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.

Insights for Gemini

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.

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

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

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insights for Taurus

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

A Mercury Retrograde month: Get aligned here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PhoenixFire Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insights for Aries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Victor Larracuente on Unsplash

Insights for Pisces

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Aquarian Insights

January 20
Sun enters Aquarius: 03:29 AM EST

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

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

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

January 22    
Venus conjunct Saturn
Uranus stationery direct

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

January 24
Sun sextile Jupiter

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

January 26
Venus enters Pisces        

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

January 27
Mercury square Chiron

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

January 29
Sun trine Mars
Mercury trine Uranus

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

February 1
Sun sextile Chiron   

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

February 3
Sun square Uranus

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

February 4
Venus square Mars     

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

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

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

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

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

February 8  
Venus sextile Uranus    

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

February 10
Mercury conjunct Pluto   

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

February 11
Mercury enters Aquarius
Mars sextile Chiron

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

February 15
Venus conjunct Neptune     

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

February 16
Sun conjunct Saturn  

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

February 17
Mercury sextile Jupiter

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

Insights for Capricorn

As the World Turns and Turns again…

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

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

December 22

Venus trine Uranus      

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

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

December 24
Mercury sextile Neptune

Be kind whenever possible.

It is always possible.

December 25
Re-read December 23 and 24th.                         

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Migsar Navarro on Unsplash

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

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

Sagittarius Insights

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

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

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

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

November 27

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

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

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

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

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

-David Whyte

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insights for Scorpio

Photo by Hannah Troupe on Unsplash

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

October 23
Sun enters Scorpio: 06:35 AM EDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insights for Libra

September 22
Sun enters Libra: 09:03 PM EDT

Libra reminds us of the rules of engagement: How we write contracts, how we go to war: What is acceptable when you are trying to kill or steal. it's absolutely as ludicrous as it sounds. Yet Libra asks us to be civilized, to use our ability to reason, a faculty of air. Consider the oxymoron of the notion of a “Civil War”. And we are all too familiar with how love can turn to hate when there are disagreements over shared resources. 
Libra is represented by the scales, a human-made object, unlike all the other signs of the zodiac. It will never give up this notion of civil society. What it needs to give up is the notion that it is reasonable to fight for peace as well as the cloak of passive aggression which it often dons to protect itself. As the world grapples with rather massive issues of inequity we are reminded at this Equinox (when day and night are perfectly balanced) that balance happens. It is possible. We might consider our own contributions and struggles regarding civil society. Libra loves harmony and has a strong affinity for the arts. If the struggles seem too enormous you might consult with the Great Artist; the creator of this place we live and consider for a moment how natural beauty inspires art, restoring balance to the soul and inspiring us to live together in more harmonious ways.

As the Sun journeys through Libra it will oppose Jupiter, trine Saturn and Mars, square Pluto as well as conjunct Venus. Today and tomorrow, it conjuncts Mercury at the midpoint of its retrograde journey. A good time to listen (for the still, small voice), if you have ears to hear.  

September 23  

Mercury retrograde, conjunct the Sun                            

If we navigate by the stars we understand that some days might be better for some things than others. Today we might listen for the heartbeat of the new season as we contemplate the harvest of the one that has ended. It's like finding that space between inhaling and exhaling; vast and spacious as eternity yet lasting only an instant, ever-present, fleeting, ephemeral, your whole life long.

September 24
Venus opposite Neptune

Maybe, instead of “dreaming big” as the cheerleaders of the day suggest, we should just dream and listen to the guidance they so generously provide.

September 25
New Moon: 02 degrees Libra: 01:55 PM EDT

This New Moon opposes Jupiter for a day or two suggesting a time to confront, challenge or perhaps collide with, all assumptions; yours as well as other folks. This may take a couple of days. Once you're done wrangling, make an intention to carry with you throughout the lunar month.

September 26

Venus trine Pluto, conjunct Mercury (still retrograde)

Sun opposite Jupiter

Everything you cannot control is not the enemy. It may require surrender which is often nothing more than accepting reality. This is not the same as capitulation.  There is no white flag to wave at the moment. We have come far and away from nature which includes our own nature. Time for a reset which might take until October 6th. Then again it may take forever. Aligning ourselves with this notion empowers us. Resistance is futile and scary.

September 27

Mercury trine Pluto 

There is a drum beat in the mind this week, a persistence of what some call “earworms”. It may be intermittent yet repetitive and unwelcome. Perhaps is a call to some kind of prayer or awareness. Maybe like a drum these persistent rhythms carry messages. Possibly they arise spontaneously from the dark matter of the body itself; that mysterious, vulnerable, soft animal that accompanies us everywhere and all the time and reminds us without ceasing that we are one and the same as nature. What we do to Nature, we do to ourselves. This seems to be Mercury's message as it stations direct during the next week. We can all benefit from paying it some mind.

September 28

Mars trine Saturn

Be resolute, not defensive or belligerent as you stand by your ideals. Respect is a powerful agent of change.

September 29
Venus enters Libra   

Unlike the Sun in Libra, Venus is at home here. I like to think of what art and justice have in common when considering Venus in Libra. Maybe justice seems blind to us because it has come so far from the notion of beauty which of course is not good for the soul. To truly understand this we have two separate beauty from glamor. Deprived of beauty, we become criminals.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9498.Beauty

October 1
Venus opposite Jupiter          

Co-operation, co-llaboration, co-mpetition, co-nsideration. It's all interactive. Nobody is here alone. Co-nnection requires negotiation.

October 2
Mercury stationery direct

The dragonfly with its gossamer wings alights on your book, on your thigh, only to take off once it has solved the riddle of what you are or are not. If you learned anything about the nature of embodied existence while Mercury was retrograde: How close, how vulnerable, how immanent, how utterly real it is, then you are ready to put it into practice. Walk the talk; even in this crazy mixed-up world. Especially since September 27th when Mercury trined Pluto and as it does again as it stations direct.

October 6
Mercury trine Pluto   

This is the last trine for a while. You could say that this completes the lessons (for now) regarding the ever-present manifestation of the soul of Nature in everything, always. Class dismissed. Time to go out into the world with all you have learned. (If you're not sure what you learned while Mercury was retrograde, take stock of what hurt, what you had to clean, fix heal or organize. Nature manifests through every living thing, every lived experience and the most mundane events. If only we could understand this. Every living thing is a teacher, including you and me.)

October 7

Sun opposite Chiron  

Where does your greatest wisdom come from?  is it from the screaming screen, streaming information or  might it be from the loves and losses of your lived experience?

October 8

Pluto stationery direct

There is a gathering of energies happening, a winding up for the pitch. Hopefully your aim is true. Hope is a tricky thing; most useful when we stand on the solid ground of what we might call reality. This IS actually, IT! For me I feel this most intensely when I accept the rabbit hole that I happen to be down at any given moment.  What we think of as reality can change shape in an instant.  

October 9
Full Moon: 16 degrees Aries: 04:56 PM EDT

These people with whom you are sharing your current space/time continuum are a perfect reflection of something you can't see about yourself except through the relationship with another. Maybe it's not even someone you know.

October 10

Venus opposite Chiron

Mercury enters Libra   

What if all relationships are about love? Even the contentious ones: Even the ones we meet in court. What if before we signed on the dotted line love was the glue that would make it stick?

October 11

Sun trine Saturn    

Step up to all agreements, with love, yes, but also with a sense of what is and is not possible. someone needs to be the grown up around here.

October 12

Mercury opposite Pluto

How's it going in the agreements/disagreements department? Now is not the time to be afraid of pointing out injustice or inequity.

October 14
Venus trine Saturn        

When you love someone or something there is no question that your energy, time and money are worthwhile investments. Today is a good time to evaluate if your attachments deserve your love and possibly, just how much is enough?

October 18

Venus trine Mars

Which of your good ideas are socially cohesive? Who shares your perspective? We build our world through these connections.

October 19

Sun trine Pluto

Mercury opposite Chiron  

If, like Groucho, you would not want to be a member of a club that would have you as a member it’s time to look around and notice if the people who share your ideas are actually people you like to associate with. If the two things don’t jive it might be time for a new perspective.  Even if they do it seems a good time to let go of that which no longer serves your purpose.

October 20

Venus Square Pluto

Yesterday's themes persist: Time to let go or change some fundamental assumption.

October 22

 if “hell is other people”https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/02/08/hell-is-other-people/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CHell%20is%20other%20people%E2%80%9D%20is,are%20essentially%20fraught%20with%20conflict.

then “what's a heaven for”?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43745/andrea-del-sarto

A day to consider how we might live together on this planet. Start with the ones closest at hand.

Insights for Virgo

As the World Turns

These insights, are meant as contemplations. Astrology invites the muse. I offer them in the hope that you will reshape and fashion them into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

Mercury will be retrograde on September 9th. To learn more about aligning with this energies join us here.

August 22nd
Sun enters Virgo:  11:37 PM EDT
Mercury trine Pluto
Don't even try to get it right. It’s not your fault that the wind rises and throws you off course just as you were almost there in your little boat. Or maybe that the Sun leaves you in the dark just as you thought you saw something. Maybe time itself is the issue. Things look so different in your twenties than in your 40s or 60s or 80s. And then there are those pesky planets, never in the same place twice, writing messages you can't quite decipher in the sky like dreams, always subject to interpretation, changing all the time. Mercury tells us to dig deep, not to worry about getting there but to put more energy into being there. Living is a process. Mostly it requires us to participate, to show up. All we can bring is what we have.
These are things to remember this month as the Sun squares Mars at the New Moon and trines Uranus at the Full Moon. It will oppose Neptune and trine Pluto toward the end of its journey through Virgo.

August 24th
Venus trine Chiron
Activate your noble heart. See if there's something good you can do for someone in distress (even if it’s you). Trauma and drama are good friends. Generosity eases the way.

August 25th
Mercury enters Libra
Here is a suggestion to be reasonable, to listen to the other person, to debate and if we must, to argue. Mercury will go retrograde in Libra reminding us all to measure twice and cut once.

August 27th
Venus Square Uranus
Sun Square Mars
New Moon: 4° Virgo at 4:17 AM EDT
None of the keys fit the locks today. We either ‘break and enter’ which isn't really that great or we consider other options. Not 'either/or', not even 'both/and' but something radically different. If you're wanting to make an intention keep in mind that, most likely, whatever it is, it isn't.

August 28th
Venus opposite Saturn
Once again and not for the last time, we are reminded of the rock and the hard place theme of ’21 and ‘22. The frustration of not getting nearly as far as we thought we could or should or would is alive and well. Have a serious talk with yourself or someone you love and trust. Debate the pros and cons of progress.

September 1st
Mars sextile Jupiter
A good day for warriors of all sorts to take on the enemy within. Imagine you are abundantly wise, at least as wise as Yoda or Marcus Aurelius who said,

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” And “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

September 2nd
Mercury opposite Jupiter
If everything is possible then there is bound to be conflict regarding which possibility is best. The sooner we abandon the ‘my way or the highway’ world the better.

September 5th
Venus enter Virgo
We don't wake up from the dream we wake up in the dream and we’re awake because we know we’re awake not because the dream disappears.

September 9th
Mercury stationary retrograde
Such a fuss we make when Mercury goes retrograde. As if we can only expect that we will cross wires, misunderstand each other and lose things. The gods, whatever they are, don't control us. Mercury retrograde is an invitation to listen, to pay attention, to let go in the sense that you don't have to be in control although you might have to accomplish things. This Mercury is retrograde in Libra. Opposing Jupiter 9 days later. What I find most interesting is that when it goes direct in October it will be essentially squaring the Mars station later in the month. Put it all together and it says something about thinking before we act; considering options; allowing for differences of perspective. What kind of power does information and the distracted wings it travels on have over you?

September 10th
Full Moon: 17° Pisces: 5:59 AM EDT
Once again we might consider that the challenge is not to wake up FROM the dream but to wake up IN the dream: The dream of life, yours and mine.

September 11th
Sun trine Uranus
The Full Moon continues to shed light. Look for every opportunity to awaken, to see something from a different point of view, to understand that you can't understand everything and you don't.

September 16th
Venus Square Mars
Sun opposite Neptune
Attachment, aversion and craving are on the loose in the worst way. Unless of course we remain still and listen to the swirl of desire and the longings of the soul. Then there's no telling what can happen.

September 17th
Mars sextile Chiron
Having managed to sail through the whirlpool and not hit the rocks (assuming that you didn't hit the rocks) now would be a good time to think about what you learned. And even if you did smash up against the rocks it still would be a good time for that.

September 18th
Mercury opposite Jupiter
Sun trine Pluto.
If you have something to say to someone in particular make sure that you're on solid ground before you speak.

September 20th
Venus trine Uranus
The last day of summer. What kind of arbitrary measurement do you use to measure time? Do you see time as pages on a calendar, tearing off one at a time or maybe a giant Ferris wheel circling around; always the same always different. Maybe like the poet says,

The stars and planets are my abacus

and the moon and sun are my zero and one

but both fluid and interchanging

Rearranging constantly.

Insights for Leo

July 22
Sun enters Leo: 04:06 PM EDT

Who can say? Maybe God really was a Leo. Maybe the world was created in the Age of Leo. Maybe history really began when humans discovered the golden light of the Sun buried deep within the earth. Fanciful speculations: As useful as angels on the head of a pin.
Leo reminds us of the power of heat and light, the unique gift of fire which humans may have indeed stolen from the gods and used for our own ends. Fire cooks and burns. Warms and destroys. Leo reminds us, at best, of courage, confidence and the great gold of a loving heart. We believe that ‘love’s the only engine of survival’ .
Leo is also the will. That part of us that wants ‘absolute control over every living soul’. This love that we believe in doesn’t keep bombs from falling or children from starving. It hasn’t kept the climatic thermostat from rising. It hasn’t protected the trees. There are an infinite number of possible futures, they say. Yet we feel the closing of options. It’s impossible to sort. We could keep it simple and explore more graspable Leo things such as creativity, self-expression and the way the Sun radiates light and heat no matter what we get up to down below. We might even offer gratitude to the beauty of Sun rises and sets. We could do something to help the children.
As the Sun journeys through Leo it will square Uranus and oppose Saturn (10th – 14th of August), reminding us of the ‘rock and the hard place’ theme of 2021- 2022. Standing in our frustrations we might also consider the wisdom that ‘this too shall pass’ as the Sun trines Jupiter and Chiron (July 30 – August 8) promising change and the possibility of the kind of joy that comes from wisdom. (see specific dates below)

July 23 
Mercury trine Jupiter
Have a little fun. Be creative. Play your favorite sport. Take a risk. Fall in love. Seize the day! Live forever if only for a moment.

July 25
Venus square Jupiter
If there can be too much of a good thing it would be today. Exceeding good fortune can easily slip through your fingers. Enough is as good as a feast.

July 26
Mercury square Mars
That which refuses to move or change is best regarded with curiosity. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and only annoys the pig.

July 27
Mercury trine Chiron
The wisdom of the benefits of not biting the hook is obvious today.

July 28
New Moon: 05 degrees Leo: 01:55 PM EDT
Jupiter stationery retrograde
Mercury square Uranus
Today’s we could practice getting out of our own way by accepting our glorious uniqueness without making ourselves out to be more precious than another living thing. It’s an idea whose time has come and it’s a lot easier to agree with it than it is to actually live it.  To make this our point of origin for all intentions this month helps us live with true self-esteem and confidence.

July 31
Mercury opposite Saturn
Venus square Chiron
Sun trine Jupiter
What happened to time? Some days it seems to be consumed by an unfriendly and invisible force. We all have our theories, no doubt. Meet this challenge with an open heart with confidence in your intuition. The practice of radical self-acceptance makes it possible even when it isn’t easy!

August 1
Mars conjunct Uranus
Explosive tensions can be chaotic but the possibility of real change is up close and personal as well.  

August 2
Venus sextile Mars and Uranus
The opportunity that knocks may be a one-time offer. You can tell if it’s good if it’s grounded and sustains (your) life.

August 4
Mercury enters Virgo
Time to put newly aquired skills into practice. If the markets are full of food consider how you might preserve some for winter. You might dry or freeze things. If you’re more adventuresome you could learn how to preserve things in jars. If you’ve never done this before, all the better. You have so much to learn! Mercury isn’t always a trickster. In Virgo it loves us to be clever in ways that keep us healthy.

August 7
Venus trine Neptune
Mars square Saturn
Dreams take us to a world of possibility: A beautiful and just world which we believe, deep inside, is possible. Reality offers circumstances which require that we work hard for what we want. It presents us with a shovel and demands that we dig. Dreams uplift, reality grounds. Grace and gravity are a perfect pair just like above and below. Some see them as contrasting others as complementing, which is to say they perfect each other. Your choice.

August 8
Sun trine Chiron
In your exact situation, what would a wise person do? The greatest wisdom generally comes from direct experience. We don’t forget these lessons. Life is the teacher, we are the students. One person’s wisdom can be another person’s frustration. Stay in your own lane, on your own path for this one.

August 9
Venus opposite Pluto   
The painful clash between what we want and the consequences of having it are clear. The ‘us and them-ness’ of trying to work this out is all too familiar and needs to transform. It falls to those of us, alive and aware, to do the work of this necessary shift in perspective. If we refuse the ‘us and them’ position how can we manage our challenges? Start where you are. Remind yourself of all that you value. Listen to the body. Accept what you hear. Respect the power of Life in all its diverse forms. The Great Mother loves all her children equally. The Crown of Creation belongs to Her, not us.

August 10-11
Full Moon: 19 degrees Aquarius 09:35 PM EDT
Sun square Uranus
Venus enters Leo
Mars sextile Neptune
The frustration of a willing heart in a time of overwhelming change is felt by many. We are living in a time when ‘things seem to slide in all directions’ and the center isn’t quite holding. The wisdom of our poet who said, “Love’s the only engine of survival” makes more, not less sense. Doing what love requires can’t be wrong.                      

August 14
Sun opposite Saturn
Mars trine Pluto
If we’ve learned one thing in these years of the rock and the hard places as well as ‘real things’, it might be this: If it’s in the way, it is the way. Saturn likes that. Circumstance is the most powerful teacher especially if the student is willing. That’s us. To be empowered by this kind of wisdom equips us for the situations we encounter. These are our times.

August 16
Mercury trine Uranus
There are times that call for innovation which is not the same as the relentless pressure of progress. We won’t get where we are going by simply leaning in and pushing through. A wiser approach might be to use our tool making abilities and repurpose as much as we can in an effort to inhabit the world in an embodied way. We are physical beings.

 August 18
Venus trine Jupiter
 Inspiration, creativity: Head first. Every creative risk is a birth.

August 20
Mars enters Gemini
Later this year Mars will journey through its retrograde phases. This will take place in the sign of Gemini. Mars is the warrior as well as the terrorist. Mars is vitality as well as belligerence. Living as we do in the Great Round of Being, inhabiting the cycles of seasons and planets, we will be reminded again and again that actions speak louder than words even as we know that the pen (or the font) is mightier than the sword. Gemini loves a paradox. We might start looking for indications of this even now.  

August 21
Mercury opposite Neptune
If you are confused by a sense that there is more to your embodied, mundane existence; if you are longing to find meaning in beauty, in nature, in time, you are resonating with today’s aspect. Be still, right where you are, close your eyes and listen to the hum of everyday existence: The beat of your heart, the songs of birds, the clatter and clang of the city surrounding you. Open your eyes and see the flutter of wings, the to and fro of squirrels, maybe the wind in the trees. It’s alive. Just like you. Life itself is full of meaning, of beauty, of everything and nothing.  

Insights for Cancer

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.

June 21
Sun enters Cancer: 05:13 AM EDT Summer Solstice
Venus trine Pluto

Cancer is about housing. And therefore homelessness. Such themes inspire a bit of ranting…
I used to wonder why those born in the sign of Cancer didn’t have more children, bigger families. In a world where women were waking up to the fact that they were fully human, a world in which children could be considered ‘illegitimate’ (I wondered this in the 1970s…) there was less and less incentive to be fruitful and multiply. Along with the tendency in western culture to blame mothers for all the ills and perceived inadequacies of their children not to mention the systemic mistreatment of children in institutions and as a demographic. Our social fabric which has become rather tattered and weak is more concerned with selling products and interactions to children. It ravages their minds with screens and the images that jump out from them. Access to nature is greatly diminished for many children and having children requires money: Not just enough but more than enough. Cancer is a sign that wants security, not just for themselves but for their hive, for the ones they are connected to. How we treat the children tells us everything about how we treat our planet.
On this first day of summer in the northern hemisphere we enter the season of fire and rain not simply the season of vacations. A day to remind ourselves that how we treat each and every child of the ancient, eternal, generative Mother of Us All matters. And that’s not just humans…
As the Sun journeys through Cancer it will square Jupiter and Chiron, sextile Uranus, conjunct Mercury, trine Neptune and oppose Pluto; reminding us to be cautious not rash, compassionate not ruthless and to take every opportunity to listen for new ways to nourish the land, the children their parents. We are a planetary hive.

June 24-25
Triggers to Saturn semi-sextile Neptune
The interesting thing about a semi-sextile which is not really an aspect (planets in neighboring signs) is that while one planet makes a difficult aspect often (not always) the other one is ameliorating that stress. Also true is that if a planet (or in today’s case) an asteroid is square to one of them it can be trine to the other. Maybe it’s a ‘good cop, bad cop’ kind of thing.
Saturn says, “You must”. Neptune says, “You can, but only if it calls to your soul. Only if it feels right”. Saturn requires effort, Neptune wants flow. Pallas-Athena (the asteroid pulling them together at the moment is squaring Saturn and sextiling Neptune. Pallas reminds us to stand up for our truth, to protest injustice most importantly on behalf of the disempowered. Whatever it is that requires you to take a stand it may appear like an impossible task. Call on your guides, your dreams and the expression of your soul through art or music.

June 27
Mercury sextile Chiron
Mars sextile Saturn

Everywhere you look there are opportunities to learn or teach in ways that heal or build something. This world breaks apart even as it comes together. 

June 28
Neptune stationery retrograde
Sun square Jupiter
Venus sextile Jupiter
New Moon: 07 degrees Cancer: 10:52 PM EDT

For ages we have believed in some kind of divine law which is superior to the laws of the natural world. But divine law must draw from the natural world or it is not divine. We struggle to accept such simple and profound wisdom.
If you need an intention or affirmation for the New Moon let the starting place be that this planet is our home, our temple, our hive, our one and only. It belongs to all living things. Whatever we do or create, may it be in harmony with nature’s organic urge toward sustaining and lasting life.

July 1
Mars square Pluto         

A day of fireworks here in Canada, a celebration of the nation, underscored by explosive and colorful materials banging, popping and bursting over our heads, just for the fun of it. What are we celebrating when we explode fireworks? Perhaps we are celebrating no danger, no war. At least not here, not now. Mars and Pluto love a good explosion. On a personal level, stand back from the ignition, slow down. It’s too easy to trip over untied laces or misplaced marbles. Thoughtful actions, the kind that respects consequences for generations to come, are best today.

July 2
Mercury trine Saturn
Mercury square Neptune                          

Here’s that semi-sextile again… It’s probably a waste of time to try and reason with chaos. Negotiating while in a state of high anxiety or with those of evil intent is a bit delusional. The alternative might take us along a path of steadying and focusing our own mind, finding center and drawing sense from internal awareness rather than attempting to change external circumstance. Circumstance has a tendency to coalesce in synch with our inner awareness.

July 5
Mars enters Taurus
Mercury enters Cancer
Mercury sextile Mars

A shift in perspective dawns: from breakthrough to building and from curiosity and distraction to concern. These two things together remind us to create a world worth inhabiting.  Here. Now.

July 6
Venus sextile Chiron                                   

Words that carry wisdom on their expression are preferable to the bon mot, charming and irresistible as it may be.

July 8
Sun square Chiron   

If indeed the pen is mightier than the sword or the bomb for that matter, then words can harm as well as help. They can twist our understanding and cause us, in our confusion to do harm. Like HHDL said, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

July 9
Mercury square Jupiter

Just because it’s clear to you that someone did something they shouldn’t have it is also painfully and paradoxically possible to despise the action even though we continue to love the person. Better to grapple with the paradox than to turn your back on love.

July 10
Sun sextile Uranus                                 

Whatever you care about matters. If it matters it’s worth thinking about in a new way for a new world. Time to seize every opportunity to consider the problem from a new perspective. How else will we ever shift from the old age to the new?

July 13
Full Moon: 21 degrees Capricorn 02:37 PM EDT 
Mercury sextile Uranus         

We know the drill: How important it is to approach old problems with new perspectives. Although we know that this should empower us as familiar systems collapse around us, it’s not easy. In fact, it takes a village. We can’t really do it alone.  

July 14
Venus square Neptune

Honor the impossible longing, the unrequited loves. Watch out for the cure, the lie, that suggests we can feed and thereby satisfy our cravings. For they simply cannot be satisfied. To be human is to stir the pot of longing at least from time to time if not all the time. We are not called to wake up, once and for all from the dream of reality. Rather we keep waking up, over and over again, all the livelong day (and especially in the night if you happen to be awake at that time.)
To awaken from the dream of life is an oxymoron, a paradox, a glorious impossibility, a rainbow…

July 16
Mercury conjunct the Sun

Six times a year, in the geometric pattern of an almost perfect Star of David, Mercury listens, is blessed and renewed in the fire of the Sun’s heart. It’s not literal, none of astrology is. Astrology is a mighty metaphor. Only you and your lived life makes it real or useful. Today is for listening, for allowing sound to land on the shore of awareness just as it is: Buzz and chirp, clang and screech, melody and harmony, cacophony or symphony. Just listening is enough. Hearing and understanding are also possible.

July 17
Mercury trine Neptune
Sun trine Neptune
Venus enters Cancer 

A day to celebrate water in all its manifestations: for drinking, for washing, for growing and for all the ways it connects us. Life needs water. Cherish it.

July 18
Mercury opposite Pluto

Think back to June 3 when Mercury went direct. It was a call to determination. What was yours? What did you set your mind to accomplish? How is it challenged today? What can you do about it? Why do you want to?

July 19
Mercury enters Leo
Chiron stationery retrograde
Sun opposite Pluto

Given that we are only here for now as we close in on the very end of Cancer we might consider the difference between a human and a Terran. Whose planet is it? Why are we (humans) having such a hard time reconciling ourselves to the simple truth that we have come to the end of the time when greed is acceptable as a motivation for action? What kinds of alternatives might drive the change we know, we sense, is happening within and without us?

Insights for Gemini

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.

May 20
Sun enters Gemini: 09:22 PM EDT

Blame it on Gemini. All if it. The sorcerer’s apprentice is at it again. Alone and unsupervised in the house of magic: Curious, brilliant and unaware of consequences: Too young, too immature to believe that some doors are better left unopened until you have more skills.
Of course this apprentice is the mind, the human mind at work. Consider the relentless human dexterity in making new and better weapons, in our ability to manipulate the human psyche and make it believe something, buy something, fight for something; not because it is necessary but because it seems as though it is. It seems we have arrived at the point where it has become increasingly difficult to tell truth from a lie, fact from fabrication, virtual from real.
Gemini is the guy with the 3 shells and the pea. You’ll never guess which one unless they want you to but you’ll keep trying. Yet we need Gemini the way we need little flying creatures, pollinators, to make the crops grow. It is definitely has its part in the Big Twelve of the zodiac.
The thing is that the human mind was never meant to be severed from the heart. If we imagine that the year unfolds around 12 major tasks, this month would be the task of mastering or at least focusing the mind. If the mind is the apprentice, the ever curious student, let the heart be the sorcerer, the teacher, the guide. To do this you must unplug, at least for some time each day. Move, breathe. Allow the chatter to subside. Listen to your heart.
As the Sun journeys through Gemini it will sextile Jupiter once again, square Neptune and conjunct Mercury, underscoring Gemini themes for the month.  

May 21
Sun conjunct Mercury retrograde

I tend to think of this as the hidden-in-plain-sight, secretly most powerful day of the retrograde period. A day when Mercury, the mind, sits in the heart (the Sun) and is renewed for another round. Hidden because it only shows itself to those with ears to hear and eyes to see. (The mystical part of this is that when the mind sits in the heart all polarities and paradoxes resolve. If only for a moment.)
Navigating as best we can, the free-fall of change that seems to move so fast we can only think of it as chaos, we come to a moment of stillness. We allow the moment to be just as it is. We could listen for a message at this pinpoint of awareness which may allow a glimpse of coherence amidst wildly fluctuating energies. Like a stone falling in still water, concentric ripples will follow.

May 22
Mercury retrogrades back to Taurus
Mars sextile Pluto   

Stay close to nature the natural world as well as your own nature as part of that world. We are human animals, gifted or perhaps cursed with abilities uniquely our own. Our purpose, whatever the circumstances has something to do with awareness which requires presence. This gives us the ability to inhabit the world as it is even as we imagine what it might become. This is both mystical and practical. To be present to things as they are opens doors to rooms where sustainable change can happen. We can only get ‘there’ from ‘here’.

May 23
Sun sextile Jupiter
Mars sextile Mercury Rx

“Been there, done that,” signals the end of learning but it could be the beginning of application. Open yourself to possibilities for dealing with your circumstances, remembering that you weren’t born yesterday. You have a wealth of experience that has taught you, for better and worse, about the world in which you live. The more you are aware of this the better the application to the conditions you meet.

May 24
Venus sextile Saturn
Mars enters Aries

The justifiable anger and indignation of Venus these days benefits from Saturn’s steady hand. Look for opportunities to plan your campaign, whatever it is. Mars in its home sign wants to ride wild horses or cause massive breakthroughs. As Mars catches up to Jupiter shortly before the New Moon we can expect escalations of all kinds. We know where that thought leads. But there are other uses. We can use reason to navigate our vision. We don’t have to use force. Harnessing this ability we could, at least in our own lives, escalate the breakthroughs that we know need to happen. ‘Escalate’ and ‘war’ do not need to go together.

May 25
Mercury retrograde trine Pluto

This aspect is with us till June 12th. Think ‘empowerment”. The effects may be more obvious after June 3 when Mercury goes direct but we are approaching. It’s a slow trine, an unfolding, a time to be honest about your outrage in a season of terrible events and impending disasters. Harm comes if this outrage takes shape as the familiar mantra of ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda, but if only’. It is what it is.
Uncontained rage is said to be like picking up a hot coal to throw at someone. We all have those kinds of scars. To contain this force and direct it toward your best hope could work wonders. Outrage can become a diamond laser cutting through difficulties and pulling the world, broken as it seems, into a sustainable shape. If not now, when?

May 27
Venus square Pluto   

The women have had it. They are convinced in spite of thousands of years aimed at a lie that we, and all of our children are human. In all of our manifestations. We are all feminists when we recognize the equality and full humanity of all genders. To do less is to destroy the web of connection that allows for human existence.

May 28
Venus enters Taurus

What does it mean to be at home in your body: To take in the actual sense perceptions of the environment? We need to slow down, to allow the spell of the sensuous at least until the New Moon on the 30th. This, in spite of Mars who has a different agenda (tomorrow). Even if you can only do this for a moment, a breath, there is much to be gained by anchoring the mind in the body, by slowing down and sniffing your world. Maybe it’s time for some flowers or a deep appreciation of the scent of your doggie darling’s fur.

May 29
Mars conjunct Jupiter

Here is the possibility of a hot coal landing in our lap and the sense that something must be done right NOW. But the New Moon isn’t until tomorrow and it’s always better to wait till after this to actualize our impulses. Give it one more day if you can before you do the thing you can’t undo.

May 30
New Moon: 09 degrees Gemini: 07:30 AM EDT

Today’s New Moon, like all New Moons is a time to plant a seed of intention, or even a real seed in the dirt. What we plant at the beginning of this particular cycle will take until mid-January to come to fullness. By then we may have lost track of this moment. But the connection is strong and specific. (This in reference to a Mars retrograde period from October 30 – January 12 when it goes direct at this exact same degree. Given the Mars Jupiter conjunction yesterday this seems quite worth making note of.) The seeds of today will be energized beyond our imaginings at the beginning of 2023.

 June 3
Mercury stationery direct

Whatever supports the shape and structure of your real life, matters more than ever now. It’s not a time to acquire more things or experience. It’s about making the world around you livable, sustainable for as many living beings as possible. The last 3 weeks were time for consideration, exploration of ideas. What did you learn? Now you get to be the change or at least start the ball rolling. It beats simply waiting for the apocalypse.

June 4
Saturn stationery retrograde                

Pressure turns coal into diamonds. It’s a natural fact. We love diamonds for their glitter, for the sharp beauty that fractures light into rainbows. Now would be a good time for a bit of awe at the earth’s ability to create such wonders. We humans are a bit like diamonds: All that pressure turning us into gems of earned wisdom.  

June 6
Sun sextile Chiron     

Think of all the clever ways that life has taught you to be just you: Ways you never expected, lessons learned on line at the supermarket, on mountain trails, messages in dreams and books (rarely bottles). How might you pay it forward? We are all teachers as well as the taught.

June 10
Mercury trine Pluto                                     

A continued reminder since May 22nd that we are making the world even as it unravels. In mythic terms we might imagine we are guided by the three fates; Clotho who spins the thread of our fate by clothing us in conditions, Lachesis who dispenses it by twirling us into the dance of living and Atropos who cuts this thread at the end, dispelling the enchantment of existence. From a more mundane perspective we might just appreciate the hard work of shoring up the reality that sustains us.

June 11
Venus conjunct Uranus

Be amazed by beauty. Even if only for a moment or maybe an hour. Look for it in the natural world which is closer to Creation: A flower or a tree, maybe up in the sky or inside your own heart. Is creation the same as love? Does it always start with a bang?

June 13
Mercury enters Gemini

At home in the realm of the 10,000 things we marvel at butterflies, birds, thoughts and feeling flying in the air. To do this we must steady the breath. Otherwise a marvel becomes a nightmare of 10,000,000 things which swarm rather than fly. Which overwhelm rather than delight. As the wise man said, ‘I breathe in, I breathe out.’

June 14
Full Moon: 23 degrees Sagittarius 07:51 AM EDT    

What stories do you tell yourself? What stories do others tell you? Bred in the bone of our being, humans are made of stories. Our stories are changing, collapsing, transforming and new stories are arising. Take the journey, risk opening your mind. Live and learn some new stories, some of which will take us through this time of Great Transition to the birth of a New Age. It’s unnerving, creative, exciting, stressful, chaotic, exhilarating, devastating and even dangerous. There’s a list for you. Story that.   

June 15
Mars conjunct Chiron           

Humans make love and they make war. They are tender and they are cruel. They are healers and they are killers. They are US. All of us. Life is the teacher. The mere act of being born alive is the teaching. Paradox and mystery in everything.

June 16
Sun trine Saturn
Sun square Neptune

There is no point in building a house on shifting sands or flood plains. How are your plans unfolding in these times of uncertainty, when the way can so easily seem lost? It’s a question that doesn’t have an answer, although it needs to be asked over and over again: by all of us together not one at a time. Consensus takes time which we have somehow broken so that it appears to be linear rather than cyclical. Cycles give us more time, lines are finite and seem to limit time. Time is a real mystery and our perception of it can mess with our plans.

June 18
Venus square Saturn    

Today’s gift reminds us we can bend not break if we hold our ground, not with resistance but with conviction, a deeply rooted sense that it matters. Hold back the punch in favor of asking questions about why things are done in a particular way. Paradigms shift because we shift them.

June 19
Venus sextile Neptune

Having stood firm for that which matters, today is for beauty, in unexpected places and for no reason. Maybe because beauty is love and hallelujah anyway seems like the right idea.

June 20
Sun trine Pluto
Mercury sextile Jupiter          

Choose your adventure. Like the Fool with one foot on the rainbow bridge we walk the path not really knowing where it leads. It teaches us everything: The getting of wisdom, the only game in town.

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Insights for Taurus

As the world Turns

It’s a Mercury retrograde month. For deeper insight you can see below or read here. You can also join the online alignment with Carolyn Winter and me for a unique way to grapple with the Trickster as they dance backwards!

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.

 April 19
Sun enters Taurus: 10:24 PM EDT
Maybe reality is debatable: the nature of it, the meaning and whether pigs have wings. Debatable or not we have been blessed with our senses; the doors of perception. And despite the pull of the Metaverse it is painfully obvious that thoughts are nowhere near as real as, let’s say, our sense of smell or the sounds we hear. Sirens jar us, bird song cheers us, we turn up our noses at the smell of garbage but we love the scent of bread baking. Maybe we have only five senses, most likely we have many more. The denial or neglect of this possibility means that many people don’t believe in our ‘extra-sensory’ abilities. If you’re reading this you are probably the kind of person that is open to the idea that we have more than five senses with which to experience the world. This month is an especially good time to use those “extra” senses and open to a wider reality than the obvious. As Uranus has moved through Taurus it has crashed into our realities revealing the cracks, the weak points, the glaring gaps which require change. The world we thought we were familiar with is changing rapidly, not necessarily for the better. Some days change seems too ragged, jagged. Use your senses to navigate. They will show you the moment in stark reality and help ground you. If this seems confusing start with noticing the fire, earth, air and water and how everything is made of these primary elements.
As the Sun journeys here it will conjunct Uranus, sextile Mars, square Saturn, sextile Neptune trine Pluto and participate in a solar and lunar eclipse, (see below for specifics) reminding us that all systems change. Things die and other things get born. Opportunities are all around us and we must do the work even if we haven’t a clue where it will take us.   

April 22
Earth Day

Earth day, birth day.
Love your Mother, there is no other (planet).
Praise and respect her too.
She gives us everything, this All Mother.
The sky is nothing without Her.

April 24
Mercury square Saturn
Mercury sextile Neptune
Don’t just kick the can out of the way. Pick it up. At least recycle it if you can’t reuse it.
The same applies to all obstacles. If you meet them on the road, deal with them; for love and in service to life, yours, mine, theirs. Life: The Precious Gift.  

April 27
Mercury sextile Jupiter
Venus conjunct Neptune
It seems there is no end to suffering but there is also the rising sun, the new day, the gathering light, the promise of a rainbow, a flower opening, somewhere. The mere possibility of grace is a kind of blessing.

April 28
Mercury trine Pluto
Mercury has been busy this week. Reminding us to think globally and act locally, to be practical in dealing with our immediate surroundings, to wash windows for love, to appreciate flowers because the soul is real and needs beauty the way the body needs food. The smallest inclination in these directions helps transform reality and creates a more beautiful world.

April 29
Pluto stationery retrograde
Everything astrological is from the perspective of humans (those who can look up and see the heavenly clock turning). How then to make sense of the first planet to be retrograde since Mercury went direct in early February and all hell broke loose? Pluto is the keeper of the underbelly, things which are despised and denied. It’s amazing really that things about which we say, ‘never again’ have a way of popping up when Pluto is in town. Clearly Pluto has been hard at work. We could say since 2008 when it first entered Capricorn, picking up a real head of steam in 2020 when it met up with Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, and now on its own as it readies to complete its journey through Capricorn. As it changes direction we could take it as a reminder to be honest about our feelings, if only to ourselves. The power of bearing witness to truth, however harsh, is transformative. This is true collectively as well as personally, albeit more difficult to manage. If enough strong individuals do this in their own lives it ripples out into the world and turns what seems like chaos toward transformative change. It may take until later in July when the Sun opposes Pluto to actually have a sense of where this process is taking us. Next month Mercury will go retrograde. And then then Saturn and Neptune the month after, Jupiter in July, Uranus in August. Even Mars will join the retrograde dance at the end of October. Each of these turnings at a time of such Great Turning are invitations to reflect for weeks and months at a time, when you remember. There are no good old days to return to but there is a mountain of unfinished business.
Today is also the last day of a waning Moon: A time to notice the vast spacious realm within. We feel this more easly in nature, perhaps because we are part of the natural world. Think of it as an invitation to a beginningless, endless place of constant change. The dance in utter stillness. And then there is this other realm, the one of circumstance, the one we constantly attempt to manage. The one that in fact is so much less real yet pulls us time after time day in and day out away from the spaciousness of a greater reality.
Today is the last day of the Moon’s month and a waning energy permeates the world, asking nothing of us. Nothing at all. It’s the moment when the wave pulls back into the sea and before it breaks toward the shore. Tomorrow is a New Moon. A breaking wave.  

April 30
Venus conjunct Jupiter
New Moon: 10 degrees Taurus: 04:28 PM EDT Eclipse
The prevailing culture of the 20th century was a sort of mission to ‘live for today’. Here in the 21st century we are coming to understand (along with those who never forgot) the necessity of considering the inheritors of the earth, the children of our children’s children. New Moons are always about intention. Eclipses intensify the energies. They seem to open portals which invite more than we know to join in. New Moons call us to plant seeds for the future but of course we are here, stuck in the present, painfully aware that we create the future with every action, every intention. Even if it feels chaotic here, in the ‘now’, our choices will create The Change and carry seeds for future generations. It’s a time machine.
There is a simple, accessible, profound truth in our ability to bear witness, not only to pain and sorrow but also to beauty, to allow our soul to be stirred. Venus has been reminding us of this since the conjunction with Neptune on the 27th.
Given that Venus and Jupiter are in the later degrees of Pisces we might consider these words from Martin Shaw in his book, Courting the Wild Twin: “Beauty is created not just by desire but by diligence. By circling again and again like a hawk round the well to what truly sends you both dizzy with admiration but also utterly focused in service.”

May 1
Venus sextile Pluto  
We are overwhelmed yet awed by life if we allow ourselves to even try to fully absorb the events of the day. It’s inconvenient and messy. Even so, now would be a good time to remove ourselves from all the mind noise: the desperate distractions of clicking, liking and commenting and to let it be or maybe to let it bleed. Who is to say?

May 2
Venus enters Aries 
Possibly only an ‘uppity woman’ can appreciate such a quality in someone else. Venus in Aries doesn’t want us to be comfortable with the way things are. It’s a symbol of pushing limits, breaking through assumptions and questioning the status quo. Jupiter goes into Aries on the 10th and Mars on the 24th, all fingers pointing to the Moon you might say of doing something new even against the odds.

May 3
Jupiter sextile Pluto
Wisdom can come from above and below. It can lift us up or remind us that, after all we are not more or less than one amongst all living beings. No matter what well you draw your wisdom from at the moment it offers deep teachings regarding personal conditions for transformation, which is to say, change; as it applies to you specifically. Guaranteed these are not the conditions you imagined. Sit by the well of wisdom, fill your cup and drink. Even the smallest sip could change you forever.  

May 4
Mars sextile Uranus 
Sometimes when you least expect it an opportunity comes knocking. If you open the door you will find that the gift of the moment requires change and there is no telling where it’s taking you. The river knows where it’s going. It always finds its way.

May 5
Sun conjunct Uranus
Radical shift continues. Our species is inherently opportunistic. We love to turn a profit from any and all circumstances. Truly this has created some evil conditions on our planet. Denise Levertov said, “Man’s capacity for evil, then, is less a positive capacity, for all its horrendous activity, than a failure to develop man’s most human function, the imagination, to its fullness, and consequently a failure to develop compassion.”
No one controls the movements of the planets. They are like a Great Mirror, simply and profoundly reflecting what is happening down below. What do you imagine change will bring?

May 6
Venus sextile Mercury
We make priorities based on what we decide matters most. Every choice is an opportunity. When you open the front door today breathe in the world and choose nothing (for a change). Better to notice the squirrels, the birds going about their very important business, the clouds rolling by and even the breezes and the bugs. The world is happening, not just in your head but every possible ‘where’ there is. The joy as the saying goes, is in the ride.

May 07
Sun sextile Mars
Freedom means so many different things to so many people. For some it’s permission to do what I want (come what may). Others find freedom in restraint from harmful impulses (such as eating animals or using fossil fuels). There is freedom to protest and demand rights and freedoms on behalf of others. there is freedom to breathe, to drink, to touch the earth. There are people fighting for their right to live in a free world. Those who are choosing to ‘live free or die’. We measure freedom against conditions. This is the challenge, the call.  

May 10
Mercury stationery retrograde
Jupiter enters Aries
Actions speak louder than words. (Even little ones.) The world witnessed this as we heard words of non-aggression just before the bombs fell. Even so, words matter. Mercury reminds us to pause, to listen to the world with our senses not just the thoughts inside our heads. If we are fortunate to be in pleasant surroundings that is easy enough, but the suggestion is there for all as Mercury appears to move from Gemini back to Taurus. Here is an invitation to unplug where possible, to think with more than your mind. Leave the pundits and the know-it-alls to their own devices. They haven’t a clue about the immediacy of your particular life; the ache in your joints or the pleasure of a juicy fruit.
Of course, Jupiter could care less about such things! It wants action. Just do it! In Aires there is the possibility of recklessness based on arrogance. Seize the day or bust.
It’s a push-me-pull you kind of moment, On one hand the inclination from Mercury to pause and consider, on the other, from Jupiter, to energetically follow the impulse.
Jupiter will be in Aries till the end of October. Mercury will be retrograde until June 3rd. To be alive is to sail the seas of paradox, to hold impossible contradictions in one hand even as we release the birds of hope and possibility from the other. An excellent time to memorize this poem from Auguries of Innocence, in all or part:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour 

Or this part:

A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent 
It is right it should be so
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 15
Venus conjunct Chiron
Sun square Saturn
Sun sextile Neptune
To be alive is to be subject to all manner of suffering and joy. This is true for all living things. Venus reminds us to bless this notion. The Sun, like a determined juggler, calls us to the task of participating in life’s fullness: To work hard and deal with circumstance even as we remember “the still point of the turning world” that was so important at the New Moon two weeks ago. 

May 16
Full Moon: Eclipse, 25 degrees Scorpio 00:13 AM EDT  
As the Moon in its fullness carries the theme of participation in two worlds at once – the inner spacious one as well as the demanding circumstantial outer one - it might be useful to consider how things felt and what you thought you wanted back at the New Moon on April 30th. Perhaps you planted a seed in this unstable world. As you survey your life at this moment consider how accessing both worlds, inner and outer, shapes your particular dance. Live between the worlds, no escaping in either direction. Be witness to change, to the cycles of destruction and creation. Then do what you must because while you’re here on Planet Earth, you can.

May 18
Mars conjunct Neptune
Which opportunities that called to you on or around May 7th are ready to expand and grow. How do your dreams match up with your abilities? Here is a good time to remember you are only human and to fulfill that gift you cannot be too pure or perfect. Our best is always good enough.

May 19
Sun trine Pluto
Mercury (still rx) sextile Jupiter
The power to transform, to change, to become someone we didn’t think we could be, lives inside each one of us. Be literal about this. Seeds that turn into green shoots are nothing short of a miracle of transformation.
Today there is a whisper on the wind, a message waiting to be heard. There are things we can do, ways we can align with and move into change. It’s a process. It takes time.

Insights for Aries

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.

Here is some food for Aries thought, from a patriarchal voice (8 centuries old) yet nonetheless wise:  

How is it 
they live in 
such harmony 
- the billions of stars - 
when most men can barely 
go a minute without declaring 
war in their minds about 
someone they know.  

….St. Thomas Aquinas 

March 18
Sun enters Aries:  11:33 AM EDT

As if we need reminding that it is time for a new beginning, today is the first day of spring here in the northern hemisphere, the equinox, a new season. One of only two days when, for one perfect moment light and dark are balanced: akin to the moment after exhaling and before inhaling, or maybe the other way around: A moment when uncounted angels perch on pin heads, defying reason, reminding us that it’s all an illusion based on perspective, an endless reality of becoming. Creation is always happening here and now, calling us into being again and again and again. Possibly we hit the ground, running for eternity, always the same, always different. If we see the other as equally alive and deserving of life, in that instant we are an equinox.
Aries and Libra are the signs of war. Our predecessors throughout the dominator age saw the relationship of light and dark as a battle. This is the very notion we must change. Of course there are some, many in fact, who think this perspective is bred in the bone of what it means to be human, who believe that this is how it has and always will be. Consider for a moment the parable of the two suitors.
This year as the Sun journeys through Aries it will encounter Mercury, Saturn and Pluto as well as Chiron. Saturn and Chiron remind us that we have work to do. We are all first responders when Aries is the theme. The trauma or wounding in each of us creates a planet of unease at best, a tinder keg waiting to be ignited, already burning, in fact. We too easily confuse vengeance with justice. When we acknowledge the hurts of the past yet stay present we open to real wisdom. From this wisdom, change. Pluto warns us, yet again, that there is danger, there is evil, there is power. How we use it and react to it matters.

March 21
Mercury conjunct Jupiter
Mars sextile Chiron                                     

Awash in our beliefs we are careful not to make assumptions regarding the beliefs of others. One way to do this is through artistic or creative expression. Sharing our stories through song, dance, image and word is an endless opportunity for healing. It is possible, even in these times, to open our heart/mind in utter devotion to whatever we believe without trying to make someone else believe it too. This is especially good for the children.

March 22
Mars square Uranus

As we continue to keep on rockin’ in the hard places, it’s necessary to believe that the kind of change we need will ultimately come. Nature will reset the ecological rhythms, even if humans are at war with her. Perhaps the human challenge is to bring reason but not rigidity to the process. How can consensus work in a polarized world? Can we reason with people who have already decided on their agenda? Can we be reasonable if we have already set our own? It’s a folk tale. We must find the key that can open the door to the dungeon. It is time to free the princess from her bewitchment. We are the princess, the dungeon, the key and the seeker. All of it. Each of us. Perhaps the seekers need to listen but not just to one another. That’s too much like listening to ourselves. We need to listen to the trees, the flowers, the waters, the weather, the rains, even the floods and the fires. There is where we find the key.  

March 23
Mercury conjunct Neptune

Myth, dreams, poetry, song, story. They carry us on our journey through life. They allow us to talk to one another even when separated by time and distance. It’s a love story: A ladder to the sky: A descent into the deep reaches of existence: A longing that opens the door to real magic.

March 26
Mercury sextile Pluto

Dig, right where you stand. There is treasure. Not a tunnel to the other side of the world but more like a dark and twisting path, full of shadows that hook onto the projections of your own mind. Fascinating. Fertile. Awareness beyond ‘me’, including all living things. Whatever it is that grips your inner eye or mind, don’t push it away. Turn and offer your best attention. Profound consideration wins this day.

March 27
Mercury enters Aries

Typical of the fleet-footed god, the messenger, Mercury flies off to Aries just as we were getting comfy with the depths. Such is the nature of mind, yours and mine. Neither or perhaps both, here and there. ‘There is nothing but that thinking makes it so’ said the Bard. Which isn’t to say we can magically turn bombs into flowers but that we can choose to deal with them one way or another, depending…       

March 28
Venus conjunct Saturn

If it matters, it’s worth planning for, especially if it involves a group. If you love the idea or if you can imagine the ideal outcome of something that matters, make a plan. Infuse your planning with love, not excessive caution or fear.

April 1
New Moon: 11 degrees Aries: 02:42 AM EDT
Sun conjunct Chiron

The April Fool is on the loose. There are fools and there are Fools. It can be difficult to distinguish the difference between innocence and ignorance when the F/fool shows up. This particular New Moon calls us to beginnings, to the planting of intentions like seeds. We want these seeds to grow even if we might not be around to see them flourish. We are a bit like Jonnie Appleseed, trailing seeds as we travel through life. “Who Am I?” might be the question. The answer changes even as we think we have one.

April 2
Mercury conjunct Chiron
Mercury conjunct the Sun

Wear the wisdom of experience, not like a badge, more like a secret that only you know: the secret that makes you the unique being you are. Feed the fire of life that both inspires and consumes us at the same time. Spring fever is nothing more or less than sap rising, awakening our biology as well as that most ephemeral quality we call soul. We are alive. Life is the gift, precious and fleeting. Not more, not less.

April 4
Mars conjunct Saturn   

How does the shoulder fit the wheel? Efficiency is good. Kindness is better. May our efforts be a wise mix of both these qualities.

April 7
Mercury sextile Saturn

Hone your thoughts. Just because you want something to be true, doesn’t mean it is. Struggle if you must to maintain your sovereign right to think and focus on what is real and present, not what you have been led to believe, not to a virtual rendition of ‘real’ and ‘present’. You want freedom? Then find the part of you that can focus and direct it toward something real, present and meaningful: the cat, your dinner, a tree, a crying child, a wilted plant, a neighbor. Despite the bombardment of useless, dysregulating misinformation we have endless opportunity to dig into our immediate circumstance and find what’s real enough. Seeing isn’t enough to inspire believing anymore. Saturn has been trying to tell us for a while now that the ability to reason is a gift worth strengthening.

April 8
Mercury sextile Mars                                     

The faculty of reason continues to require mercy. Do not become a casualty in the assault upon the mind which has been happening for a long time. Defend your right to think, to understand, to use your intelligence. Every conversation, each thing you read is an opportunity for this. We can temper the sometimes, negative Pisces energies of blind faith through the application of reason. This just might be the mandate if we want to enter the Age of Aquarius with our shirt on.   

April 10
Mercury square Pluto
Mercury enters Taurus.

Ponder rather than perseverate. Live in the layers not on the litter.

April 12
Jupiter conjunct Neptune
Sun sextile Saturn

Big astrological news! This conjunction has been heading toward us like a wave waiting to break, or perhaps a tsunami heading toward land. It has been brewing for a while. We could say since February 24th but it’s older than that. We are awash in Pisces which is to say, feelings, connections, a sense of oneness with all life. We feel the suffering of others in ways we didn’t use to. Many more of us have come to understand that this suffering belongs to all of us. We are also at the mercy of madmen threatening destruction of OUR planet. Do we need a common enemy to feel these things? Is that the only way? For the many this may be true but for the individual it is not. We are, all of us, each of us, one individual and many at the same time. As we fling ourselves at the door of the Aquarian age it seems we have work to do on remaking our notion of a hero.

April 14
Mars enters Pisces 
    
Here comes the warrior planet joining up you might say with Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces. What can we expect given that one person’s warrior is another person’s terrorist? Among other things, Pisces tells the story of our deep need for sacrifice which is ‘to make the mundane holy’.
Great compassion is often elicited in reaction to great cruelty. This, too is the story Pisces often tells. Everything in the manifest world is made of light and shadow – even signs and symbols.

April 16
Full Moon: 26 degrees Libra 02:55 PM EDT
(close to a square with Pluto)     

We could say this is a warrior’s Moon. Aries and Libra are signs that go to war (this Full Moon is made of the Sun in Aries opposite the Moon in Libra). The ancients venerated war and so the Sun was exalted in Aries. We fight to survive. We even fight for peace. We fight. We resist. We make demands and offer challenges. Perhaps the best of Aries and Libra is when they concern themselves with justice and equitable living for all. The Full Moon (consider it the day before, the day of and the day after) encourages us to evaluate these things on micro as well as macro levels. Is there another story we could tell regarding Aries (and Libra)?

April 17
Mercury sextile Venus

In these last days of Aries, it seems we have stepped over a threshold, participated in an initiation we didn’t ask for and weren’t expecting. There was no ceremony for this initiation, no shaman or wise elder to encourage us to make the journey. At a time like this we need to consult with our inner shaman, the wise one within. They undoubtedly have a poem or a story, a song or maybe a suggestion to look at the moon or watch the sun set. 

April 18
Mercury conjunct Uranus
Venus sextile Uranus
Sun square Pluto

You might say we have reason to worry about the future. Yours, mine and all the living beings on our planet. We do. But worry is generally alleviated when we take some kind of action, even prayer. We live in a time of Big Change. We can’t go back and the way forward seems fraught with confusion and danger as well as a promise of beauty and peace. We feel it all. Possibly we think too much and listen too little to the voice of our planet. No matter what we think, we are truly Nature’s children. Listen to your mother.  

Insights for Pisces

As the World Turns (and turns again…)

The North Sea Patrick von Kalckreuth

Here are some insights for the month, which could become contemplations: 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.

February 18
Sun enters Pisces:  11:42 AM EST

We all have longings. What if they aren’t meant to be satisfied? What if they were given to humans for the soul purpose of simply feeling them? To be carried on waves of longing, not to some kind of material fulfillment but to bliss itself, a sense of letting go and becoming nothing and everything at the same time? Our addictions, great and small might then let go their hold on us. Fixations would melt into practices that would enable our capacity for oneness and the Great Connection.
Of course here’s the rub: Pisces is opposite Virgo. Virgo likes practice. Pisces doesn’t. Maybe this is how Pisces gets its reputation for wishy-washy, vagueness and confusion. Like all stereotypes, this one isn’t true, except perhaps on the surface. If you are willing to dive in, there are realms and depths with Pisces, quite literally beyond imagining.
This year the Sun will travel through Pisces along with Jupiter Neptune and even Mercury. We are used to having Neptune in Pisces since 2012 and sure enough it has made us all too aware that we are all connected to each other as well as the natural world. Oneness is Us. Like it or not. Jupiter’s nature is to expand what it touches. Maybe we have two choices: to be confused and deluded or to dive into the mystery, to get ‘right and wrong’ and meet each other. Or at least to try.

February 23
Mars sextile Neptune                                    

As if reminding us that our longings do indeed need to be managed and guided by practice we have today. It is helpful, even wise to contain longing in some kind of structure which allows us to feel what we feel in safety. Prayer, meditation, movement or even therapy can help. Today we might get started or strengthen what we already have in place. If this is troublesome consider consequences. Mars in Capricorn likes consequences.      

February 24
Mercury sextile Chiron
Venus sextile Neptune
Mercury square Uranus

Whatever chaos you meet today, coping lies in helping someone near you, any way you can. Even the smallest acts of compassion can make a difference.

March 2
New Moon: 12 degrees Pisces: 12:34 PM EST
Sun sextile Uranus
Mercury conjunct Saturn

A gentle reminder that life goes on and we are the ones here, living it. We might as well go on too. A good time to plant seeds of hope. Over the next two weeks or so you may get to see these seeds putting down some roots and even sprouting a few tiny leaves.

March 3
Mars conjunct Pluto
Venus conjunct Pluto

The shadows of desire are in charge for the next few days at least. On the bright side we know what we want and what we don’t. We are more or less familiar by now with the benefits of gratitude. Everything that shines needs a bit of shadow to be visible. If Venus is ‘yes’ then Mars is ‘no’. The shadows of desire are about the cost of having what we want and the damage it might create for ourselves or other living things. Only by looking honestly at these shadows can we truly use our desire in sustainable ways. Otherwise we are at the mercy of the manipulators, the aggressors.
Don’t be afraid of apparent contradictions, of paradox. Looking into the heart of desire at micro (me) and macro (us) levels we shift away from rapacious destruction and toward a world where everyone, gets to eat, learn, work and live. Pluto’s job is always to take us deeper into that which has been denied, repressed, suppressed.  

March 5
Sun conjunct Jupiter

At the heart of the Sun (conjunct) a planet ends and begins its journey for the year. Invisible to our eyes, Jupiter is revitalizing its capacity for wisdom and propensity toward faith or belief. We could all take a moment apart from the chaotic swirls of passionate goings-on in this world to acknowledge the ‘soul’. What is it? What does it need? How is it getting on? Is it indeed becoming wiser? And, of course, does it even exist?

March 6
Mars enters Aquarius
Venus enters Aquarius
Venus conjunct Mars

Astrology can be viewed as a long story, a story of culture arising, collapsing, cooking in the petri dish of our collective human journey. The passionate conjunction (Venus and Mars) happens at the same degree as the Great Conjunction of December 21, 2020 when Jupiter and Saturn stood together at zero Aquarius. Zero is the beginning: the Alpha: the sign on the map reminding us that ‘we are here’ (not someplace else).
Aquarius is the sign of the coming New Age, the one we are kicking and screaming our way toward. (No more slouching toward Bethlehem). It is also the sign of hopes and plans for the future, the sign of possibilities. On account of its tendency to see possible futures it is also the sign of technology, algorithms and all manner of theories about how to control the masses. Systemic control. Aquarius is about politics, politicians and social constructs.
Today we are reminded of whose desires are at the helm, making our decisions and most importantly what motivates them. On a personal level we might take stock of our inner elected official, the mayor of the city you call your life. What motivates your desires for your future? Be honest, no censoring of what you find. Everything is grist for the mill, rather than the defining moment. Planets transit, they move, they dance across the sky. Today they show us a blueprint, not a finished structure.

March 9
Mercury enters Pisces                                 

Mercury joins the Sun, Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces. We might consider these planets as a symbolic rendition of the frothing of the waters of our planet, manifesting as things such as floods and tsunamis as well as accenting issues of longing, compassion and addiction. Pisces can be extreme in its reach, from the most abject interaction between victim and victimizer to the most expanded and lofty compassion. It can indicate an atmospheric wave of destruction yet leave a river of kindness, compassion and connection in its wake.
We all know how good it feels to help someone in need but we balk at the times when we are the needy one. How would this change if we understood that our neediness, even our abject suffering is the very thing that allows others to rise to their best self? it might help us to see that there is no separation between the one who suffers and the one who soothes that suffering.

March 13
Sun conjunct Neptune
Daylight Savings Time begins, where it begins

Just as with Jupiter (March 5th), Neptune gets its moment at the heart of the Sun. This makes me think about when the Little Mermaid is ‘elevated’ and becomes a ‘daughter of air’, considered by the author to be a step up on the ladder of evolution toward becoming human; clearly the best thing to be. I object. Surely the best thing for the Little Mermaid – a sea person with the ability to sing and love with a full mer-heart - would be to be restored to her true nature. One of the big things the Age of Pisces twisted out of shape was the understanding that our best self is our true nature. We are born blessed, not cursed. The most effective way to the wholeness which Pisces longs for is to stand in the fleeting glory of this self, with compassion for ourselves and all selves on this planet of paradox.

March 17
Mercury sextile Uranus               

If you’re looking for the third alternative, neither this nor that, the aha! which transcends the stuck place, or even just looking for your keys, be open to surprises. Finding solutions where you least expected them is a source of delight if you can think outside that awful box.

March 18
Full Moon: 27 degrees Virgo 03:19 AM EDT
Sun sextile Pluto (Moon trine Pluto)
Venus sextile Chiron

How, you might ask, can a full Moon shed light when it entangles with Pluto, planet of shadow, depth and darkness? A silly question really if you remind yourself how the greatest awakenings generally come to us on account of the dark nights which the soul, all souls navigate at one time or another. It’s the very nature of things human that this is the case. This Full Moon is full of the paradoxical wisdom that weds dark to light. Be as open and willing as you can. Even if it means helping someone help you.

March 19
Venus square Uranus

Since we can’t really expect the unexpected how about we accept that we don’t know everything and see what there is to learn? Practice is always preferable to perfect.

Insights for Aquarius

As the World Turns… and Keeps on Turning.

Here are my insights for the month, which could become contemplations: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but we 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.

January 19

Sun enters Aquarius:  09:39 PM EST

When you hear the words: ‘Age of Aquarius’ what comes to mind? Utopia? Dystopia? Both and neither are possible.
Imagine: No more crimes against humanity but rather a flowering of kindness and inclusion which we know is possible. A time of truly coming to our senses as we awaken the powers of our fully integrated collective brain/mind.
Or: A world run by algorithms created by greedy people at the top of a pyramid. Directives that determine how and what we think about and what we buy while creating the illusion that we are making choices.
Clearly, both worlds exist here and now. Perhaps the Age of Aquarius requires us to stop conjuring either/or scenarios and to look at both/and ones. Just as a house divided against itself cannot stand, neither can a brain or a personality divided against itself function properly. Maybe Aquarius, the Age as well as the month, urges us to heal the divided self, to integrate reason with feeling.
As the Sun moves through this sign, this year, it will remind us that Saturn squared Uranus last year and it’s not quite done. Which is to say our collective efforts to stem the tide of chaos which seems better some days than others is still in play. Our need to tell another story from the overarching one of the hero/savior which is also the story of the sovereignty of the individual over nature is giving way to its next chapter, the one where we recognize the equality of all living beings not just me. Chaotic but necessary.

January 23
Mercury (retrograde) conjunct Sun                      

There comes a time at the exact midpoint of every Mercury retrograde when it rests, but not for long, in the heart of the Sun. It’s a time for poets and mystics: A time for the inner ear to listen, to consult the muse, to breath in and breathe out, knowing that the only truly predictable thing is change.

January 24
Mars enters Capricorn

It is said that Mars likes ito be in Capricorn. It gets to be boss, to be in charge. You might think of it as a general or a C.E.O. If those images don’t work for you, imagine the Great Meister of your chosen endeavors. The question is this: What is your expectation? Dominance or excellence? There is a world of difference between them and yet each is a manifestation of Mars in Capricorn.

January 25
Mercury (retrograde) enters Capricorn

No longer at the heart of the Sun, Mercury is tasked with returning once again to the situation room to figure out what went wrong and what could go right. The magic ingredient seems to be the willingness to learn from our mistakes.

January 28
Mercury retrograde conjunct Pluto

Think long, hard and deeply about all the things that are changing that you believed were rock solid. And while you are doing this, relax, drop your shoulders, inhale and exhale fully. Remind yourself that you aren’t in control but you can participate fully, willingly. Where else could you be?

January 29
Venus stationery direct

Somewhere on this planet, Venus has been visible as the morning star for some days now. As she goes direct, releasing the Sun’s hold on her, she shines bright, strong and determined in the eastern sky before the Sun rises; announcing the day, reminding us that there are things to do, even if Mercury is retrograde! Where does your determination lie? How are you called to participate in the only dance there is? Might as well, since you’re already here.

January 30
Sun square Uranus    

Determined as we are to progress, to maintain reason and to understand the world around us, shift happens. Nature speaks. Reason is a gift bestowed upon humans but we are also Nature’s children. It’s as though we are collectively waking up to the fact that we are indeed part of the natural world. At this moment change is real and out of reach of reason or human understanding. Beginner’s mind works best at such a time. Don’t kid yourself.

February 1
New Moon: 12 degrees Aquarius: 12:46 AM EST

Dividing the world into students and teachers is misleading. We are fools, stepping out on our journey; innocent and ignorant of what lies ahead. There is so much to know and to learn. Sharing what we know is the best of classrooms.

February 4
Mars sextile Jupiter
Sun conjunct Saturn 

The swiftly tilting landscape of change offers a myriad of possibilities for all. It is the task of the young to learn and of the old to mentor, to point out those possibilities. For those in the middle, the adults, the job is to maintain order to build structure to anchor the world with an eye to letting it flourish in its time and according to its nature. We cannot put the world in a box or on an assembly line and expect it to live. And that’s no fun anyway.

February 6
Mars square Chiron

If you were looking for something to do, look instead for someone to help. Someone who might benefit from a bit of structure or good management. Maybe the one who needs your help most, is you!    

February 8
Mars trine Uranus                  

Everything is possible but only some things are really worth the doing. Not because they please you (or not) but for the benefit of your little corner of the Universe. This is common sense. These particular times seem to be encouraging us to think globally but to act locally.

February 11
Mercury conjunct Pluto                                

Focus. Remind yourself what you learned when Mercury was Retrograde (January 14 – February 3). Maybe you are only beginning to see what that was. If you’re having a hard time imagining a way forward, consider your ancestors. What did they have to do, how did they live in such a way that you came into being? Whether they were kind and careful or greedy and mean-spirited they are the dirt beneath your feet, the soil out of which you flower. The deeper you dig at this time the more you can make sense of how to achieve your goals.

February 14
Mercury enters Aquarius

Some say that Aquarius is the sign of the highest kind of love, the kind that allows the beloved to be free. The kind that includes everyone. Hallmark saw it as an opportunity for cards and chocolate. Who doesn’t love cards and chocolate? Especially in times of plenty. These days we need to read the label and make sure it’s not endangering the planet. Surely love is an unlimited resource and there is enough for everyone. Better than chocolate?

February 16
Full Moon: 28 degrees Leo 06:48 PM EST
Mars conjunct Venus                  

Here is a real, spontaneous day made to celebrate love and passion: A kind of belated Valentine’s Day. Passion is high and love demands to be celebrated however that is for you. Winter is more than half over. The days are most definitely getting longer in the north. Make love. Make art. Play with the children. Today’s passionate pair (Mars and Venus) are intent on carrying us toward our desired goals. In combination with the Full Moon we might say that it’s important to celebrate love in embodied ways. Which is to say, through our senses. The more we engage the so called, real world, the immediate world, the more our self-expression and love can achieve goals worth reaching. There is no point to all these lofty astrological considerations if we don’t express them through our lived lives. Precisely in the way we are able.

February 17
Jupiter sextile Uranus      

A shiny penny of a day. Pick it up, have an adventure, trust in the goodness of life, just not blindly. There are indeed infinite possibilities but reality is a co-creation. Choose your co-creators wisely. Blind justice is one thing, blind faith quite another. The human instinct for devotion is quite real, quite strong. Devotion to ‘what’ or ‘whom’ is well worth reflection.