Jessica Shepherd's Blog, page 28

I don’t have one voice. I have many voices. Sometimes it is soft, silky and seductive. Other times it is courageously bold. My voice can be wise, with wisdom beyond my years. My voice can be spiritual, moved by the field of connection unifying us all. Or it can be fiercely honest, calling bullshit on me, and on you. I may appear a white woman in her early 40’s but if I were a nineteen years old black man, or if I were in Bruce, nee’ Caitlyn, Jenner’s body, I would still be me. I contain multitudes within me. The multitudes move through me in dialects of moods, tone, emotion. My voice reflects the multi-dimensionality of my human and spiritual experience.

I am thinking about my voice. As a writer I always have something to say, but sometimes it goes eerily quiet. Something in me doesn’t want to speak. This bothers me because another wiser part of me knows I have books inside, waiting to be written (I have heard this so many times from so many: don’t we all?) I have my suspicions; I suspect I am hurt, angry. I think about the facts. I know I am angry at the magazine that won’t return my email for months. I complain to colleagues that they don’t have common courtesy, but secretly inside I am harboring a deep fear that they have rejected me for reasons I may never know. I recall a publication that had been in full support of my work, but earlier this year withdrew that support after I used a curse word that offended at least one of their readers. I imagine them meeting behind closed doors, deciding that my work does not fit with the politically correct image they want to project to their readership, more concerned with their image than the collaboration of feminine voices to which they are publicly dedicated. In my natal chart I have Pluto in image-conscious Libra in the secret twelfth house: death by political incorrectness, being voted off the island from behind closed doors, fits.  The PC movement has gone too far when it compromises freedom of speech, shooting down voices that use offensive words to communicate deeper truths… Am I being Pluto paranoid? Am I making this up? I only know they no longer follow my work.

I am thinking about the nodal “past life” reading* my mentor Steven Forrest gave me back in 2008, where he described a leader, a shepherd of many and dedicated to a cause, a compassionate woman horrifically betrayed because she didn’t have the 360 degree clairvoyance to see that one of the many people she had been caring for felt their liberty impinged upon, and in an act of revenge likely killed her, and everyone. And who, now reincarnated, carries lifelong solitude and gloominess and doubts the legitimacy of her voice.

I am thinking about my father, who claimed the singular voice of authority in our household, and whose deep sense of powerlessness and futility undermined those very words that landed like iron fists on those around him  (his Pluto oppose Mercury).  And of the child who felt these verbal fists silence her, verbal fists as violent to her emotional body as any physical ones (my Saturn in Gemini conjunct Cancer Sun).

I am thinking about women’s voices. How throughout his-story the liberty of speaking our minds came with repercussions from male counterparts.  I am thinking of my woman clients…so many dear ones… who, out of fear, out of a vague and vaguely remembered sense of invisibility to brothers, husbands, fathers and the subsequent erosion of selfhood, have doubted their right to speak, or exist.

I am thinking about a half-remembered captioned photo I saw on Facebook: Speak what sets off a revolution inside your heart.

I am thinking of Mercury and Neptune. Mercury is at a standstill, changing directions at 4 degrees Gemini on June 11 (in my eighth house of wounds and karmic legacies). So is Neptune, at 10 degrees Pisces (in my self- fifth house), in preparation for it’s bi-annual retrograde on June 12. Both planets rule consciousness: While Mercury lords over data, logic, facts, Neptune rules the insubstantial but not flimsy impressions that drift in from beyond time and space. Our psyches are porous, open, ready to make connections that may be both logical and illogical, half-true and absolutely true. Are we (am I?) making these things up? Does it matter?

I am thinking of building an altar. For those of us who struggle with self-expression or doubt our intelligence, for those who want to use our words effectively or who doubt the legitimacy of our voice, I am thinking that the time is right for building an altar to the Gods and Goddesses who are just waiting for us to simply ask… perhaps a space where we can ask to receive wisdom and healing from beyond, or perhaps a container for accruing power, authority and legitimacy on behalf of our own unique voice.  I am building an altar- with found objects, with symbolism personal to me. I know what I’m claiming: the right to use curse words, even offensive ones if it feels true, the right to be honest about my experience, the right to write, and the right to have my voice heard. Because that’s a liberty we all deserve.

[image error]

image source: http://www.rebelology.com.au/

*The astrology: My ninth house Cancer Sun is conjunct Saturn in Gemini and Cancer South Node (opposed by Capricorn North Node in the third house). This configuration is squared by Mars in Aries in the sixth house opposing Pluto in Libra in the twelfth.

Today I am in Vienna, Austria, a place I typically cherish. Yet this time we arrive to wet, unseasonably cold and dreary weather and an impersonal feeling Airbnb apartment filled with minimalist Ikea furnishings. Our apartment lacks all warmth and soulfulness, I brought all the wrong clothes, I miss my dog, Magnus, and my body hurts from the uncomfortable furniture that makes it hard for me to work – or do anything. A metaphor for life, travel is rife with suffering, discomfort, extreme fatigue, inconvenience and time sinks.

Still, I am lucky; my husband travels a lot, so I choose my trips. A girlfriend asked me what I do everyday while he works. I prefer to avoid touristy crowds. I do mundane, everyday things that I do at home. I become absorbed in daily life, but this time with the fresh eyes of a traveler. I walk a lot. I look in boutique windows. I ride the underground, and shop for provisions in open-air markets. I smile when I come across a sight that I’d never encountered before: A whole shop devoted to colorful handmade peppermills (and that at first glance resemble something else). A dog so small I could fit it in my pocket. We play with, stumble through, and marvel at the language. Our Austrian friend, who has lived here lifelong, tells us there is a bastard word that translates as: “this person was conceived by two people who had sex on a park bench”. He says his (progressive) 75 years-young mother just taught him this word. We laugh.

Regular readers know I love Vienna. All 3 of my books were either written or have their origins in this place so I’ve come to think of it as inspirational, magical – my muse – and have even questioned whether I’m actually a European at heart. Yearly, John and I (who share a composite ninth house Leo Sun) have rekindled our romance here. Together, we’ve made this journey 9 times over the past 9 years, for week and months-long stretches… so for all these reasons and more I didn’t expect to feel adrift, listless, and frankly, done. Not now. The pleasures that once called my name with their intrigues, the cakes, coffees, museums and shops, suddenly feel empty. I notice how little things have changed here over the years and, instead of being charmed as usual, this fact feels provincial and oppressive. I grow confused. Maybe the inconveniences of travel have finally outweighed its delights. Maybe this once unfamiliar Sagittarian journey has grown too familiar. I think about the number 9, the number of fruition, completion.

With its love for movement, variety and change, the Gemini season stimulates us to seek out new information, scenery, and this new information we gather is Gemini’s lifeblood, pumping new thoughts and perceptions into our Spirit. To engage Gemini, we do things that open our mind -like travel, get an astrology reading, read a new book, have a stimulating conversation or just step outside our door with the intention to learn or try something new. Gemini Sun’s pilgrim counterpart, the Sagittarius Moon, with its hunger for adventure and soul-broadening experiences, is a clever companion. Alone, Gemini Sun can scatter and spend experiences like Monopoly money, unconcerned for their wisdom, truth, but Sagittarius Moon prompts perspective: Yes, but what does this mean to your heart?

This Moon is Full in Sagittarius, sign of: journeys and journeyors, sitting on mountain tops and drinking from the dregs of life. Every time we follow our restless instinct to expand into the unfamiliar we engage Sagittarius. Yet a destination never guarantees certainty; that is why it’s called a journey. Where will we actually wind up? How will it turn out in the end? What will our heart learn, this time around? We just never know…And right now, we truly don’t know. Neptune wearily squares this Full Moon: Amidst our hunger for experiences, inexplicable feelings of dis-illusionment, dis-enchantment, sorrow, sadness, and loss may inextricably surface like a piece of driftwood from the sea of consciousness into our own. Neptune’s placement at this lunation suggests our consciousness is shifting in an area of our life, and we need to give our self stillness to simply be with and process the new information. Like watching a ship come into a foggy harbor, we are working with a level of uncertainty and unknowns, and like the ship, we, too, need to give our self a wide berth. We need to give our self space to accept and adapt to changing conditions. We may need to let go… of an old identity, a way of being, a place.

I have a thought that scares me to speak aloud, so I don’t: I don’t know if I want to come back, here, again. This place, of our honeymoon 9 years ago, this place that has nurtured our marriage, has been so sacred and integral to our identity as a couple that it feels sacrilegious to even think it. Neptune molts us, like my chickens do, annually, asks us to surrender our reliable feathers with only a teardrop of faith that downy new ones will re-grow. Seekers always look for gifts of personal meaning in every journey. I have been given a great privilege in being here, and I hope I have reciprocated this with all my heart -even as it changes. It has been a blessing to know Vienna, to have loved and been loved by her. So with wistful tears in my eyes, heart full of gratitude, I step outside the door. The weather has changed; it is sunny and warm now. People are drinking aperitifs on pop-up sidewalk cafes that weren’t here yesterday. I choose an unfamiliar street, and a natural foods grocer I’d not discovered in my other 9 times here magically appears. Things are looking up. That old familiar feeling returns: Vienna loves me. Vienna is my friend.

[image error]

My grandmother’s house had a certain smell. I’ve never identified it as say Chanel no. 5, which she had on her dressing table, yet it was just as much of a signature scent. A combination of Lily of the Valley, cedar and, likely, moth balls, every time I walked into her house this soothing scent was like baker’s vanilla to my soul, putting me at ease. When she died, I thought she would take this signature scent with her, but when I went back to help settle her house, which had been sitting there a year since she died, the painful final memories I had of her fighting her death with every ounce of life force she had left, which was not much by then, were erased by that glorious perfume, the same as I remembered. I loved her, and I loved her lingering smell for the physical, visceral way it brought her right back to me.

My grandmother had a Taurus Moon. Emotionally stubborn, like Bull, she obstinately refused to face many things in life (she was also an Aries). But she instantly put anyone at ease with her simple presence, easygoing nature, and her instinct toward material security, comfort and well-being.  Born in the mid-west, and like most people who survived the Great Depression, she had a common-sense attitude toward working for a living. Unlike nowadays, where it’s de rigueur to be jaded about our lowly post on any given totem pole and gripe about recognition or putting our true talent to use, she took great pride in her lifelong administrative position-  far less of a career track profession than a support role (though with the cocktail mixers she purportedly hosted, you might’ve thought she was assistant to the president of the USA). And from that humble position and wage she managed to save enough money to consistently supply my sister and I with much-anticipated presents at holidays, and take us to Disney World, twice (I still get excited when the UPS truck barrels down our street bearing gifts, as hopeful as I was as a child). For me, she was a stable peaceful presence, no, wait, the stable, peaceful presence in my life. She had a calming, steadying, reliable affect on me, and for others: When people in my life we’re losing it, when I was losing it, I could count on her to be basically the same. Taurus Moon people, and those with a number of Taurus planets, always seem to have that soothing something on hand. If I could bottle that soothing something, it would smell like my grandmother.

As such, I deeply appreciate when someone has that Midas touch – Taurean attunement to the comfort level of the physical, sensual body. And I notice when they do not. For instance, at a recent friend gathering a group of us sat on a deck watching the sun set. As the temperature dropped considerably, the chatty host (a Sagittarius), was impervious to our discomfort and did not notice chattering teeth, empty drinks, and the waning light that had us sitting in total darkness. Eventually we asked for blankets. Upon leaving, my Taurus Sun friend miserably exclaimed, ‘What was all that about?! (They) could have at least offered us a cup of tea!’

At today’s Taurus New Moon, we can take stock of how well we’re physically and materially doing. During this season we receive traction from: caring for our body, our material things, and attending to our basic animal needs. Responding to our body’s need to feel good by making time to sit in the Sun, listening to music, and eating whole foods can be that soothing something we’ve been missing. Do you have a soothing something on hand? What is it? Another Taurus Sun girlfriend is soothed by laying lizard-like on a sunny rock; for her birthday, she is asking not for presents from her friends, but rocks, which she will likely integrate into her peaceful garden sanctuary. Taurus energy is fertile, stabilizing, grounding. We can affirm for abundance & wellness during this New Moon – financial, material, relational and emotional. More fully inhabiting our physical body and earthly reality  ’grounds’ New Moon wishes.

The Taurus New Moon ushers in much-needed stabilizing, calming energy. To Aries’ flight from all common sense, Taurus New Moon invites you to return to your senses (or, as I like to imagine, Taurus Moon firmly hugs Aries and says, darling, it’s time to calm the f*** down). Like soldiers returning from war, after a month spent with Aries, we are war-torn and weary from stress, ready to return to our sensory body. This morning, from our hot tub, I savoured a moment of early morning listening: My neighbor’s seven-year-old was practicing violin. She’s getting better, too. No longer off-key & plucking at my irritation, now she’s plucking at my heart strings. As irritation gives way to appreciation, we’ll all notice this shift in our lives, too, and just like Marina on her violin, with practice, our rough edges can get some much needed soothing & smoothing. We can make the world a more blissful place by simply returning to our senses.

[image error]

This afternoon, while working in my home office, my dog, Magnus, who had been sitting quietly next to me, started barking like a wild man. I had heard a sound in the front yard, and frankly this isn’t unusual (we live amongst deer and other wild animals, and we always joke that he barks at ghosts) so I chose to ignore the barking. When he refused to be calmed, I got up, rounded the corner, and saw a woman in my living room about to ascend my staircase.

“You have a beautiful house,” she said. I recognised her as one of our neighbors, an extremely childlike adult (who had let herself into our front yard on a previous occasion because she wanted to pet, and then borrow, our chickens. I’d said no).”You’re not supposed to be here,” I replied. “Leave immediately.”  She apologised, and walked back out my front door.

After calling the police, I went to my ephemeris to look up the planetary declinations. She had acted as if she had every right to enter my house. She was, in effect Out of Bounds – also an astrological term we use to describe planets that reach an extreme declination, exceeding 23’28′ North or South, from the ecliptic. I had a hunch, and sure enough Venus in Cancer, currently at a declination of 26’02, is out of bounds all May -with 26’02′ being her highest declination. Cancer being, of course, the sign ruling home, hearth, women’s biology, women generally, domesticity… and lunacy.

Out of Bounds

Lawless. Refusing to play by the rules. Rule-breakers. Out of control. Gone wild. Breaking the mold. Shattering boundaries. Crossing explicit lines. This is how I’ve come to think of out of bound planets. Out of bounds planets refuse to play by the rules. One year, when the Moon was out of bounds, I recall a friend having decided she was going to get pregnant without her husband’s knowledge. We all cried “Foul play!” at the absurdity and unfair deception inherent to this act (she didn’t end up getting pregnant). I like using the metaphor of kick ball, the game you likely played in grade school. When someone accidentally kicks the ball out of bounds, everyone yells “out of bounds!”and it’s considered out of play by the consensus. But occasionally there is that one guy or gal who, full of chutzpah or an unwieldy and wild sense of freedom and daring, kicks it out of bounds, be damned the consequences. Wild, lawless, rebellious… that’s how an out of bounds planet behaves. And often how people who have out of bounds planets in their own chart behave, too.

Venus in Cancer, OOB

There’s not much information out there on out of bounds Venus. Astrologer Tony Howard is currently working on remedying that (and he has a nice initial article about that here).  In my real life example of Venus OOB, this woman walks, uninvited, into my house, tells me it’s beautiful and leaves when I ask her to. As trespasses go, rather civilized and gracious (Venus) don’t you think? Her partner then called to apologise and says that yesterday, being Mother’s Day, she had seen her family and this might’ve made her “a little too heady with freedom” (his words). He also said she’s mildly autistic, something I’d suspected. I told him I wasn’t trying to create tension but needed to put my foot down. He understood,  and said that I was justified in calling the police, as she’s had altercations like this before. So it’s all good in the neighborhood.

As far as predictions go, it strikes me that, Venus being Venus, during this OOB period people might do some crazy “out of bounds” things for love. One girlfriend is visiting psychics trying to find out when and where she will meet her soul mate He has been described to her by two independent psychics, in great detail, from his hobbies to where she will meet him. To do so, she has been told to attend a certain pancake breakfast and visit art galleries (can you say: Venus in Cancer?). Others may go crazy decorating their houses (an activity Venus in Cancer loves), or buying kitchen appliances, I imagine. Or baking inventive cupcakes. I’m now thinking of a certain bride-to-be who, over the past month, has “gone crazy” baking and inventing new cupcake combinations for her wedding – so much so that, as the officiant of her wedding, I’ve quietly suggested that she step away from her new standalone mixer and rest. Here’s her most recent status update: “I’ve gone completely mad: coconut cupcake filled with ginger mango chutney topped with a cardamom buttercream spiked with coconut rum and garnished with crystallized ginger.” Well, there you have it.

[image error]

P.S.: Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus and very rarely Jupiter, and sometimes Pluto, all go out of bounds. The Sun never does. to check and see if you have any OOB planets, look to the declinations section of your handy ephemeris, for your birth day.

The butterflies in your stomach before you go on stage. That feeling of anticipation right before you move cross-country, away from all you’ve known. The creative mania of those last days before you’re married. The day of your college SAT exam, nerves wracked and palms sweaty. The feeling in the pit of your gut as you wait for news that will ultimately change your life.

Welcome Scorpio energy. Scorpio is edgy. It is the raw, alive, stuff of life. It holds the visceral feeling of a high-stakes risk. With Scorpio, courage, in the face of fear, is implied. Scorpio charges the core fear we all face: our own death, and with that singular knowledge about our mortality we are released into our aliveness. So Scorpio plunges ahead. A high school boy asks out the girl he’s been crushing on for ages and, of course, he’s mortified by the act. The root word of mortified is “mors”, Latin for death. On questions involving psychological humiliation, big losses and equally big growth and rewards, Death always rides shotgun.

I spent a full year working with an EFT practitioner to help me face my fear of public speaking (which many fear more than death), but the spell didn’t actually break until I walked through this fire, in front of a video camera with no script, in a room full of strangers, for 7 minutes. My worst fear was happening. I was, for the first time ever, speechless. I could not only feel but I could see my own sweat dripping down onto the floor. The butterflies in my gut must’ve been competing for an Olympic medal.  I was humiliated. I felt like I was dying. And I was finally free. I cried all the way home, then woke up in the morning feeling brand new. As weeks and public interactions passed, I kept expecting the old acid taste in my throat and knot in my gut to creep back in. It didn’t. Instead, a new resolve had surfaced. I decided I cared more about taking care of myself than this fear — which had been so exhausting! Scorpio transformations are like this. You walk on that trigger edge to earn your stars and stripes. You pay for truth and wholeness, in blood, sweat and tears.

This Full Moon squares Jupiter in Leo, planet of possibility in the sign of speculation. Opportunity and adventure knock – though it may require nerves of steel. Are you in an edgy moment that has really high stakes for you? You’re having a Scorpio Full Moon moment. You could gamble away your fortune and life savings, or increase it tenfold. Your expedited passport request could arrive in time to make your overseas flight- or it may not, costing you thousands of dollars and lost time (true story). You could win the girl. Your pet may lose a battle with cancer (sadly, also a true story). Jupiter’s goal is to grant freedom into greater, greener pastures and death offers this, too. Sometimes we just don’t like his strategy.

As Jupiter straddles this full moon axis, a pivotal question is: What do you want right now? Fame? Success? Glory? Freedom? I have a friend whose dream is to be offered a yurt on a piece of land. She visualized and prayed on this and was recently offered exactly what she wished for. But it’s in France, her home is in the U.S., and she doesn’t want to uproot her life. Sometimes when the benevolent Universe answers our prayers, we have to adjust our expectations to them…and sometimes a greater freedom comes from saying no to a perfectly good offer that may’ve fit the person you used to be but doesn’t fit the person you are today.

By the light of the Scorpio Full Moon, and by the skin of our teeth, we are getting to know our truest desires. We are leaving old, fear-based patterns behind. We are taking risks, and that feels risky. We are transforming. Like butterflies. In honor of Buddha’s Enlightenment, which was said to have occurred at this Full Moon, a prayer: May you be free from suffering. May you experience good fortune. May you be happy. May you be loved. May you be free.

[image error]

The truism goes, you have to love your self before you can truly love another. Like most truisms that sound too simple to be true but have the gravity to change your life, this one hit home when I’d given the love I should’ve been giving to my self to another and wound up empty & unloved. I worked this one, mantra-like, throughout most of my twenties and thirties.

As I age, relationship truisms develop in subtlety. For instance, the idea that before we can be a “We” there must be an “I” – a Self.  This is very different from loving your self, recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, becoming a confident person with goals and vision for her life. What I’m talking about is being deeply and utterly Self- centered -and being okay with that. I mean really okay with it. In a way that (most) men are born and raised knowing but (many) women aren’t. After all, if we were lucky enough to have escaped being mistaken for a parent’s appendage in childhood, society will socialize us out of putting our Self first.

He may not appreciate me telling you this, but marriage to my partner has taught me oodles about the importance of becoming more Self-centered. After all, I married a Leo. My Leo is awesome at putting himself first. He is most excellent at taking care of his own needs, whether at the dinner table talking about his day, or having a “John Night” every Wednesday night, he will make sure his social and physical needs are met. At one point in our marriage, the point right before I realized I was putting he and his Lion’s Pride’s needs before my own, I became deeply unhappy. Angry. I would voice my anger, despair, and yet nothing would change. In fact, the more I insisted on my unhappiness, the more it reinforced his own insistence that he was perfectly happy and that my problem was my own. He couldn’t understand my frustration, he said. Why would he? I was meeting his needs; he was meeting his needs. For him, everything was working out brilliantly. As for me, I didn’t know how to put myself first.  I wasn’t brought up that way. I’ve got Libra Rising and a Cancer Sun, dubiously conjunct the South Node: I was brought up to compromise myself, to nurture others and sacrifice my own needs for them. I am still training myself that it’s okay to have a Self.

I remember when I realized the problems in my marriage didn’t stem from his selfishness but from my lack of Self. That was a moment I started viewing my partner as a teacher. At my a-ha moment, “John is great at being selfish, at doing exactly what I need to learn to do,” John ceased to be my enemy- the person who always got what he wanted, and John became my model teacher, the person who always got what he wanted. I realized I coveted the way he always got what he wanted, from me, from life. I admired his easygoing assumption that other people wanted to make him happy, and that when they didn’t value him he could let them know and set them straight. Of course living with your “teacher”, the person who is helping you learn one of your biggest life lessons, is a double-edged sword. He is so good at consistently reinforcing the fact that I need to meet his needs and put them first, I have to stay on my toes. I’ve had to cut him some slack. When his assumptions anger me, as they will, I remind myself: He is a privileged white man, and he is a Leo. I am sure he is learning what he needs to learn from me, too, but back and forth in our relationship, in different permutations and forms and in multiple ways, I get to experience firsthand that: One can have one’s needs, wants and desires met, but never at the expense of another. Never at the expense of our Self.

Here’s the thing: I am still married to the man I love. Even though I think we experienced a big crisis (of course it was small to him, because you see, nothing bothered him, being as madly in love with me as the day we first met), I did a lot of personal work, and in the end I became stronger. I began honouring my Self like I’d never done before.  Even though I blamed him at first, the healing process actually required very little from him (though he has been amazingly receptive about it all, listening, taking instruction and being open to doing what it takes to make me happy) because it was mostly about me and my relationship to my Self. I pondered couples counseling for awhile (moot, if you don’t have a Self). Marriage takes two people, each with a whole Self. The idea of fixing another person never appealed to me, anyhow. Maybe we can each do much more for our ailing partnerships by working on our own wounds and core issues.

Aries, and Mars, it’s ruling planet, hold the archetypes of selfhood. Mars and Aries gives us both the anger at being trespassed, and the courage to draw a boundary and stand up for our Self. We each have needs, wants, thoughts and desires that deserve honoring – no matter how inconvenient this is to others, and whether they like what we say, feel, want, or not. Are you feeling fired up at this New Moon? Rightly so. It’s a season of “me first”. In some area of our life, it’s time to courageously claim our voice, anger, right to exist.  No patience for the meek, with Mars/Aries you are either the hunter or the prey. Only the strong survive.

We rarely think of a relationship as a battleground for Self-hood, but for many women living in a patriarchy, even if we do not consciously recognise it, it’s what marriage becomes. Through love and adversity, my marriage has made me stronger. It has also forever shaped the way I see gender roles. I have learned that when I Self-diminish, put my Self down, refrain from using my authentic voice, from asking for what I want, desire and need, it is not because I want to, but because as a woman I have been taught, reinforced by culture and sometimes by my partner, to do this. Aries New Moon points to new ground to break, victories to be won. Where does this new moon fall in your chart? This is where you are ready to experience a victory. This lunation falls in my seventh house of marriage and mutual, democratic partnerships, and this is where I am celebrating my biggest Aries victory, to date: Having a substantial Self.

[image error]

In the Swedish movie Force Majeure, Ebba, Tomas and their children are vacationing in the Alps one morning when, while sitting at breakfast on the viewing deck, a controlled avalanche gets a little too close for comfort. Tomas reassures everyone that it is not heading for their breakfast table but Ebba is not so sure. Indeed the blustery mayhem closes in, and as Ebba grabs their two children she looks to her teammate for help. But Tomas, in a moment of instinctual self-preservation, has fled without them (though, as we later learn, he did have the presence of mind to remember to grab his iPhone). While the avalanche is a near miss, the crisis has deep repercussions for the marriage.

Ebba’s body language, now brisk, robotic with unexpressed resentment, looms large when a clueless Tomas asks, and Ebba insists, “Nothing is wrong.” At a dinner with new acquaintances, Ebba, drinking wine and laughing inappropriately, attempting to disguise her horror about the day’s events yet unable to honestly confront Tomas about her true feelings of betrayal, retells the story as their dinner companions grow visibly uncomfortable. Tomas, who does not share Ebba’s perception of events, listens on in shock. Afterwards, both try to stuff the awkward experience back into the nothingness from whence it came, to return to normalcy, but their coping mechanisms are failing. Ebba cannot turn a blind eye to Tomas’ cowardice and extricates punishment in the cruel ways couples can do; eventually Tomas’ sees his own shortcomings, too, but it becomes clear that the shame of admitting so cuts to the bone of his identity. Pandora’s box has been opened. Trauma can do that. The rest of the movie shows the two in a controlled avalanche of psychological proportions- the urge for emotional honesty and transparency constantly being check-mated by their Libran habit of avoiding direct confrontation, difficulty with expressing honest feelings, and need to keep up appearances.

In love, we learn to sidestep landmines, gild honesty with sweetness, and mediate conflict with kindness because often that’s what keeps relationship running smoothly. Ironically, the same things we do to protect our relationship can also hurt it.  It’s the ultimate irony of Libra. Because there are 7 billion people in the world, and exponential needs, differences and desires within every single being, we learn that agreeing to perceptions not wholly shared by our self is a legitimate strategy -for what is relationship if not a marriage of two entirely different views of reality? Sometimes, though, a Force Majeure - a moment of superior and irresistible force; sometimes likened to an act of God- lays the failings of our person, or our relationship, bare, and try as we might we cannot put that knowledge back. At this point, it’s our self-honesty, no matter how untested by the light of day, biased or even wholly inaccurate (according to the other), that can bridge the differences between us.

This is a difficult lunation. Uranus and Pluto closely square Libra Moon and Aries Sun, plus, it’s an Eclipse. Crisis is hard on Libra, whose endpoint is peace and calm. But when, like Ebba and Tomas, the price of keeping things copasetic turns out to be our liberty and love, when our authenticity (Uranus) and defense strategies (Pluto) become so untenably frozen, we are forced to meet Medusa head on, to finally engage the monstrous thing keeping us locked in unconscious shadowboxing, and from which we cannot turn away.

These moments call for a healthy amount of Aries directness, a ballsy willingness to risk everything for truth-to-self honesty – even those peace-loving Libra strategies our relationships we rely upon to help things run smoothly. Truth is difficult for us to express precisely because it threatens to topple a cherished illusion. Maybe we want to think our relationship is immune to the fallout of misfortune. Maybe we need to release (or fall from) the almighty Libran pedestal, that idealistic place that denies shadow, anger, unmet needs, dashed expectations, disappointment - in short, our humanness. Maybe we believe we are protecting our partner from pain and confusion by holding back the true feelings of our experience, hand holding and cosseting their ego instead. In the end, though, it’s always our humanity and our truth that sets us both free.

Through the Uranus-Pluto years I’ve witnessed some relationships falter, some fail, and others trudge through the trenches. Those that fare better than average are democratic, not totalitarian, at heart and share the following: Humility - willingness to admit our human failings. Empathy - an ability to walk in another’s shoes. Trust - do we trust them with our life? Respect- we honor their perspective, even when we don’t share it. And Love. No mere frosting on the wedding cake, when both partners possess these traits they are so resilient that the strongest storm couldn’t knock them down for long.

Relationship is a lesson in paradox, in holding two radically different realities, with love. Can we disagree without making the other person wrong? Is our relationship a democracy, founded on mutual respect, empathy, humility, trust and love? Can we mine our breaking points for breakthroughs? Can we commit to doing psychological work on our shadow and wounds - and can we embrace the freeing wholeness we discover there, especially when what we see is not pretty, nice or consistent with our self image? Those are questions for this Full Moon Eclipse. Our liberty, and maybe even our love, hangs in the balance.

[image error]

What stimulates your connection to spiritual consciousness? How do you receive guidance? Mercury has often played the star role in the messages I receive, often while driving, walking, writing and sometimes involving books. When I’m working on a reading and feeling I’m missing a thread that would pull it all together, I will silently ask for guidance. I get in the car, and a show on NPR gives me the missing link. Or I’ll walk to my bookshelf, allow my intuition to guide me to the right book, where the page will neatly land on the exact message I need to hear. Often, when I’m on the phone with a client, in answer to what’s being said on the other line, one of us will hear sirens, howling dogs, or the chicken outside my window will start loudly cluck-clucking. Or the time when I decided to write a mission statement for my astrological practice and later, I received generous feedback on the reading I did prior, the feedback mirroring my intentional statement almost word for word. I connect synchronicity to Mercury, but also Pisces and it’s planet, Neptune, conduits of consciousness.

Angular in my solar return chart for several years now, though, lately Neptune has been my teacher. Unlike Mercury’s preferred medium of language and motion, I’ve learned that Neptunian synchronicity arrives after great lulls of stillness and silence from the external world, after swaths of time where we are confused or convinced nothing is happening. Both archetypes require attentiveness and presence. In Mercury’s Mystery school, Spirit, poised and ready for our question, answers through language, the immediate environment, thoughts, conversation, words. In Neptune’s Mystery school, we are in the school of not knowing. We are matriculating in faith, trust and surrender.

We’ve all had experiences of not knowing, times of learning to walk in faith. A dear friend has Pisces North Node in her sixth house, and a mysterious illness that no one can figure out. Over the years, I’ve watched her Virgo South Node work overtime to try and fix, solve and get answers around her body. And I’ve watched her (in part, due to Neptune transits), ever so slowly and gradually, get better at letting go, better at not knowing why this is happening to her and for how long, not knowing when it will change. This kind of surrender is different from giving up. She is still alert for, and is open to, help. But when she’s okay with not knowing, she’s calmer, saner, peaceful and gentler on herself.

Neptune requires us to forge a relationship with faith, with total and absolute trust in situations where we just don’t know. In this same vein, when we surrender to not knowing, to having little or no control, we get better at being with all of life’s unknowns. To do this, it helps to align with Neptune: dreams, nature, intuition, art – though deciphering symbolic messages isn’t straightforward. Like reading a poem or interpreting an dream, instead of entering through the doorway of logic, we enter through the window of wide-open perception where one thing could stand for something else. Dreamwork is one way to connect with this consciousness field, and grow your relationship to Neptune. In the TMA article, Myth and Dreams, Arielle Gutmann said after experiencing a dream, the ancients typically made an offering to the dreaming god Asklepius by taking action. “If you dream of an old friend, call her. If you dream of an unhappy time from your childhood, allow yourself to meditate…feel the grief, sadness, loss.” To foster connection to Spirit, I once started a Goddess Jar. For every healing dream, synchronicity, or angelic aid, on a small piece of paper I wrote a little thank you note and drop it into a blue Ball Jar on my desk, in hope that by honoring the gods, I’d keep the connection to magic, open.

The Moon is New, in Pisces. It’s a Solar Eclipse. Magic is afoot. As the fishes swim one way, we may be given the opportunity to gain more awareness around our own secret hidden self-undoing. As the fishes swim the other way, if we can place our trust intuition over logic and surrender any notions of the way things should be versus how they actually are, we gain spiritual maturity and a new way of being and seeing. Pisces/Neptune magic is not all smoke and mirrors and psychics; it is accessible by working on our consciousness. During this New Moon period, set an intention to: listen to the world channel, your dream world, collude with magic. We’ve all had experiences where  -often when we least expect it, when we aren’t actively striving for an answer – a moment of lucid and clear consciousness changes our perception entirely.  In those moments we let old ways of clinging to logic and our illusions go. We clear the way for fresh ways of being. Tired old logic is flimsy and insubstantial when we’re riding on the back of Poseidon’s dolphins.

[image error]

Most of us are born into lives with teachers (also known as parents) who are really good at imparting lessons we most need to learn. My mother was a Virgo with a tenth house Sun. With a placement like that you would’ve thought she’d be running an organization, or heading up a service non-profit. The tenth house is the house of “calling”, contribution on a large scale; tenth house planets have big ambitions… and planets here need a high level of development to step into such big shoes.

My mom did spend a period working with the developmentally disabled, but ultimately she did not have an easy time finding her calling in the world and eventually succumbed to a mysterious debilitating condition I can only call a failure to thrive. The exacting standards you’d expect of a Virgo Sun turned into paralyzing procrastination. Odd jobs would be drummed up, kids picked up from school and bills would get paid -when she got around to it. I now believe she was a closeted perfectionist who had set such impossibly high standards for her life that at a certain point, in her case a fatal tipping point, the mountain of infinite potentialities imploded into inaction. Focusing on the inadequacies around her, where situations and people fell short, she refused to critically address the details of what it takes to build a functional life. By the time she died, her life, her choices, no longer made sense to those who loved her.

I’ve been arm-wrestling lately with the demon of not being good enough. I’ve created this life, this career, and this person named Jessica Shepherd looks really convincing. But sometimes it feels like an act, a farce. Sometimes the fear, of not hitting all the right notes in a chart reading, of not delivering my very personal best, of not measuring up to my teachers -and all the many talented astrologers out there who have said everything there is to say, and often better than I have, overwhelms me.

Those are not my better days. They create writer’s block. They have me feeling inordinately nervous before a presentation. I want to pull my turtle head under my turtle shell and call the whole thing off. These thoughts work against the very principle that has over time earned me a place at the table, that feeling of allowing passion, curiosity and excitement to lead me where it may. Knowing I was not ready, but also that I’d never be truly ready or confident or secure enough. I trusted that the desire and impulse to follow what called my name was holy, and that if I weren’t meant to be at said table I would be tapped on the shoulder and quietly asked to leave. Until that moment, I decided back then, I would keep moving ahead.

I suppose, in a backwards way, my mother taught me the perils of perfectionism. I learned, early on, that the day of feeling “good enough” may indeed never come… and that “waiting” could be a way of opting out of life with it’s complexity, overwhelm, insecurity and messiness.

Perfectionism can be debilitating, paralyzing. Getting it right, says Julia Cameron, fixing it before I go any further. You may call it having standards. What you should be calling it is perfectionism… Perfectionism refuses to move forward. Like waiting until we’re assured of success or financial security before pursuing our dreams, perfectionism, accepting nothing less than excellence, gets us nowhere fast.

This Virgo Full Moon asks: Is your desire for a guarantee, your fear of not being good enough, your “high standards”-your perfectionism holding you back from taking action in your life? Chiron joins the Pisces Sun, near Neptune, circulating feelings of inadequacy, chaos, overwhelm, and potentially the feeling that we are cut off from Spirit, we are alone. Chiron is aligned with the negative stories we tell our self, about our self, that our life is particularly unfair, that other people’s lives are better, stories that perpetuate our own suffering. Watch out for those stories right now.

These are not easy days. The Uranus-Pluto square is exact on my Moon, creating emotional unrest; for every hydra I slay, three more grow in its place. For all, the square is forcing us to look into our shadow, to heal our wounds to claim freedom. It’s a big, sometimes God-awful, job. As with any battle where personal liberty is at stake (Uranus in Aries), some soldiers will fall. At this Full Moon, to curb potential overwhelm and subsequent passivity, I suggest steeping in the simple wisdom of Virgo’s work ethic: Take one small step, then another. Cross two things off on your to-do list, today. If you feel you’re treading water, imagine all the canvases Van Gogh cut his teeth on before Sunflowers (try Google-ing “bad art by great artists” -you will feel better). Show up. Do what you do… until a consensus tells you to stop. And take comfort: Whether working on our self, an astrology reading or writing a book, the work of our life is never complete, or perfect. We just get better at learning to let it go.

As “lucky in love” (Venus trine Jupiter) and “out of the blue windfalls” (Jupiter trine Uranus) aspects alight the planetary skies right now, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement. Whereas astrology has no shortage of excruciating longer transit (read: outer planets) that last years, or next to forever, if I had one gripe to bring up to the Creator it’s that those lovely, expansive transits, usually belonging to Venus, Jupiter, are far too fleeting. But, like a holiday that arrives once a year, we must train our selves to look forward to them. As a health coaching client said to me recently, “half my pleasure (of eating treats) is the anticipation, the build up.”

I’m all for stretching our bandwidth for pleasure with anticipation. Wise lady.

I’ve been reading the intrawebs.  Fortune, love, amazing windfalls and opportunities are predicted. And, according to the astrological laws of probability, yes, some lucky people will arrive at the end of this week wealthier, love-lier and feeling more fortunate, blessed and expanded, spiritually, at least if not materially. Yet there’s an underlying belief circulating out there, an all too common one, that all we have to do is have planets around 15 degrees, then wait: For our prince to arrive, the contract to come in the mail, the VIP to finally recognize just how special our work is, the lottery to call our number. It’s as if we’re continually waiting for a celestial package to arrive in the mail with our name on it. Some people live their lives this way. Those clients, for instance, who book an astrology reading and the information delivered never leaves the consulting room because that would require co-participation, active reflection and entering into a process or dialogue with different self parts and inner conflicts (which is, in my opinion, the real gem of astrology). Instead, waiting for the astrologer to succinctly and precisely “nail it” they miss the real magic- the juice of allowing the information offered to inform their own imagination with new possibilities, and get this: with possibilities that only they, their self, can truly know. If astrology were all about sitting back, waiting for the astrologer to have all the answers, how ever would we grow?

I had a very nice lady recently write me, after buying my Venus Signs book and reading through her Venus in Virgo description, to kindly tell me that she doesn’t identify with her Venus sign. She was being sincere, and she was very sweet about it: “I know you’re a sensitive Cancer, so I don’t want you to take this the wrong way…but (enter advice here).” Ironically, do you hear Venus in Virgo here, ever-willing to offer up a honey-coated piece of constructive criticism? I didn’t take it the wrong way, and I empathised. Unfortunately, she’s not alone. Many others have wondered: “Could my so-called scintilliating, sexy Venus in (fill in the blank) belong to someone else?” Venus, the Goddess of 50/50, is a planet we need to learn to meet halfway. She is not the Sun in our chart, instantly rising every day without fail. She has cycles; Venus remains part of the year in the underworld (our hidden self). If we want her, in us, to resemble something more than a shadowy cliché from astrology textbooks, we need to teach ourselves to read between the lines, to imagine our self into Her. Venus needs co-participation and cooperation, from our inner life and our imagination.

Which brings me back to the Jupiter-Venus-Uranus trifecta (and let’s not forget Pluto square Venus). We are far better at asking Venus (and Jupiter) to fill our basket with goodies than asking what we can do for them. Venus asks: What have you done for me, lately? Start here: How long have you been putting off pleasure and fun for a rainy day? How many times have you chosen work and caring for others over noodling around with a hobby, taking a play date or having sex with your partner? How long has it been since you rested as a spiritual act- in order to restore your Venus spring? How long has it been since you’ve connected with supportive allies for your art? In your search for love, are you allowing the motives and values of your Venus sign to inform your choice in partners -or are you allowing the chips to fall where they may? This stuff doesn’t happen automatically. Venus needs our commitment. Further, archetypes must be lived, one way or another, and whether you think your Venus is asleep or estranged, trust me, you are still living your Venus. If you’re not living in the conscious light of your Venus, you are living in her shadows (your Venus sign’s shadow traits, behaviors). And that’s just not a fun way to live.

I do believe positive expectancy, intention, timing and magic influence the outcomes of just about everything in life. I once spied Jupiter coming down the pike of my Ascendant, to join the Node and trine transiting Neptune in my fifth house.  For months in advance, I was so excited (anticipation is the better part of pleasure, right?). Convinced I was about to “get lucky” I bought lottery tickets and placed my bets on finding love. I did. I won a trip to Hawaii and found the love of my life. I’m so glad astrology alerted me to this potential opportunity, but no astrologer told me this would happen. This transit could’ve gone many different ways. Only I knew my personal readiness. I had worked hard on my self in those months leading up to August 2005. I had made new choices; I made sacrifices to do spiritual and inner work. I used my imagination in ways I had never used it before. I loved myself up. I dated myself. I nurtured my Venus, my personal well of abundance, imagination, creativity, self-love and healing (my Venus is also in Cancer). I stopped dating injured mama’s boys who didn’t care about me and started looking for kindness and compassion in my men, Venus in Cancer values. And as an afterthought, I leaned into the higher than average astrological probability of a personal renaissance during this time period and imagined my luck to occur in the best possible way.

This is the week to think about the condition of your Venus. Whether you’re looking for love, money, a spicier sex life, or a more embodied Venus, you need to (and I mean this in the most compassionate and loving way) get off the couch.  We may look to Jupiter, the cosmic Santa Claus, to deliver goodies every once in awhile, but it’s us humans who chronically underestimate and overlook what we can do for our Venus -and our chart.

[image error]

image: Herbert James Draper, Woman Making Potpourri