to be  human? Humanitarian? What is the difference between information and knowledge? And of course, how can we get from here (the Age of Pisces) to there (the Age of Aquarius)? Some days, like today offer hints. Even when the way seems lost there is a story line which you are following. Sit for a bit. Really listen to the conversation. Invite your soul to listen with you. Even as the billionaires run the world for a while longer. Forever is a long time.

December 10
Sun trine Chiron   
Who is your wise person? Who holds the candle and illuminates your way through the mystery? Maybe it isn’t even a person or a philosophy. Maybe it’s animal or vegetable or mineral. It might even be those rocks up in space, lit by the Sun, endlessly circling. Wisdom is where you find it.

December 12
Venus opposite Mars    
It’s human to want more. But more what? Surely by now most of us know that more stuff is just more stuff. It’s not good for the kids or the planet to keep piling it on. Even gift wrapped junk is still junk in the end. How is desire unfolding within and around you? If ‘want’ challenges ‘need’ who comes out on top? How can your heart ennoble your true desires?

December 13
Venus sextile Mercury
 A time for lofty thoughts and big ideas, the kind you can chew on all day and into the night. Turn away from information and trivial pursuits. Write a letter to Sophia, tell her what’s on your mind. Ask her for guidance along your path of wisdom.

December 15
Full Moon: 23 degrees Gemini: 04:01 AM EST
Mercury stationary direct
Sun sets. Moon rises. Earth turns and allows us to see it this way. What’s happening in the continuing story of your life? What might be around the next bend? Be the narrator. It’s a story worth telling. Who are the characters (even the ones in your head)? What kind of dialogue is your main character involved with (including your thought stream)? What’s the setting (flowers on the table? Aromas from the kitchen? Where are you?) What’s the sound track? And of course, what’s the back story, the one that brought you to this chapter? Will your protagonist keep on living out their conditioned responses or will they (you) surprise us all and live from a wiser, truer, chosen impulse? Even if you are confused by these things you can wonder at the vast, unfathomable expanse of possibility and how the flame never actually touches the candle.

December 18
Sun square Neptune  
If your vision of how you thought it would be is confused, foggy, seems lost, then be lost, fogged and confused. Today’s not the day to figure it out. Just for today be the witness. It’s your story, after all.

December 19
Venus trine Jupiter
Having sat with confusion we are ready to end our sojourn through Sagittarius on a high note. It’s a curious world. We are like Alice as she ‘opened out like a large telescope’ and commented that things were getting ‘curiousier and curiousier’. Our world, the one we were born to, has changed and will not be going back. What could possibly make this interesting to you?

Insights for Scorpio

October 22:
Sun enters Scorpio: 6:14 PM EDT
It’s hard to look death in the eye. It just is. It’s always there but we do our best to live as if it isn’t. It’s exhausting. Consider the three phases of water: vapor, ice and the wet, flowing stuff we drink and swim in, the stuff that falls from the sky and waters the world when it isn’t flooding our basements. Water is feeling. We are always feeling. Scorpio reminds us that there are mysterious transformations of feeling within us. We can stagnate like a swamp or flow like a river. We can fall from the heights or crash upon the shore. We can solidify. But no matter what form it takes, water and our feelings are always there. We aren’t always feeling good any more than we can always think happy thoughts. But thinking and feeling are always happening.
If you live in the north, darkness is rising all around you. If you live in the south, the days are getting longer. If you live in the middle it’s not much different. But if you’re human you are feeling. And for some reason, in our product- progress-driven culture we have an aversion to feeling just what we feel. Likely this is because we assume we have do something about our feelings: We don’t. We just need to feel them. We don’t need to project or codify them, turn them into judgments or believe in them.
Feelings arise from the gut. Scorpio rules the guts. We, all of us, are capable of gut knowing. In fact our guts know at least as much as our brains. Mysterious and subjective, they inhabit the deepest, darkest part of us. This is Scorpio. The scorpion, the eagle and the phoenix. Allow it, welcome it, be witness to it. That’s all.
During this month of Scorpio the Sun will trine Saturn, oppose Uranus, trine Neptune and of course conjunct and oppose the Moon at New and Full.
You can follow along with the story below.  

October 24
Mars sextile Uranus  
Open the door to radical shift. Consider innovative ways of grappling with the effects of climate change in your life. You could get a heat pump, plant native species, even take to the streets in protest. Consider stocking the pantry with food to last through longer periods between shopping trips. Turn toward the inevitable disruptions not with fear but with actions of your own making. Trust your impulse to provide for yourself as well as others.

October 28
Mars trine Neptune
Venus square Saturn
If we put aside the expectation that we can or should have everything we think we want, we can care for all that we have. This world is not a vending machine.

October 30   
Mercury opposite Uranus
Resist the (understandable) inclination to refuse new ideas. Although it may feel that far too many possibilities are coming at you thick and fast, it is by allowing ourselves to feel into them that we perceive what is really real and immediate for us. Resistance is futile. Capitulation is not required. Surrender and acceptance of present circumstance is how we find ourselves at reasonable adaptation.

October 31
Mercury trine Neptune
The perfect aspect for dressing up like anyone’s ancestor and treating the tricksters. We are shrouded in mystery the night before a New Moon. The veil between the worlds is indeed thin tonight. Halloween…

November 1    
New Moon: 09 degrees Scorpio: 08:47 AM EDT
What you know in your gut can and should inspire your intention for this New Moon. Feelings are real. We honor them by acknowledging them, not necessarily acting upon them. They advise us. May your intention challenge your attachments and orient you toward empathy. Our willingness to see the world with courage and allow what we see to change us empowers our intention for this lunar month.

November 2
Jupiter sextile Chiron
Mercury trine Mars and sextile Pluto
Mercury enters Sagittarius
As Mercury readies to leave the intense, inward focus of Scorpio there is powerful validation for the transformations and processes which we have explored and experienced over the last while. Mars and Pluto are also readying themselves to change sign in this month of Scorpio.  Take a moment to acknowledge the truth of your feelings which cannot be denied. Imagine yourself on the threshold of action. What kind of action supports life? Thresholds always require us to listen with interest to the feelings and inner workings of others as well as ourselves with empathy in the here and now: our children, our partners, our neighbors, even squirrels and raccoons…

November 3  
Mars opposite Pluto
Venus opposite Jupiter, trine Chiron
Mars enters Leo
Power, energy, fuel and unprecedented progress are some of the drivers of the madness of our times. What is your source of power? How do you use your energy? What kind of fuel do you put in your ‘tank’? What fuels us is part of the question. The other part is: How much is enough? If we keep dancing as fast as we can we miss a lot. Mars in Leo will remind us, over and over for a while to ask ourselves what love is asking from us in all this madness.

November 4
Sun trine Saturn
Reward yourself for a job well done, a strength used well: mastery. Reward yourself with rest, with time out, unplugged and uncharted. We let our schedules rule us when they are meant to be scaffolding, bones upon which we hang the meaning and purpose of our days. Allowing them to reveal themselves (with unscheduled time) can be a profound exploration.  

November 09
Venus square Neptune
Sometimes we are overtaken by our longings. If we can be still and renounce the delusion of ultimate satisfaction, amazing things can happen.

November 11
Venus enters Capricorn
To think we can live sustainably as individuals in a world that drives prosperity with lies, manipulation and weapons (as if that’s reasonable) is a lot to ask. Still we must try for the sake of our sanity as well as for each other. Things are real. We use them. They are the stuff of life. Use them as if they matter because they are ‘the matter’.  

November 12 
Mercury square Saturn
Crunch the numbers. Drill down as deep as you can to make your particular project work. While you’re at it, get serious about the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of your beliefs. Our beliefs, which often show up as assumptions – even opinions - power our ability commit to the project at hand.

November 15
Saturn stationary direct
Stations are just like they sound: Like a train that has stopped to let people off and on, a station is a temporary pause on the way to the next station. In this case, Saturn’s next stop which comes in the spring of ’25 will be in Aries. At this station we might consider our responsibility (Saturn) toward the ever widening circle of suffering (Pisces) and the potential it has to open us to compassion (Pisces). It’s not going to magically disappear and clearly it connects us to one another, not only in the mind. We feel and we have some kind of responsibility to respond to our feeling. We are connected through a great underground river of feeling.

November 16
Full Moon: 24 degrees Taurus: 04:28 PM EST, square Uranus     
The after effects of the election down south remain in the spotlight. “Enough”, we say, “Get your act together”. The desire to wreck the joint, to make demands in no uncertain terms only adds to the chaos, only fuels rage and traumatizes us all over again. Humans everywhere are anxious about the uncertain way forward. The easiest (not necessarily best) thing to do is to react with the full force of desire even if it is for something that cannot be had. A better option would be to stand your ground and look around as well as within. Ask yourself about the nature of things such as the body, the mind and the heart: yours as well as the bodies, minds and hearts of all that lives.

November 18
Mercury opposite Jupiter
Sun trine Neptune
We have so many stories. Facts and fictions intertwine and our minds are like ticker tape unspooling across the bottom of the screen of the news of the day. We are travelers in the dark wood. Stories are the lines we follow, the candle just ahead in the mist, lighting the way. Getting us from here to there. However, if we never quiet the mind, if we never dive beneath the waves we never really know where we are, which makes it hard to know where we are going.      

November 19
Mercury trine Chiron
Pluto enters Aquarius (and stays there)
What is wisdom? How is information different than knowledge? Why do you listen and what do you hope to learn?
Now and for the last time until it moves on into Pisces in 2043, Pluto enters Aquarius.
Aquarius is the sign which represents all of humanity – kin to its fellow air signs Libra and Gemini. Aquarius represents humanity in all of its possibilities. Humanitarian is an Aquarian keyword. So is technology and all that is born from our accumulated knowledge of how the world works. The irony of Aquarius is found in that although we can dissect and inspect the world in which we live, we never get to the bottom of our understanding of it. The more we know the more we have to learn.
It is the nature of Pluto to live with mystery. Aquarius wants to solve the mystery, once and for all. It wants order and loves to qualify and classify all that it sees. The Water Bearer which symbolizes Aquarius likes to pour the water but doesn’t like to get wet.
Pluto is a shadowy figure, visible in the Underworld but obscure and more felt than seen above ground. It aims to kill off what isn’t working to make room for whatever arises from that loss. At this time when the world seems to have shrunk and we understand that we are all in this together (like it or not) we are making decisions about our collective future, even as the past crumbles beneath us. Will we lean toward the humanitarian qualities of Aquarius or will we aim for efficiency and order above all and the ascension of the Algorithm God?
Is the triumph of our species kindness in all its complexity or efficiency in all its seeming simplicity? Where Pluto is concerned there can never be an either/or solution. There is no solution. We are in the composter turning and turning again into something we cannot know. This is difficult for Aquarius.
On the first day of Pluto in Aquarius, Mercury and Chiron call us to envision our collective human potential with the understanding that we are mysterious and unknowable, part of something so vast we cannot comprehend it. We may never stop trying to learn what it is. Perhaps we could be a bit more reverent toward the immensity of an endless sky which is not simply above us but also within. This is the very nature of the mind (an airy place).
Pluto in Aquarius reminds us to surrender to the mystery of awareness and consider the nature of emptiness rather than to grasp at the carrot of one more bit of knowledge.
It goes without saying that this is not about burning books. It’s not that simple. Pluto is never simple.

Insights for Libra

September 22
Sun enters Libra: 8:43 AM EDT
Venus square Pluto
Venus enters Scorpio       

Equi-Nox: When day equals night: When time pauses for an instant and Day recognizes all that it is and can be in Night and Night sees its reflection in the Day. We all want to have our fortune told but time will say nothing but I told you so. Light and Dark are One. Maybe that’s enough fortune for anyone.
Libra is art, invented by humans, imitating nature: Art for the wealthy and art on subway walls for all to enjoy. Art reflects the soul. A world without beauty is a world where art loses its way.
Libra is justice. Fairness. Harmony. Balance. Reason. Here in the jangled world of late stage patriarchy we long for the Libran blessings of beauty and reason. Steeped as we are in thousands of years of a paradigm of domination we are reminded that we are all only reflections of one another. Hurting you hurts me. We cannot fight for peace although we must. Libra has become a shadow of itself; a sign of war and argument, debate and dishonest diplomacy, contention and the despair of seemingly unresolvable differences, opposition.
But Libra like all of our metaphors must struggle out of the old framework and reinvent itself. Take marriage for example, the ultimate Libran event. All those years of brides having a price and grooms used as pawns on chess boards of power and influence have left their mark. Weddings can be glorious, conspicuous in their consumption of resources and the demands they put on brides, grooms, families and guests. Weddings are the happy endings but marriage is something else especially when lt becomes too private and isolating. A battleground grows up and the expectation of Camelot fails. Success is often measured in how equitable and friendly the couple is when they divorce.
Libra is the only sign signified by a human-made object. It represents civilization with the profound awareness that art imitates life. Perhaps marriage is meant to be exactly that: A civilizing event which imitates nature.
Who are your challengers? Who opposes your view of self or purpose? How can you engage with the intention to connect, to balance differences, to be a fully human in the civilized sense? I leave it to you to consider these things during the month of Libra as the Sun conjuncts the south node, opposes Chiron and the Moon (always) , trines Jupiter and squares Mars and Pluto.

Venus square Pluto
Venus, the particular guardian of Libra is on a tear, wanting to reveal these shadowy qualities of Libra. The sense of ‘time running out’ as we run toward shorter, colder days in the north and hotter, longer ones in the south underscores the sense that equilibrium is fleeting, a momentary pause between conflicts. Putting an end to war requires something besides politics and power. How do you live in a civil society? What can be done to keep it from sliding into annihilation? Start small.

September 24
Mercury trine Uranus    
A bright idea! A bright and useful idea!! Eureka!!!

September 25
Mercury opposite Neptune
A dream of connection on the heels of a bright idea. Time to share what works for the Good of All and it harm none.     

September 26   
Mercury trine Pluto
Mercury enters Libra
Mercury, like Venus, passes by Pluto’s gate on its way to the next sign. Mercury has been busy over the last few days. We are full of thoughts about how the world is, who the people are and what they mean to us. You might call this creative perception. How we think about the world calls it into being, gives it meaning, sounds true. Mercury invites us to become aware that we are thinking, to consider the nature of mind and the thoughts that arise and pass all the livelong day (and night….). The powerful dictum, ‘I think therefore I am’ might just mean the opposite of what Descartes meant when he first said it. Thinking doesn’t prove our existence so much as it creates the illusion which we mistake for some kind of immutable reality.

September 29
Reaching stretches our potentials, grasping shuts them down.

September 30
Mars trine Saturn
Mercury conjunct Sun
Doing our best and appreciating that we did, settles a lot of tension. Pausing long enough to feel guided honors Mercury in the heart of the Sun.

October 2
New Moon: 10 degrees Libra: 02:49 PM EDT: Eclipse
This NM is an annular eclipse. We would have to travel to Easter Island to see it. Most of us probably won’t do that. The one annular eclipse I witnessed was amazing because at its peak shadows fell on all the tents like a shower of crescent moons. Magical.
We are told that war is inevitable, even natural. It isn’t. At this time, in this space as civilization de- and re- constructs itself we have had many moments when people such as you and me could have ‘gone to war’ but chose not to. Prompted by a sense of kindness, compassion or a simple desire for peace we held back, listened and waited for the storm of our emotions to pass. Once that happened things seemed quite different. When the rules of engagement are not working we need an intention about what really constitutes civilized behavior. Not only in politics but also in relationship with every living thing. After all, it’s all relatives . 

October 4
Venus trine Saturn
Stand your ground, with compassion, when it comes to your values. Other people have values as well. Our collective values are our economics.

October 6
Mercury square Mars
It’s all well and good to think, talk and teach about justice and equity but when it comes to action, what gets us off the couch and into the fray are our feelings which aren’t necessarily as high-minded as our thoughts. Time for a vigorous engagement of thought and feeling which could reveal one’s true motives. No judgment.

October 8
Venus trine Mars
Mercury trine Jupiter and oppose Chiron
Having touched our impulses, drives, motivations and desires we might be ready to consider that our values as well as our actions are rooted in feeling. We know what we like and what we don’t. Mars and Venus are all about attachment and aversion. Mercury suggests a loftier position when we see the world as curious and interesting. Thinking and feeling leading to action for what we perceive as the good has consequences. No action at all does too.  

October 09 & October 11
Jupiter stationary retrograde
Pluto stationary direct
Two planets in two days. Tectonic shift. The zeitgeist is adjusting its position.
Jupiter in Gemini is surely about the stories we tell ourselves as well as the ones we listen to (or watch). These stories are like paths in the wood. They lead us nowhere and somewhere at the same time. They are not without effect. They live inside your mind and condition your view of reality (that ever shape-shifting thing). Could be that it’s time to switch channels or to dig more deeply into one or two stories that matter in your particular life. Maybe it is time to tell a story: your story, history, herstory.
Pluto shifts beneath and within us, its realm being neither nowhere nor somewhere; suggesting that we leave the past behind and accept the changes that are overtaking us and let go of what no longer fosters life and trust. This is not to be confused with capitulation. Surrender requires deep relaxation and presence, capitulation is contracted, resistant and fearful.

October 12
Chiron sextile Jupiter
On our way to new stories are many opportunities for learning. Our hard-won wisdoms, warnings and wonderings provide the materials we use to fabricate those stories.  

October 13  
Mercury square Pluto and enters Scorpio
Mars square Chiron
Sun opposite Chiron and trine Jupiter
The kaleidoscope of planetary change mirrors life down on planet Earth, for those who care to connect the world above to the one below. Our thoughts turn from seemingly endless debates and discussions to the subjective meaning of these discussions; time to consider your reaction first. An inner shift opens the way toward deeper understanding of sky wisdom. We instinctively defend our rights and freedoms. Given the nature of what it is to be human, this inclination to defend needs to be tempered with awareness of feeling which often motivates actions. No matter what we think… Reason is only part of the picture.

Here is a poem for Mercury in Scorpio:

Anagrammer
By Peter Pereira

If you believe in the magic of language,
then Elvis really Lives
and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.

If you believe the letters themselves
contain a power within them,
then you understand
what makes outside tedious,
how desperation becomes a rope ends it.

The circular logic that allows senator to become treason,
and treason to become atoners.

That eleven plus two is twelve plus one,
and an admirer is also married.

That if you could just rearrange things the right way
you’d find your true life,
the right path, the answer to your questions:
you’d understand how the Titanic
turns into that ice tin,
and debit card becomes bad credit.

How listen is the same as silent,
and not one letter separates stained from sainted.

~~~~~~~~

To this list I would add sacred and scared.  

October 14
Sun square Mars (Mars in the shadow)
Venus opposite Uranus
What kind of permission do you give your feelings? Are you in the habit of letting them fly, cooking them slowly, harboring grudges or washing them as best you can through what you might think of as ‘cleaner’ feelings such as kindness, compassion, empathy and wisdom? However you’re used to dealing with feelings, today catches us off guard if something or someone we want or value takes an unexpected turn. Allow for a disturbance in the field of your feeling.
We could say that the square of the Sun and Mars is the opening gambit of Mars’ retrograde journey between December 6 and February 23. Astrologers call it the shadow period and it is considered that the issues which Mars retrograde will present us with are stirring, starting today. Our feelings seem to be pointing the way. For more on this listen to Planetary Pictures on YouTube or join Sarah Walton and me for our AMA: Pieces of the Sky: Mars Retrograde 2024-2025.

October 15
Venus sextile Neptune
As awareness of our inner reality expands, so does our ability to recognize all beings everywhere with the desire that all may be happy, peaceful and live with ease.

October 17
Full Moon: 24* Aries: 07:26 AM EDT
Venus sextile Pluto
Venus enters Sagittarius
What does it take to understand ourselves as part of civil society? Does it frighten or enliven us? We certainly don’t have to like each other all the time to get along and there is no mistaking that we are happy when our hearts are loving. Love is likely life’s first cause. We don’t have to go in search of it. We just need to get out of the way of things that obscure or block it. In Sagittarius Venus is called to adventure. What’s yours?      

October 22
Mercury trine Saturn
Sun square Pluto
Days are getting shorter in the north. Nature itself calls us to reflect upon the dark, despite the overabundance of light in the world: streetlights, blue lights, night lights and even our obsession with living in the light. Put your hand on your belly and give some mind to the dark: the shadow: the fascinating realm of mystery and all the things that don’t add up. On this last day of Libra even as the Sun tangles with the guardian of the Underworld we are strengthened by Mercury and Saturn in water (feeling) signs. Consider how reason and rationalization don’t empower us to have control over nature – not even our own nature. Whether we believe in ghosts or not, here, in 2024 it is still true that:
“There are (and will always be) more things in heaven and earth… then are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Shakespeare: 1602).
We are made of light AND shadow.
But we are not made to be ‘a house divided against ourselves’. (Abraham Lincoln: 1858)

Thank you for reading these insights. They 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.

Insights for Virgo

A Virgin Mom… which isn’t to say chaste… Virgo’s big secret.

August 22
Sun enters Virgo 10:55 AM EDT
Venus square Mars  
In this world of wonder and woe Virgo reminds us that diversity will save us, that the mind and body are one thing - not two - and that how we get where we are going matters. Virgo has taken the biggest hit from dominator culture which strives to create monoculture; which strives to be more, have more, want more, make more.
On the handle of the shopping cart at Loblaw’s it actually says, ‘crave more’, subliminal garbage meant to groom shoppers to consume more than they need. One more reason to boycott them.
Virgo has had it with the violations, the misappropriations, the waste. It doesn’t understand the desire to conquer a throw-away world, a world riddled with fires, floods and the insanity of aggression. Most of us don’t get it either. As we enter the last month of a wild and wooly summer we might choose to live in ways that stitch what’s broken and allows for whatever shows up, as best we can.
On a day when Venus and Mars are at it, it may seem impossible to do anything to the satisfaction of our desires. It’s still worth trying to crave less and want more of what is wholesome.
The Sun will be busy in Virgo this year, squaring Jupiter, opposing Saturn and at the end of the month, meeting up with all three of the commonly used trans-personal planets: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as they edge toward the cusp of change.

August 23
Mercury (Rx) trine Chiron
If there’s ‘no success like failure and failure’s no success at all’ then what?

August 24
Mars sextile Mercury (Rx)
Mars sextile Chiron    
And then along comes Mars which was there all the time. Not interested in success or failure for that matter Mars just wants to play the game. You put your left foot in, you put your right foot in… Time for some Hokey Pokey.     

August 27   
Venus trine Uranus
The world is full of ‘things’: inanimate things as well as sentient beings who aren’t actually things. If you believe or sense that Gaia is sentient, conscious, alive as you and I are at the moment then everything is alive, including the wind and the waters, the fire and even the dirt beneath your feet. We just might be alive in a living world that has myriads of ways to express that living.

August 28
Venus opposite Neptune
Mercury stationary direct
Every day is a threshold, a cusp. Change is constant, immutable. Some of are ready to get going on our creative projects others are living amidst catastrophe and the creative demand is an overwhelming need to rebuild their world – from scratch. As Venus becomes more and more visible (look for her in the western sky after sunset) her radiance reminds us that creativity demands adaptability. We use what we have at hand to create the world. Look around.

September 1    
Uranus stationary retrograde
Pluto Rx returns to Capricorn
Consider the state of the world since the Full Moon in July. Over the period of the last two Full Moons all eyes were on the USA although much has been happening all over this planet. Although we are affected by these events we have our own dramas and traumas, joys and disasters to keep us busy. Some days it seems that we are but playthings of the gods or other more insidious and worldly forces; that we live at the mercy of influences that we cannot see or control. Other moments feel blessed with free will and the agonies and ecstasies of choice. Of course there is the Middle Way. The way of the witness, awareness, less reaction, more connection. On the day before a New Moon there is generally nothing to do if you haven’t already done it, nowhere to go if you haven’t already been there. Even if we are doing and going it generally works best if we are flowing like rivers toward the Great Big Seas of time and space, or bobbing like tiny boats in the vast oceanic swells and troughs we inhabit. A great moment to be witness to all that has unfolded since the last week of July.

September 2    
New Moon: 11 degrees Virgo: 11:55 PM EDT
Mercury trine Chiron
This New Moon triggers the Jupiter/Saturn dance reminding us that the way we do things matters. There will always be more that has to get done: more laundry, more meals to make, more tending of the sick and celebration of accomplishments. The Wheel of Life keeps turning. Align yourself with the turning knowing how sacred this wheel is and has ever been on fire .
Consider it a gift to be here, even for a short time, with this understanding. Light a candle, salute the directions, stand inside a circle and make an intention. Remember that the Moon is not actually new until just before midnight. Wait for the midnight hour to make your intention or any time after. Tomorrow is still the New Moon.  

September 03
Mars square Neptune    
It’s easy to focus on what has been lost. If you’re making an intention for the New Moon let it include the adaptability of life itself to keep on living. Destruction and creation are the front and back of each other. Mars in Gemini loves that notion.

September 04
Mars enters Cancer
Mars, whose nature it is to confront, to challenge, to disrupt is not quite comfortable in the realm of feeling, connection and bonding which Cancer represents. Or so they say. Is that innate or is it part of the patriarchal project which holds that the weak and womanish qualities of tenderness and concern are not things a man should feel? Along with all the other deconstructions happening in our lifetimes we might give consideration to the notion of a world in which Mars could feel. At least while it visits the sign of Cancer.

September 07
Mercury square Uranus
Proudly we bring our creative expressions to the altar of change in a world that isn’t what we were expecting. To risk expressing our best talent in a swiftly tilting, crashing, burning, wild and liberating, prolonged moment takes heart.  

September 08 
Sun opposite Saturn 
A planet opposite the Sun basks or cringes in the radiant light of awareness. The fear is that it will be burned to ash. The challenge is to stand tall and speak for your accomplishments. It happens once a year for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. When it comes to Saturn in Pisces (as it has) the questions might be:

·      How have you helped?

·      Whose way has been eased on account of your efforts?

·      What is the difference between healing and curing?

September 09
Mercury enters Virgo
Déjà vu all over again as we come to completion of the shadow of the recent Mercury retrograde. What problems or situations have you been chewing on since August 5th when Mercury went retrograde in Virgo? Hopefully you have had sufficient time to learn and consider the way to integrate the parts and conditions rather than a simple fix. And so we continue to continue on our way.

September 11
Mercury sextile Mars
A perfect day to walk your talk. Your talk might be in your mind and your walk might be through a world where you can’t help but notice high levels of distress and need. We are here for each other.

September 12
Sun square Jupiter 
It is all too easy to be overwhelmed. Our vegus nerve is the conductor of the entire nervous system orchestra. At the moment it hears and resonates with cacophony. Take five. Breathe in four and out six a few times. Restore your inner harmony which helps restore the outer. Gaia’s orchestra plays on.

September 15
Venus trine Jupiter
Hopefully it worked and you are in harmony with your world. The melody is sweet. Beauty is quite something other than glamor. See it. Be it. Awaken it. Enable it.

September 16
Venus opposite Chiron
There is a great teaching in the realization that each and every moment is a mirror, reflecting you back to yourself. You are alive in a living world. The getting of wisdom never lets up.

September 17
Full Moon: (partial eclipse) 25* Pisces: 10:34 PM EDT
This getting of wisdom continues whenever you see your reflection in the mirror of the mundane. The sacred nature of this pulls and tugs at our presence in the world. Let it blow your mind while brushing your teeth, cleaning the cat litter or engaging in relationship. Feel the sense of holy gratitude for legs that take you to the bus stop, the first taste of your morning caff and the living beings you encounter. We live in a temple of mirrors. The sky above, the earth below and all that surrounds and inhabits our innermost parts. It matters that we see it.

September 18
Mercury opposite Saturn
Be thorough. Take time and do it right. Clean behind your ears. Fact check before pontificating. Nobody understands everything. Do your part. Your best is good enough.

September 19 & 20
Sun trine Uranus, opposite Neptune
(soon to trine Pluto)
The Full Moon continues to shed and shine light on our connectedness. We are cells in the body of a world which is itself a cell in the cosmos: existing in the micro as well as the macro. It’s all relatives: Every creature, all creation. Every part makes the whole. Every part matters.

These insights, are meant as contemplations. Astrology is 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.

Insights for Leo

Mercury is Retrograde while the Sun is in Leo this month:
Get aligned!                                                                                   

July 22
Sun enters Leo 03:44 AM EDT
Ancient astrologers gave this sign the ultimate power, the power of the Sun. They saw that at the height of summer (in the north) the Sun could scorch and burn even as it caused plants to become food for beasts as well as humans (whose power was like a god but not quite). As they worshipped the Sun they fed the notion of its ultimate power for good and ill, investing it with their own inclinations for rewards and punishments. The notion of God as the monolithic Father arose out of awareness of the Sun’s power. His crown of gold imitated the gold of the Sun’s rays.
Other, more subtle awareness of the Sun, perhaps a vestige of a time before the precarious cultivation of crops and their vulnerability and dependency on summer’s warmth, was the understanding that in Leo, at the height of heat and light, when the Wheel of Time leans into the Sun one can notice the days getting shorter. Even at the height of summer we turn toward its end. This is the time when the Sun King begins to descend slowly but steadily toward dark, when vegetation is soon either harvested or withers on the vine. And so they celebrated the courage of the Sun king and his willingness to offer himself to the descent, to show us the way even at the height of his power. (Consider the US election…) toward the inevitability of our own descent, our own end. This is called Lughnasadh or Lammas.
This awareness of darkness in the heart of light encouraged people to align with the cyclical nature of existence. To trust love more than fear and appreciate Nature’s wise teachings in our dance of embodiment through time and in space.
To cower before the imagined power of the Sun, to believe it rewards and punishes is to create a god of dominance and to aspire to his abilities. To acknowledge the courage and the sacrifice required in life to ascend and descend within the Great Cycles of life and death is to empower the life of each living being. To be alive in the world is an amazing thing. Not just for you but for all.
Raging fires and deadly heat domes are not god’s punishments rather the consequences of actions. Leo’s best is the courage and will it takes to live truth in relation to power.
You already know its worst.
You can follow along with the Sun in Leo for the next month below. Pay special attention to events which occur near the Full Moon on August 19th.

July 23
Sun square Pluto 
Do the lords of light and darkness hate each other? Or do they exist on a polarity which calls now more than ever for resolution? Everywhere you look and listen the sages on the stages of what passes for wisdom are telling us to eat the shadow, to integrate the unconscious, to do the hard work of withdrawing projections. To do this we must first unplug. Go within, find the heart and most importantly Fear Not! the power of the Sun God of patriarchy. It is time to re-member this god as the god of courage and love not greed and power.

July 25
Mercury enters Virgo
Sun sextile Mars
Imagine if only for a fleeting moment how it would feel to put all the wisdom you believe into action. Now, see what happens.  
Mercury in the shadow of its retrograde period prompts us to live as if our living matters; the details of how we live and what we live for.
Meaning is found in doing.

July 26   
Chiron stationery retrograde
Speaking of Earned Wisdoms now would be a great time to consider what you have learned since Chiron entered Aries in April of 2018. Such a time we have been having…

July 30
Venus trine Chiron        
Wisdom doesn’t live in a box. It’s not static. It’s creative, a process. Let your passion for expression flow and wisdom flows with it. If you’re not the passionate type try supporting the passion of someone you love or believe in.

August 2
Venus square Uranus
Beauty and money are not such great bedfellows although they both have value. The difference is in the fact that money itself is not actually pleasing to the senses. Those who make beauty need to eat of course and all of us need what they make. The soul of the world is anchored in beauty, creativity, expression. Look west after sunset and find Venus, diamond in the sky, guardian of art and beauty; Goddess of all we value visible to all who turn to look.

August 4
New Moon: 12 degrees Leo: 07:13 AM EDT
Venus enters Virgo 
What spontaneous expression of love has touched your heart of late? Music, art, dance and craft exist in many dimensions – more than what we see on the flat screen. To live an embodied life from the heart saves the world. Every time.

August 05
Mercury stationary retrograde:  4 degrees of Virgo 

Once again the Trickster reminds us to look twice, to reflect. Consider the threshold where beauty, courage and expression meet real life. If you’re feeling panic as you watch the world seemingly losing its collective mind, look within. Notice the contours and content of the mind you call your own. You don’t have to offer this mind of yours on the altar of the algorithm. Your mind exists within the field which is the sacred trust of all minds. It is part of the Great Mind, the Big Mind; a flower in a Garden. How you tend it, matters…  especially over these next few weeks.

August 07
Sun sextile Jupiter
Venus conjunct Mercury (retrograde)
How can we stand firm in faith, courage and love yet manage information? When information adds knowledge to wisdom, doors open. Otherwise it is mere distraction and we all know where that leads. Relax into some poetry, music or the beauty of the natural world and ease your thoughts toward humble participation in the work of the word.

August 08 - 13
A week of no mutual aspects between planets. Time to navigate by the Moon.

Libra: August 8th: 5:31 AM EDT
Void of course (V/C): August 9th 5:44 PM until
August 10th:
enters Scorpio: 6:33 PM EDT
V/C 5 AM EDT until
Enters Sagittarius: August 13th at 6 AM EDT

August 14
Mars conjunct Jupiter
Madly off – every which way. Stay as focused as you can on the thoughts, movements and gestures that aim you in the direction you want to go. Gemini is about eye/hand coordination as well as fast talk, sleight of hand, wonderful stories and the darting about of all manner of bugs, butterflies, birds, space junk, curiosity, humor as well as a sharp eye for detail. There will be a test on or about the 16th.

August 15
Sun trine Chiron   
There is no experience that does not contain the potential for the getting of wisdom. None.

August 16
Mars square Saturn
Here is the promised test from August 14th: How hard are you willing to work at whatever it is you are curious, interested or inspired by? Not because you are sure of a successful outcome, rather for the sake of the effort which will undoubtedly build strength, muscle and will.

August 18
Mercury square Uranus
Mercury conjunct the Sun
The message of any Mercury retrograde is in the moment we call cazimi: the exact conjunction of Mercury and the Sun. This aspect is accentuated today, tomorrow and the day after by the Full Moon which squares Uranus. Hot time in the big city of the World. Nature and culture collide. Disruptions to be expected. But how can we expect the unexpected? Likely there are no ringside seats. We all live here – even those with the top of the pyramid stuck up their you-know-whats!

August 19
Full Moon: 27 degrees Aquarius: 02:45 PM EDT
Sun square Uranus
Venus square Jupiter
Venus opposite Saturn
Jupiter square Saturn
Lots going on in the heavens. Make no mistake. And of course there is always a lot going on down here beneath those starry skies. Most of us just want to get on with whatever we think of as our life: Food on the table, money in the bank, becoming a better person, relationships, learning or entertainment. Truth is, it’s like they said, we see the world through a glass, darkly. It’s never the full truth or a total lie. And most of us are never really at peace for more than a moment here and there. But what if we could? What if, amidst the disruptions and misinformation, the fear mongering and the dazzling possibilities, we could see the world as love alone and anchor our mind enough not to panic in the face of change that is moving so fast it only feels like chaos? It’s not the answers. It’s not even the questions. It’s the courage and the focus to live fully in the moment. This one.

A girl can dream…

 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.

Insights for Cancer

June 20
Sun enters Cancer 04:50 PM EDT
Before the Sun leaves Gemini today it will square Neptune. You might reflect upon the transition from spring to summer, from air to water, to the cycles or maybe the carousels of time.
Cancer is the sign of Mother: Not Mother Earth but Mother Moon. Maybe it’s the Grand Mother. She pulls the tides, the tides of our oceans but also the tides of our emotions. She is there in the womb when we float, weightless inside our mothers. We learn about her from our mothers.* This is problematic in a culture which has done all it could to sever the relationship between Mother and child. To understand this sign we need to understand the difficulty of the nuclear family as a container for raising healthy children. We nod to this when we say, “It takes a village”. And we are slowly but surely working our way back to a wider view of what a family is. In the northern hemisphere Cancer is the sign of summer. Perhaps we celebrate this archetype when we work collectively to nourish and sustain people around us, when we become part of a hive of activity producing nourishment. Cancer is symbolized by the bee hive with a queen at the center. Much better than a crab.

(*Click on the link above for a lovely movie about the mother. The Dalai Lama is a Cancer and his mother is his reference point.)

In 2024 the Sun in Cancer will trine Saturn and Neptune – two very different planets. Saturn assures us that there are consequences to all our actions, good ones as well as not. Neptune has a more high, wild and free vibe as it knows no boundaries and aims at transcendence. It will also square Chiron and sextile Uranus (see below!).

June 21
Full Moon: 01 degree Capricorn: 11:07 PM EDT
Mercury sextile Mars
We latch onto life at the beginning. We are compelled and motivated to continue our whole lives long, drinking from the bounty of Our Mother who generously gives us so much. Even better when we reciprocate through our efforts to sustain and share such abundance. A good day to be witness to all the ways this is and isn’t working in your life and to look for ways to adjust and adapt to a rapidly changing world.                    

June 26
Mercury trine Saturn
If sustainability is important to you, today is a great time to evaluate (find the value) in practices that enable your life to be one that adds to sustainability on our planet. Your planet. A practice is a habit we choose.

June 28  
Mercury square Chiron
Tender, fragile and fierce: this is what it is to be human. Tender and fragile can make us feel sorry for ourselves or for others. Fierce leads to all sorts of terrible consequences. If we hold back a bit, tender and fragile can transform into compassion. Once that happens fierce can be awesome.

June 29
Venus sextile Mars
Saturn stationary retrograde
Mercury sextile Uranus
A gentle approach yields the best outcome. We all want to be cared for and about. If your privilege leads the way it won’t do much good. Some may be better off than others but if you investigate this even superficially you understand that privilege is not because we deserve it. In fact it’s likely a set of conditions that gives a person what they have. Imagine if you had been born in South Sudan or Rafah recently… It’s such a mysterious thing, who gets to eat and who doesn’t.

July 2
Neptune stationery retrograde
Mercury trine Neptune
Mercury enters Leo
Venus trine Saturn
Neptune and Saturn stationary retrograde within a few days really underscores the suffering of and on our planet. Perhaps the greatest agent of change is ‘applied compassion’ which can only start with a willingness to look at the truth of things. Where in your one precious life can you do such a thing? Neptune is a gatekeeper at the very last degree of Pisces. Perhaps Mercury makes an offering of awareness as it leaves Cancer and enters Leo. Do something kind for someone you don’t know. Venus supports this.

July 3
Mercury opposite Pluto
It’s a story: Mercury bows to Neptune as it leaves Cancer. It engages Pluto as it begins its journey in Leo. What is love? Why does self-expression matter? It’s a good time for a debate. Not the win/lose kind (Pluto cannot be beat) but the kind that will sharpen your wits.

July 5
New Moon: 14 degrees Cancer: 06:57 PM EDT
Mars sextile Saturn
Imagine yourself as the keeper of a well of sweet water which sustains many people. If you make intentions at the New Moon (after 6:57 PM today or any time tomorrow) consider which resources support your task. To use them wisely is your intention.
If you’re not the sort that makes intentions, that’s fine too. You might consider your actions and impulses as intentions. We are, all of us, held in the Great Round.: The only dance.

July 6
Venus square Chiron
Think back to June 28th when ‘tender, fragile and fierce’ was the theme: the human condition. We love and we are vulnerable to all sorts of losses because we do. Is this a flaw in the divine design or simply a condition that enables the getting of wisdom? Love and grief are the front and back of each other, even if we pretend otherwise. Takes courage to allow that it’s just the way of it. But, it is.

July 8
Venus sextile Uranus
Mercury sextile Jupiter
No matter what the conditions, love and curiosity will at least attempt to find a way. This too is a human condition. Trust your curiosity, be creative as you do. Let it guide you to the very place where your love might bring change and open possibilities, for the good of all.

July 10
Sun trine Saturn
Try on, at least for the day, what it feels like to know you are competent, capable and that you do what you do as well as you know how. Dominator culture works hard to reserve this feeling only for those at the top. This delusion is breaking apart at the moment. It’s not easy to feel capable in chaos but most likely you, like a lot of others are living your life the best way you know how. Let it sink in, even if only for a day, or maybe for one day at a time.

July 11
Venus trine Neptune
Venus enters Leo
As Venus makes ready to leave Cancer and enter Leo it’s like this: We acknowledge the notion that beauty is not extra, that it is necessary to support the soul of Nature which is our soul. We move forward with creativity and as agents of beauty in this world. Beauty brings value to all that we do. Look for Her in the western sky after sunset: Beauty indeed.

July 12
Venus opposite Pluto
Everything we desire will ultimately be lost. Perhaps the one exception is awareness. Who can say? Or perhaps the trouble is in the fact that we see ourselves as separate. Imagine your desire as an herb or spice in a soup, cooking over time and throughout generations. Loss begins to look more like a continuous thread: A shape shifting legacy. One life seems a piece in the puzzle of a much larger life which we can’t actually see or quite understand. If you are touched by such an awareness how might you give it expression? Use your art, whatever it is to offer your glimmer of awareness. It will make for a tastier soup.

July 15
Sun square Chiron
Mars conjunct Uranus
Something exciting is afoot. Of course in the ‘high, wild and free’ zone, these days, are a lot of unstable people telling a lot of damaging stories, as they gather people together like snake oil peddlers at a carnival. Stories of enemies and the need for violence. Stories of what you, as an individual do and don’t deserve. Beware the sudden flash that moves you to action. Think twice or thrice about how easy it is to demand and defend violence when you have been treated unfairly in the past. Grievance is best acted upon collectively.

July 18
Sun sextile Uranus
Mercury trine Chiron
Here is an exact amelioration for events of the 15th: Opportunity to do things differently – and it harm none, a deeper understanding that comes only to those who refrain from impulse long enough to act in awareness of what they are doing.                  

July 20
Mars sextile Neptune
Mars enters Gemini
Mars engages Neptune the gatekeeper on its way to a new sign. Gemini where it will soon to conjunct Jupiter. In Gemini, Mars can be madly off in all directions or hot on the heels of a good story. Expect some journalistic feats (given the US election this is no surprise and doesn’t need an astrologer to suggest it…). In our personal sphere, it depends. The placement can be stressful for the Virgo/Pisces folks, challenging for the Sagittarians, exciting and energetic for the Geminis, Aquarians and Libras. Everyone else is on their own. There is a sucker as well as a story born every minute. In fact, each and every experience we have is a story. Some more interesting than others, true, but stories nonetheless.

July 21   
Full Moon: 29 degree Capricorn: 06:17 AM EDT
Mercury square Uranus
Sun trine Neptune 
Mars trine Pluto
Like bookends there have been two Full Moons this (astrological) month: One at the beginning (June 21st) and now this one. We could call it a ‘Blue Moon’ because it’s rare. The beginning and end of signs are different. One promises ‘more to come’ and the other asks us to look back, take stock and let go. Of course, at the end of everything is the beginning. Honor this by imagining yourself standing at the center of a circle around which you can see everything. What is ending for you? Maybe it’s a stage of life, a road you have travelled, even a way of life. When we pause in awareness of thresholds we invite a grace-wave to carry us along to the next stage of the journey. It’s like the moment between exhaling and inhaling. Fleeting, sacred, profound and sustaining. Nothing that will interrupt the flow of your day.

These insights, are contemplations. Astrology 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.

Insights for Gemini

May 20
Sun enters Gemini 08:59 AM EDT
We underestimate Gemini when we ignore the power of words, the dangers of distraction, the damage to our ability to know fact from fantasy.
Well, we used to underestimate it.
Given the epidemic of misinformation, the distress of the children and the noise of communications alongside our shorter and shortening attention spans, Gemini might be a good time to turn off notifications. Visit more, text less. Explore your neighborhood. Slow down enough to delight in birds, butterflies and bees winging their ways through this world we share with them.
Jupiter and Venus will join the Sun in Gemini over the next 5 days, underscoring the proliferation of Gemini themes. Only you can determine the ways of your mind. Only you can be aware of the thoughts in your head. And only you get to focus or fragment your attention.                 

May 22
Sun trine Pluto
This is the Sun’s first encounter with another planet as it moves through Gemini and builds toward the Full Moon tomorrow. It promises strength and empowerment. It is the nature of mind to chatter, to flit and fly from thought flower to thought flower. It’s as important to strengthen as well as relax the mind muscle as it is for the triceps and biceps!                    

May 23
Full Moon: 02 degrees Sagittarius: 09:53 AM EDT
Venus conjunct Jupiter and sextile Neptune
Jupiter sextile Neptune
Venus enters Gemini
Riding through the night sky, shining, shedding light on all manner of things: There is no hiding from the silvery light of the Moon without hiding yourself from the night. The power of your seeing and your vision is real in proportion to the strength of your mind’s ability to know that you are thinking.
Venus on the threshold where Taurus becomes Gemini reminds us that we, the Planet, are on the threshold of a new world, a new age, a Great Turning. What do you experience at the gate between real world things and the stories you tell yourself (or that you listen to) about the possible world to come? To explore this question you might still the body and observe the mind. Or possibly dance, move and fill yourself with the glorious moment, alive beneath the shimmer of moon light. Both/and is always a favorite of mutable signs like Gemini. Time to distinguish the noise in your head from the story guiding you on your way from there to here and beyond.

May 25   
Venus trine Pluto
Jupiter enters Gemini  
It’s a riot of Gemini that started on the 22nd and will be with us even through the spring of 2025. There is always Too Much Information these days, and scams galore. Think thrice before you respond to anything. We are blown around by the wild violence of war and the strange dysphoria that comes when our politicians attempt to rationalize the necessity of it. A Dionysian frenzy of blood-lust seems capable of overtaking the most average and reasonable person. But there is also the riot of color and form which nature has created. Music, laughter, stories, markets and the entire range of clever creations of humans. Gemini promises to take us madly off in all directions. A steady mind, a sense of humor, a willingness to adapt are the tools you want for this adventure.

May 27
Mercury sextile Saturn    
Some thoughts are random and blow through our minds like breezes, zephyrs, sprites going about their own business from here to there. Other thoughts are fingers pointing to the Moon, nudges from the soul, messages from the gods meant to nourish meaningful action and consideration. You decide which and when to follow your thoughts. You are the only one inside your mind.

May 29
Mars conjunct Chiron 
Over the hill of what your eye can see, just beyond the horizon, is another reality, as real and unreal as your own. That’s how it is to live on a big ball.

May 31
Mercury conjunct Uranus
Anything can happen and it does. Be curious. Be interested. Be willing to be the change. It’s a lot to ask given whatever you identify as stability, order and what you have been led to expect is your due. This is our time: We have not been here before.

June 2
Jupiter trine Pluto
Mercury sextile Neptune
Stepping into the second half of 2024, the issue of attention and intention continues to be worthy of consideration. To guide our thoughts we must first be aware that we have thoughts. Awareness is the primal power. If we are the masters of our own oblivion we are equally the engineers of the world to come.

June 3
Mercury enters Gemini.
Mercury lives here. It’s home base for everything a trickster could want. Joining with the Sun, Venus and Jupiter Mercury ups the ante of all things involving thought, which is just about everything. Jupiter is not at home in Gemini. Jupiter is about faith not curiosity. Put all these characters together and give them a trine to Pluto and there is a story to tell. Of course I don’t know what your story line is. Do you? Who is telling it? Is the algorithm dragging you to the counter with your credit card in hand? Is (are?) the media, scaring the hell out of you, even as it promises solutions to every problem? Is your mind, out of control, dragging you hither and yon with persistent, unwanted thoughts? Or is your own story, rich with meaning and the ability to discern what is worth thinking about and what isn’t?
The mandate of Homo sapiens is to learn new things, maybe to learn old things in new ways. This is our potential. Take charge of your ability to do this: One thought, one breath at a time.

June 4
Mercury conjunct Jupiter, trine Pluto
Venus conjunct the Sun (Star Point)
At the risk of too much information and for the sake of love alone I am going to try and give a description of the Venus Star Point (VSP). This celestial event occurs every 18 months. If you would like to read even more about it and figure out your very own VSP you might do that here. 
Astrology is what some call sacred geometry. We live beneath the sky and as the Sun, Moon, planets and stars journey through the heavens they create shapes and patterns. Nowhere is this more striking than in the perfect 5 pointed star that Venus inscribes from the perspective of Earth, as she orbits the Sun. (5 of them over an 8 year period.) Today is such a point in space. This particular point occurs at 14 degrees of Gemini. I do not always pay so much attention to this conjunction when it happens, but this year, this particular degree will be activated by Jupiter and Saturn as they make conjunctions and squares (respectively) with this sensitive degree. Venus has spent months as the morning star. About 40 days ago she vanished from view. Today is the day when she changes from morning to evening star, still out of view for another 40 days or so: From eastern star (morning, Lucifer) to western star (evening, Hesperus). Once she reappears she will grow brighter and brighter over the coming months until, at a peak of glory in the western sky after sunset she will begin to weaken and once again vanish into another conjunction with the Sun, appearing to be retrograde to our earthbound eyes. It’s a drama. A dance. A sacred story told, retold and enacted by our ancient ancestors for thousands of years.
There is more to this story but for now let’s say that this point in space, this conjunction, this invisible, mystery is a kind of seed that will take 9 months to grow and become Venus retrograde (March-April 2025). Symbolically, if we are of the nature to imagine such a thing, it is asking what we value, what matters to us, (Venus is always about matter) particularly when it comes to ideas and information (Gemini is always about thinking and communication). What stories are we telling ourselves and the children of Earth? To what do we listen? If you aren’t sure you might find the answer in the marketplace. Consider which things you spend your time, money, effort and love on. Venus often reveals herself in our receipts. There will be tests when Jupiter and Saturn trigger this point.
Mercury, Jupiter and Pluto which are also active today suggest that we empower ourselves by thinking about such things, if not on account of astrology then just because it matters.

June 06
New Moon: 16 degrees Gemini: 08:37 AM EDT
Everything is communicating with everything else. We are part of the conversation. We must listen if we are to align ourselves with creation. Coming so close on the heels of the VSP our intention to align with planetary energies invites us to contribute our intelligence to the conversation through the work of our hands as well as the thoughts in our minds. Gemini loves handwork, be it gardening, sewing, knitting, woodwork and more. Humans are clever if not always wise. Perhaps an intention to offer our cleverness to the conversation is enough.

June 08
Venus square Saturn
As Venus makes her mysterious journey into the west she encounters Saturn who loves a good test. What’s it feel like to know what you want, even to know what you should want, but not be able to get it? Does it inspire you to work hard or to despair? Saturn likes effort, Venus isn’t so sure …

June 09   
Mars enters Taurus
Sun square Saturn
True and real aren’t always the same. Even if the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, there are no rigidly straight lines in nature. Except perhaps the edges of crystals and maybe the threads a spider casts when making her circular web. The best thing about life might be its paradoxical nature. You, me and everyone we know are living the paradox. Forget about solving your problems with ‘either/or’. Better to try ‘both/and’ for now, maybe forever.

June 11
Venus sextile Chiron
Mars square Pluto
Frustration is eased by curiosity. You can punch the wall but it only hurts your fist. Remember these things as Mars makes its way through Taurus. The getting of wisdom is always an option.

June 12
Mercury square Saturn
As Mercury moves toward its conjunction with the Sun (cazimi) you might con (with) sider (star) the three stories of our time:

1.   Business as usual.

2. The Great Collapse and

3. The Great Turning.

We are living in all of them at the same time here in 2024. Even so, just knowing which one you resonate with at any given moment can illuminate your next steps.

June 14
Mercury conjunct the Sun
Mercury conjuncts the Sun 6 times a year: 3 when it’s retrograde and 3 when it’s direct. Retrograde is always considered to be a bit more mystical. At that time we are meant to listen to our heart’s song, the still, small voice.
When it’s direct as it is today we listen to the world around us. What do you hear? Bird song? Traffic? Rivers running? Laughter? Tears? Music? Mayhem? The news of the world can be as interesting as it is distressing. As mindless as it is meaningful. Try listening with awareness that you are listening. You could take it as it comes or you might dial in the station that has the greatest chance of teaching you something you don’t already know. (FYI: Joni Mitchell who wrote “You Turn Me on, I’m a Radio” – click the link - has a very close Mercury Sun conjunction.)

June 16 & 17
Venus square Neptune
Venus enters Cancer
Mercury squares Neptune
Mercury enters Cancer
Mercury conjuncts Venus
Lots going on here as Neptune hovers at the threshold (last degree) of Pisces and Venus and Mercury wander by on their way to Cancer.
Human longing takes many shapes: we long for peace, for quiet, for chocolate, for the divine. Mostly, of course, we long for love, especially if we didn’t get enough as children. Patriarchy’s signature accomplishment is to have severed the bond between mother and child. This disruption over centuries has separated us from nature, our own as well as the Earth’s. Don’t blame your parents or yourself for the constant craving which dogs your days. Honor it as an invitation to the Great Love we humans share with the Great Sprit. Magic happens when we do this.

That’s about Venus.

Mercury in its moment is about the confusion that happens when what we feel in our guts conflicts with what we think we know. Feeling knows things in a different way than thinking but they both know.
Trust in poetry, music, image. Be leery of opinion. Find the flow and let it carry you for a bit. Venus and Mercury together tell a great story: the never ending one.

June 20
Sun square Neptune
Even the Sun must encounter Neptune at the threshold where Gemini ends, just before Cancer begins. Thinking and feeling are not done as they struggle against each other. Lucky for us we know how to deal with these energies during the longest days and the shortest nights of the year (in the north). Celebrate! Hallelujah anyway. Tell your own story. Dance your own dance. Sing your own song. All the while surrendering your attachment to its perfection and finding the harmony that happens when you match your steps with others.

May we all be safe from harm.

Insights for Taurus

Actually begins April 19th this year…

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, even 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.

Insights for Taurus

Actually, April 19th, this year…

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 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. Nature? Nurture?

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.

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 (mostly non-astrological) on the planetary aspects.

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.

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.

Insights for Pisces

Thanks to A. Darling for the photo

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.

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. Thank you for being here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Photo by Jash Sojitra on Unsplash

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.