Jessica Shepherd's Blog, page 29

We have two New Moons in Aquarius this year, an oddity for this oddball sign. This New Moon falls at practically the very last millisecond before the Sun enters Pisces. These are two very different signs holding very different realms of experience. Yet each connect to the other, through two archetypes: the Victim and Rebel, two energy patterns I’ve been exploring in excruciating detail in my own life, thanks to hardball Uranus-Pluto transiting my Aries Moon.

The Rebel needs oppression, something or someone (aka the Tyrant) that limits our personhood and freedom, to spring to life. Boundary violations trigger the Rebel; so can injustice, dishonor, disrespect. The James Dean that lives inside each of us, The Rebel -and the anger, injustice and intolerance it generates- can save us from situations and people that ultimately hurt us. A friend, spouse, job, our parents or marriage can turn into the Tyrant, our freedom-stealing jailer, from which we must break away from to claim our authenticity and selfhood. But sometimes the Rebel, nursed too long on injustice and a sense of disempowerment, becomes an Extremist. Like a terrorist hi-jacking our emotional life, and using anger and outrage to generate energy and protect our self from what was once a perceived threat but is now only an echo of that threat, we can get used to outrage as a way of life. Stay in Rebel too long and instead of forward-moving energy, our reaction to personal affront creates a false similar, feeding our Ego, draining our adrenals and life force faster than a cup of coffee.

The Victim is the archetype made up of dis-spirited attitudes, often arising from disempowering situations. “No one cares.” “I’m an alien in this strange world.” “I’m invisible.” “I don’t matter.” “I’m the victim of a system or XYZ -that won’t change.” The hungry, the sick, wounded, weak are easy to recognise, here, those who deserve our compassion. It’s sexier to be the Rebel, of course.  America loves Rebels; our country was founded on rebellion, so has a clear preference for the Revolutionary, Exile and Outcast – variations in the same Aquarian tribe. The last thing The Rebel wants to be is The Victim, but there they are, sitting side-by-side on the zodiac wheel, and in our psyches. Martin Luther King Jr. had the voice of a Rebel (Mercury in Aquarius) but with Venus and Moon in Pisces, the rabbit hole of disempowerment was one of the many choices within his reach.

Our emotions can control us, limiting our freedom and our ability to take action in our lives, in invisible ways. I remember one profound moment I made the decision to move from Victim to Rebel. I was twenty years old. I had been unable to work, go to school or do much of anything for two years, and (with the help of astrology) began connecting the dots of my inability to heal to dysfunctional, codependent family dynamics, I rebelled. I got angry, mostly with my mother, but my wrath was indiscriminate for awhile. It was a great survival strategy, a solid decision. I needed to rise up against my oppressors. But The Rebel cannot go on like this forever without burning itself out in a fiery flame, and everyone and everything it touches. Eventually I had to change – to soften, forgive and find balance.

Look around your world: Do you surround your self with Victims or Rebels? How is your relationship to them serving you?  Can you identify The Victim and The Rebel in your emotional attitudes, and at work in your life? We certainly need more conscious, empowered Rebels right now (not angry Extremists). And we need to look at all the whys and hows of our inner Victim. How these attitudes run like a forgotten computer program in the back of our mind, influencing us. Why we refuse to find a constructive use for our emotions and circumstances, choosing to complain, feel hopeless, lost, weak and defeated instead. The Sun may be diving directly into the waters of consciousness, Pisces, but this second Aquarius New Moon can help us truthfully pinpoint stagnation in our lives, those habitual emotional patterns that keep us from freedom and empowerment (Uranus-Pluto). Which is why, I imagine, the Universe thought we could use two.

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image source: rebelology.com.au

The newest love of my life is named Magnus. Magnus is a dog – a puppy, to be precise.

This morning, far away from the cuddles and licks I’m greeted with every morning in my own bed, I am missing Magnus and our morning ritual. 1. Magnus, patiently waiting for me to rouse from sleep, then joyously, eagerly bouncing around the bed like a fox bouncing through deep fluffy snow 2. Followed by copious licks, cuddles and kisses 3. Then, Let’s eat breakfast, Mom! He ignores the puppy chow and awaits fresh, buttery scrambled eggs -divided by two. So I scroll through Facebook. Even the video of the cat caught in a mechanical spring, freed by a strong fireman who turned out to be more tender than tough didn’t do it. My next plan of attack was to cajole John back into bed. For a few minutes that worked. Magnus is still not here.

I’m in paradise, Hawaii, feeling sad. But my heart is so. full. Since becoming my constant companion and supplier of playfulness and cuteness, my emotional well-being has improved immeasurably. He is, by all accounts, my emotional support dog. When I’m anxious, he soothes me. When I’m lonely, he’s there. When I need a receptacle for my overwhelming love, Magnus.

I cannot imagine this transit of Uranus, and now Pluto, to my sixth house (incidentally the house of pets) Moon without him. Magnus has taught me the power of unconditional love (which is the territory of the Moon) in only ways that animals can. He pees on my carpet: I’m mad for a second… then let it go. It’s storming outside, I’m tired, I don’t feel like moving and I have to take him out for a pee paus (paus, we learned in Sweden, means break) and I don’t begrudge him one iota. For our pets, we have no expectations and oodles of forgiveness. If only we humans could love each other so unconditionally.

I’ve been interviewed a lot lately, and asked why I write about love. Attempting to verbalize why I write about love is a little like asking a bird why it flies. Why does something so natural even require explanation? I love. I need love. Love is what we are. Love is behind everything we are. Like the stars and planets surrounding us. In the way the Moon cradles the Earth, her gentle orbit holding the ocean tides accountable. Love is the gravity that holds us here, through its loss, confusion and redemption. Love periodically transforms and heals us.

It’s Valentine’s Day. The subject is love, but really, it’s about connection. You don’t have to be in a relationship to appreciate that it’s important. Why? Love makes you a bigger person. In A Love Alchemist’s Notebook, I wrote: “To become a spiritually larger, self-actualized, more magnificent individual who is capable of living her dreams, you’ve simply got to be loved. We know this is true because we can feel this truth residing deep within our hearts. An inner knowing lets us know when we’re feeling unloved: when we’re with the wrong partner, we begin moving away from our self-knowledge, our wisdom, our dreams, and our authentic power.” As a person who has received benefits and pain from loving others, I still stand by this statement. I’m not alone. In her book of short stories, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Anne Patchett writes about the one piece of advice that took years for her to understand. Unsure whether to leave a relationship, a woman asked her: Does he make you a better person?  Seeing her bewilderment, she continued: You know, does he make you a better writer, a better friend? To Anne, in one of those “it’s complicated” marriages, this question seemed utterly beside the point. Eventually, after finding someone who did just that, she realized, it was the entire point.

I do not believe it’s necessary to have a relationship with a romantic partner to be happy. However, my heart says if you want to be the kind of soul happy that hums to the beat of the celestial Wow, you probably need to have a tender, loving, devoted relationship to someone or something other than yourself. Why? You will be immeasurably enriched by this contact. It/they will make you a bigger and better person. Life partners are awesome conduits of this amazing all-encompassing field of connection, but so are best friends, sisters, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sons, grandpas, gurus, gardens, horses… Whether it’s making the best apple butter, growing the most magnificent roses or nurturing greatness in others, there’s nothing holier than the experience of stepping outside your self and communing in that energy field we call love.  Plus, unlike careers or money, it’s one of the few things you can take with you.

This Valentine’s Day, give the devotion of your heart to something or someone who moves you in a way that nothing else does. Strip Valentine’s Day of its shadowy, hokey marketing agenda, and pare it down into something far more essential and holy for you. We all know how to do this. To paraphrase Mary Oliver, just allow the wild animal of your heart love what it loves. For guidance, look to the Moon in your birth chart to more deeply contemplate the source of what will bring you enduring happiness in life. Look to Venus to become more aware of the values preferences and desires that motivate feelings of connection, joy and love -just for you. Connect with your garden, your art, your music. If you’re wondering whether you are with the right person, ask: Do they make me a bigger, better person?

This is love, to me, in no particular order. Magnus. John. My family. My tribe. Nature. Astrology. Writing- to you. Love comes so naturally that it arrives like rain and my heart leaps rejoicing in the recognition that what most matters is ever-present. This.

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As a writer, I’ve always been inspired by song lyrics. The writing many of us enjoy reading often has a special lyricism to it, and I aim for a similar sort of harmony and symmetry in my own work. If a piece feels off-balance, or it can be made more lovely through the use of another word or expression, I try my best to correct it. Writing, for me, feels like craftsmanship.

The process of writing Venus Signs felt particularly musical. I channeled or downloaded a lot of it  -maybe from Venus herself -there’s no other way I can explain the proliferation of words, images rushing through my fingertips to make music with words. So naturally I wanted to hear music for each Venus sign, and it was so. much. fun. when these songs found their way to me. Here’s a secret: These songs were actually in the original unpublished manuscript, but my editors took them out because everyone’s musical tastes are different, and they didn’t want my preferences to turn people off.

I get it, and it’s a funny little Venusian quandry. When sharing these songs with a Venus in Sag friend, she had a completely different playlist in her mind for each of the signs (my Venus is in Cancer and so our Venus’ form a quincunx, an aspect of disharmony -of course our tastes, preferences and likes are different!). Different strokes for different folks, right? Anyhow, I thought a little explanation into my thinking might help every Venus sign at least understand the value of my musical choices. Your Venus is still free to disagree with my Venus, of course.

Venus in Aries

There’s something wistful about Venus in Aries, even though it’s a very passionate, independent, direct sign. We all yearn to be with our lover and Venus in Aries folks often face their fair share of false starts in love. The Aries push-pull between independence and togetherness is captured by the sense of separation from her lover in this song. Then there’s the pornography reference. LOL. Can you say Mars-ruled Venus sign? Venus in Aries needs their sex fix.

“…I’m watching porn

In my hotel dressing gown

Now I dream of you

But I still believe

There’s only enough for one in this

Lonely hotel suite…”

Venus in Taurus

Soul/funk is primal, sensual, in-the-body sexy and that’s Taurus. Listen to those beats. This song never fails to turn me on, and makes me want to dance like the Earth Goddess herself. Plus, for Taurus, you MUST find a song with at least one ambiguous reference to food/sex. At least that was my personal goal for this Venus sign song.

“You got that honey, you running from me

You really turn me on

You got that honey, stop acting funny

You really turn me on…”

Venus in Gemini

Classic Gemini: I’m in love with you/I’m not in love with you. I’m in love with you for the moment. Can you just be with me in the moment? Or can you not handle it? Don’t fall apart if I don’t love you tomorrow, because I may not love you tomorrow. I have never, in all my professional Venus song-searching experience, come across a more perfect song this Venus.

“I am in love with you…yeah,

At least for the moment.”

Venus in Cancer

An homage to my own Venus sign. Home is where I want to be, but I guess I’m already there. Venus in Cancer is always searching for home, and finds it in her beloved, a partnership of sharing and caring. Never for money, always love. Always. For. Love. This song never fails to bring tears to my eyes, which is always a good gage of heart-full authenticity for Cancer.

“…And you’re standing here beside me

I love the passing of time

Never for money

Always for love

Cover up say goodnight, say goodnight…”

Venus in Leo

Leo is the sign of royalty, artists and LOVERS, and yet is a very playful, spontaneous, childlike, fun-loving Venus sign- which this song captures beautifully. Leo is also a ROCK STAR and in the video Devandra plays the non-chalant lover/rockstar well. Can you say hair band? Dig all those beautiful lion manes (Leo).

“Well I-I, I wanna be your lover

I wanna be your man

I want you to understand

And I-I, I wanna open your door

And love you ’til you’re sore…”

Venus in Virgo

This song expresses the humility and (sometimes) humiliating shame Virgo has at being less than perfect in her own eyes. There’s a touch of masochism to this song, too, which reminds me of the tendencies of both Virgo and Pisces to slay their own hearts on the altar of love. Ultimately, though, spiritual surrender (Pisces) proves sweet for overwrought Virgo.

“you take me in

no questions asked

you strip away the ugliness

that surrounds me

are you an angel?

am I already that gone?

I only hope

that I won’t disappoint you

when I’m down here

on my knees…”

Venus in Libra

Venus in Libra is an idealist when it comes to love. She believes in storybook weddings, fairytales, princes and princesses. She’s been planning her wedding since birth. Enter Taylor Swift who beautifully captures the heightened romantic idealism of Libra, and the overwhelming feeling that my life would be so much better if you were in it (and vice versa).

Venus in Scorpio

This song is sexy, and may seem understated – at first. Listen closely. Beth Orton essentially starts the song at the morning after a night spent with her lover (with the smell and taste of sex still lingering), then proceeds to tell us how she is not going to hold onto the moment but allow it to be what it is, even as “everything and nothing is as sacred as we want it to be.” Scorpio can struggle with control and attachments, but this song demonstrates high Scorpio: letting go.

In the video, I love how she changes dresses mid-way (Scorpio!).

“Running down a central reservation in last night’s red dress,

I can still smell you on my fingers and taste you on my breath…”

Venus in Sagittarius

A no-brainer here, this song is 100% Sagittarius. Train was channeling this restless, growth-oriented and expansive Venus sign (and the perpetual bachelor or bachelorette, the one who is classically hard to pin down, in love) when they wrote/sang Drops of Jupiter.

“But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?

Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day

And head back to the Milky Way?

And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?

Was it everything you wanted to find?

And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?…”

Venus in Capricorn

Capricorn Venus gets a bad rap in old astrology books because of dour Saturn’s rulership, but more often than loneliness it brings permanence, commitment, unwavering and lifelong support from mates in the face of this hard life on Earth. I think of the Venus in Capricorn people I know who are in a steady-eddy relationship, whose love doesn’t appear glamorous at first glance, but their partnership grounds and supports them through: crying quintuplets, emergencies, bad weather, ageing, disease. How lucky they are. They must be smiling underneath.

“I don’t mind spilling my hot sauce onto my white shirt

I don’t mind the twinge when I walk in that knee that I hurt

I don’t mind if my gums peeling back or my hair getting thin

Long as I’m with you I win, long as I’m with you…”

Venus in Aquarius

Original and unique, like no one we’ve ever known before- that’s our Venus in Aquarius. But to add to this, Edwin sings about the sense of alienation and differentness he feels in his own hometown – until his Girl (undoubtedly a Venus in Aquarius) comes along to shake things up. I also love the mod-ish electric-techno vibe of the song which feels futuristic (Aquarius).

“Never known a girl like you before

This old town’s changed so much

Don’t feel like I belong

Too many protest singers

Not enough protest songs

And now you’ve come along…”

Venus in Pisces

Oh, Pisces. You give so much. You love so big. You know it, we know it. Even though your best friend (probably a Virgo) told you it wouldn’t work out, “a love like that won’t last” – and you didn’t believe us. You STILL gave all that you had to give. But you had an extraordinary love.

“I gave you all the love I got

I gave you more than I could give

I gave you love

I gave you all that I have inside

And you took my love

You took my love…”

Who in the hell d’you think you are? A super star? Well, right you are. – John Lennon

This weekend, I took a walk down the block to visit a new friend. She served me tea, peppered me with questions about myself and soon enough out my reindition of “How I Met My Husband” tumbled out, which quickly led to other topics like: manifestation, healing from past relationships, spirituality and more. A half hour into the conversation, she sat back and looked at me for a moment, genuflecting, “I don’t meet many people like you. Your self-trust and self-knowing seems to guide all your decisions and choices. I don’t have that sense of myself, and many other people I know don’t, either. We all want it – this makes you unique.”

Writing this, I cringe. It’s hard for me to accept praise. Plus, I’ve made plenty of decisions that weren’t in my own best interest, which is how I’m learning to make better choices. But learning to accept kudos and encouragement for the journey, to receive recognition and celebration, whether onstage or in an intimate conversation, seems essential to living fully and fearlessly.

We each have something unique to us, that makes us stand out from the crowd: A talent, a way of telling stories, a unique perspective on a subject… we each have Star power. If we feel estranged from our that power, we have may need to remember who we truly are. Leo has a strategy for self-remembrance and it involves recognition, praise, affection & fun. Imagine your self as a shy, timid child (not hard for me to imagine; I was one!) and how a few positive strokes from a teacher or parent would buoy your spirits, make you giddy with positive self-regard. How easy it is for a child, egged on by praise, affection and encouragement, to let loose, get stupid & just be their self. That’s Leo. Leo confidence is born of trust that the world is loving and good, and so are we. This sense of well-being allows us to risk showing up and sharing our true self. As adults, we’re never too old to be that kind of childlike. Confidence in our own nature is a clear, shining facet of the Leo/Aquarius axis – and the Star.

The Star card is one of my favorite cards in the Tarot, a card of talent and recognition, of the performer, artist and humanitarian. Often depicted as a beautiful woman pouring stars from the heavens down to humanity, according to Angeles Arrien, the Star is a card of self-sufficiency, of “looking within and trusting what is there.” This makes sense, because to shine we need to not only trust the world is a basically good and safe place to come out and play, but we must trust it’s okay to simply be our self. It sounds easy but it’s not always. Our Star power can be projected onto groups of friends who really aren’t our friends, depended upon from lovers, depleted by negative self-talk, held in abeyance by cultural and family conditioning. But this golden-ness is natural, in our nature, in the deepest sense of the word.

Aquarius Sun opposes this Leo Moon. Do your friends, generally, help you to feel special and loved? Deep down, do you know your friends are rooting for you and want you to shine? When our friends recognize our Divine essence, as both companion and cheerleader, it ignites our own Divine spark, and our ability to live out loud, to boldly create. Ponder this: I know that there are people in your life who are continually receiving the brilliance that you possess and they reflect it back to you all the time. There are people whose face would light up like a sunrise at the chance to spend a day just with you. If you’re experiencing a flagging sense of self-trust & confidence, trust those people to help you remember who you are. “On days like this,” Lioness Tori Amos sings, “You know who your friends are.”

Leo Full Moon is a time for reconciling where we feel like an estranged alien from another planet with our need to shine as a creative force, grounded in our true nature. It’s a chance to trust that we are inherently good. With encouragement, praise, a few loving strokes from others, or from within, we can experience the brilliance we are. So as you stand under the light of the Leo Full Moon this week, pull on the resilient, hardy nature of your true Star self. Looking up at that Leo Full Moon, un-self-conscious, luminous, practically boastful in its glow, it’s not a stretch to imagine your self as a shimmering being of light, too. It’s not that hard to trust that what you have inside is exactly what you need.

Well we all shine on

Like the moon and the stars and the sun

Well we all shine on

Ev’ryone come on

image source: To Be A Child Again by SalemCat, DeviantArt.com

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When I think of the spirit of Aquarius, I think of the Nile River. Every year in ancient Egypt melting winter snow flowed from the Ethiopian Mountains into the Nile, essentially flooding the city surrounding. Since it was their only water source, a small flood or no flood meant famine, so they depended on this annual cycle for the following years crops. Change wasn’t easy. Each year they had to plan on the potential that their home and livelihood might be entirely wiped out. Yet to this day, the Egyptians still love their Nile. When I visited Cairo in 2008, they still called the river a precious jewel of Egypt. In Cairo, modern Egyptians stay up late- and one of their favorite things to do was strolling the Nile, where they’d convene for midnight family picnic dinners, or a date, setting up camp along the board walk and catching up with friends.

Aquarius knows upheaval goes hand in hand with evolution and progress, and so did the Egyptians, who planned for this cyclic, disruptive time. Upheaval was the price of progress for the Egyptians (and perhaps still is). The Nile’s radical upheaval could liberate people of their houses and property, but the payoff was the abundance that followed every flood.

In our lives, when we’re unconscious or consciously repressing the truth, that’s when the full force of Truth awakens us like the flooding Nile River. A client of mine spent a long time avoiding a nagging feeling that she was being lied to by her partner. One day, in classic “out of the blue” fashion, her husband told her he wanted a divorce. Transiting Uranus had just entered her Eighth House of intimacy. Uranian events may seem sudden, but that’s only because we’ve disconnected from our inner rudder of truth. Like an earthquake, when Uranus delivers a surprise into our life, the tension has been building for a long while. Carolyn Casey says: “Like Pluto, Uranus plays hardball. Uranus has no tolerance for people who are unhappy in any area of their life (job, relationship) but who aren’t working on getting to the emotional truth.”

Can we, like the Egyptians, learn to embrace the liberating exhilaration of periodic, radical change? My client did. She woke up to her authentic self, and wondered why she had been hiding her for so long. She’s now having the time of her life. Just as the Nile River wiped everything clean so the land could prosper anew, after we’re liberated into truth, abundance follows. Yet how often we prolong actually following our truth, creating unnecessary drama. As Carolyn says when talking about a client she consulted who wanted to quit her job, but didn’t so was fired, “We might measure our evolution by our capacity to learn to skip the unpleasant melodrama and go more gracefully to the liberating outcome. Just quit the job.”

Aquarius New Moon heralds a season of change, a time when we can intentionally invoke the spirit of truthfulness, authenticity, renewal and cleansing. Look to where this New Moon falls in your chart as an area where you can experience authenticity and positive breakthroughs. Do you need a dose of truth? Seek out Soothsayers and Truthsayers - friends you trust, to tell it how it is. Heed the spontaneous call of your intuition. What we label as “crazy talk” is often our intuition trying to burst out and bring more clarity and truthfulness to a situation.

Embrace the restless spirit of change at this New Moon, the exciting promise of being set free into a more radically authentic version of your self. If you’re feeling tense or uncertain, ask, Where in my life do I want lightning to strike? Whether you want to experience a truer, freer, more vibrantly alive relationship with your partner, or a radical overhaul in an area of your life, consider this: You don’t have to do anything but express an intention for authentic change. You don’t have to know the answers, or know how something will come about. By willingly offering your self to the God of Change, the question itself becomes the lightning rod.

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image source: Goddess Art Print Star- available on Etsy.com

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Last night I was bitch slapped by Saturn.

Specifically, by Mars in Pisces, transiting my fifth house of risk, performance and self-expression, squaring Saturn in Sagittarius, now located in my second house of self-esteem.

What comfort zone was I pushed to face? I threw myself directly into the fire of my fears and went to a “speaking circle”, a way of being with an audience through“relational presence” (It’s not public speaking, the founder told me, it’s having an intimate conversation with each audience member). Essentially, it was eye-gazing (which I’m familiar with through spiritual exercises) – except you’re being intimate with total strangers while speaking (or not speaking), spontaneously and unrehearsed. For 3 and then 7 minutes. While being recorded on a camera. Oh, okay, why not just have your toenails pulled out, you ask? Or hey: wanna go scare up some mountain lions?

Yeah. My thoughts exactly.

So, with pounding heart and sweat rolling down my body, I attempted to eye gaze in the hopes that something intelligent would come out of my mouth. The problem is I’m highly empathic. In life, I don’t tend to feel much separation between I and Thou – which is super useful for gathering information from the ethers during an astrology reading, or channeling information into books and writing, but not so good when you’re supposed to look deeply into ten sets of eyes, while speaking. Without paper, pen or a focal point as anchor, I become unanchored. Spacey. Lost, wordless in those soulful eyes. Piscean.

I learned that about myself last night.

I tried to anchor at a spot on the wall, and was redirected to the sea of eyes. Desperate to find some solid presence to relate to, I tried to just scan the crowd and -nope. Then, eventually, something did happen that had never happened to me in all my experiences on stage- my ability to speak vanished. I clammed up. Because like chewing gum and talking at the same time, I just couldn’t figure out how to do both. After a few minutes of silence and enduring the mandatory positive feedback (no way in hell was my inner critic gonna allow me to receive that), purgatory ended. Hmmm. I thought I was coming here to get over my fears- not get new ones.

Afterwards, ready to sign me up for round two, the founder and group leader, remarked that my difficulty may be because I high levels of empathy then suggested that I may need to cry in front of the group to break through my blocks and feel the love in the room. Um, no…and no (my progressed Moon is now in Scorpio; emotional privacy, sharing on my own terms, feels right and true to me now. Losing emotional control in front of strangers is not on the Scorp agenda).

Sagittarius is the sign of expansion and growth, and as we know, the only way to grow is to head outside of our comfort zone. With Saturn in Sagittarius the Great Work is to willingly venture into new territory, which is by definition uncomfortable. This experience reminded me of a lesson I’ve learned a few other times: as much as the spiritual gurus and self help movement would tell you about our limitlessness as spiritual beings, in the human realm we do have limits, and there is no one-size-fits all approach to growth. My husband reminded me of a similar experience I’d had, when a well-meaning friend suggested her form of free-form dance would be good for me. At class I was asked essentially to do the same thing: spontaneously move, in front of an audience, with no agenda, for many, many long minutes. I felt like I was dancing in The Red Shoes ballet, the shoes (or in this case, my friend) demanding that I dance, dance, dance!… right past my body’s limits. I was in pain for a month afterward.

Sagittarius wants to feel the limitlessness expansion we know is possible for us, but with Saturn in Sagittarius, there will be many gurus but the true guru is the one inside. We still need to trust our own authority. This may mean that some teachers and movements aren’t right for us. This may mean that we need to work up to the big leaps we want to make- only in order to trust that if we’re going jump off a cliff it will be into a feather bed instead of the cold pavement of reality. Optimistic Sagittarius classically “goes for it”-the growth experiences, the tri-athalons, the gurus – yet with Saturn, there is a law of gravity and common sense at play here. An 80 year old taking on a tri-athalon is a rarity bordering on the miraculous, and there’s a reason why.

As for me, this morning, ironically, I’m feeling far more confident in my old school speaking style than I had before I attended the event. And, like walking around with a “kick me” sign on your back all day and discovering later that you didn’t die, there’s something about failing so miserably that’s curiously liberating for the soul. But the next time a new-age new consciousness loving friend waxes on and on about how meditation is the cure for everything, or how a Shaman in Peru has found the cure for cancer, I’m not going to  jump on the bandwagon or buy the ticket just yet. I’m going to take my time, to understand. And above all: I’m going to trust myself.

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It’s a New Year! Welcome! In 2015, some trends are continuing, while some are radically different from 2014. Here’s my very brief overview of what’s happening.

A FRESH LOOK

As of 12/23/14, Saturn is now in Sagittarius until 12/25/17 (Saturn will retrograde in Scorpio from 6/16-9/17/15), giving Sagittarius planets the cosmic push to accomplish something important. Saturn is the difficult but effective teacher who knows how to get results, and eventually rewards us for our persistence, patience and hard work. Generally, it’s a good year to start a spiritual practice, study foreign relations, examine the beliefs that inform our perception of reality, go to University, or develop a more nuanced understanding of a broad topic. Sag is about stepping back and taking a comprehensive, fresh look at the big picture. Expect also to see: religion reformations, a new look at questions of ethics and law, a focus on improving foreign relations, universities and higher education systems. Look to when Saturn was last in Sagittarius (Nov 1985-Feb 1988) for more.

A CONTINUING TREND

Since 2012, Uranus-Pluto has been applying an exact square, affecting cardinal sign planets (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn). This continues thru March 2015. This planetary combination represents the need for radical transformation in our institutions, families, relationships, corporations. The first quarter of this year we will continue experiencing these waves of intensity. Astrologers have observed that for those experiencing this square, “it has to get bad enough” to change. So the first part of this year has the final hour feel…if you need to make a change, it is the time to take those steps. For those of us living on planet Earth right now, flexibility and adaptability is key to our survival. Those inflexible and unable to embrace a need for progress/change will find it hard to remain relevant.

LOOK TO THIS PLANET FOR LUCK

Jupiter is the planet of expansion, faith and luck. Right now Jupiter is in Leo (marking Leo Sun signs for Jupiter’s bounty). Leo is the sign of the heart, love, love affairs, creative self-expression. Until August, Jupiter continues encouraging us to take a risk on opening our heart and sharing our unique gifts with the world. In August (8/11/15) he’ll move into Virgo in August, for about a year, making Virgo Sun signs the cosmic favorite. While Jupiter is in the sign of service Virgo, we’ll connect opportunity, luck and growth to areas of health, serving and helping others, and doing work we love.

LOVE

For those looking for a relationship, in a relationship or looking to seal the deal, a major event of note is that Venus will retrograde in Leo from 7/25-9/6/15. Venus is the planet of love, beauty, pleasure and connection…. yet when Venus retrogrades, it’s like going to the zoo to see a magnificent Lion, only to discover he’s on vacation: we feel our displeasure and disappointment more acutely. These potential feelings of crestfallen-ness we experience during Venus retrograde help us to discover our deeper desires. For instance, as displeasure leads to reflection, you discover what and who you thought you wanted, you really don’t, or alternately that you value something or someone more than you thought.

Classically astrologers say this is not a good period for beginning a relationship or getting married. For those brides to be who already have set a date, you can do something to remedy this: nurture your Venus sign. My new book Venus Signs that can help with this. In my experience we don’t always focus on what’s possible with our partners, or for our self; knowing our Venus sign can help us with this. Venus retrograde will be an opportunity to value our connections and our self more, bringing more love into 2015.

Here’s to a year full of love, and jam packed with higher learning!

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photo: Wheel of Fortune card by Laura Carson

Thoughtless, heartless, unkind, cruel…these were some of the words used by the author of the blog, Algorithmic Cruelty, and in the reader comments, to describe what it felt like to have his Facebook “Year in Review” feature a picture of his dead 8- year-old daughter with the caption “It’s been a great year…” Immediately, the blog went viral, commenters and author alike accusing the code writers of insensitivity and prompting a public apology from the Product Manager at Facebook. Clearly it had not been a great year for Eric Meyer, incidentally a web designer himself.

But computers do not have feelings. People do. And so a few days later, he apologized saying, “Yes, their design failed to handle situations like mine, but they’re hardly alone.  This happens all the time, all over the web, in every imaginable context.” He went on to say more about the backlash: “What surprised and dismayed me were the…let’s call them uncharitable assumptions made about the people who worked on Year in Review.  What do you expect from a bunch of privileged early-20s hipster Silicon Valley brogrammers who’ve never known pain or even want?” seemed to be the general tenor of those responses. No. Just no…”

What Pluto Rising Astrology said seems apt here: “The Uranus-Pluto square can rage against the machine, but it is also the machine.” The Uranus-Pluto square, an aspect of crisis, continues to remind us that we are organisms on a ball of dust twirling around a dark sea and now as it aspects the Cancer Full Moon, it’s penetrating into our vulnerability: every unkind slight, ding, bump and dent happening in our hearts. Like a modern day Grimm’s Fairy tale where computer algorithms really can turn into monsters, for Cancer, the monsters and fears of childhood never really go away. We may find our fears and vulnerabilities explosively close to the surface. Yet we don’t have to let them control us. Always, the real issue behind any grievance or perceived violation is our vulnerability- the tender, aching, grieving human heart. It was for Eric Meyer, who eventually recognized this.

Cancer is the nurturing instinct inside each of us. Cancer holds a supportive, compassionate space for our most tender vulnerabilities –and the instinctual ferocity of a mama or papa bear when those instincts are violated. I recall a story a girlfriend told me about driving her car while pregnant down the narrow, hilly road of her neighbourhood. A driver cut her off, and my introverted sweet natured friend (who would never hurt a fly) roared like a lion protecting her unborn cub, shocking the other driver, but moreso herself, the explosive energy rising unbidden.

Cancer Full Moon checks in, asking: How is your heart doing? Our desire to protect, nurture and sustain life is a feminine form of intelligence, and at this Full Moon our sharp, protective feelings may surprise even us. Uranus square this Moon can show us where we, and others, are suffering from emotional disconnection, where we may be kicking the computer instead of tending to our heart. With Uranus in Aries, near the South Node and square this Full Moon, we are primed for a breakthrough in our emotional patterns and conditioning. We can no longer afford to play victim: we are being asked to spiritually mature beyond old emotionally conditioned reactions and actions. With Pluto conjunct the Sun, our personal power is ready to be reclaimed and reimagined in a way that is individual and includes all the processes of life, love, loss and everything in between (the full catastrophe) as natural and true. Positively, breakdowns can lead to breakthroughs and a more authentic way of being. Mama bear and mountain lion energy can be good for mobilizing change. But a tired, sad, neglected, wounded heart can let loose the ugliest, and most destructive, demons of all.

It’s a New Year. We’re all in this petri dish called the human experiment, together and the cosmic bunson burner has been lit. The world may soon be run by computers but take heart: The most Googled question of 2014 was “What is love?” We’re trying. To honor your heart’s questions with a worthy answer, spend some time with it – preferably in a cozy, safe place where you feel liberated to honestly face the truth of your emotional experience. What’s important is that you make the space to connect with it. In 2015, let’s look for the beauty, love and truth in life – because nothing makes the heart happier than the truth. And to heal it we must feel it.

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photo credit: Electric Heart by RV Tide, www.deviantart.com

Saturnalia was a Roman festival involving presents, revelry, and a little bit of bad behaviour. First there was a radical reversal of the established social order, when for a brief period of time slaves would become masters, and masters would become slaves. Another cool aspect of the celebration involved a statue of Saturn, bound in straps -symbolizing the restrictions, responsibilities and limits of our lives. At the festival, these strictures were untied as revellers lightened their load, danced and rejoiced. After the festival of debauchery and hi-jinks, everything would revert to normal social order. From all appearances, people had resumed their regular roles and responsibilities. But after letting off steam, they now did so with greater ease and freedom. Spirits were lifted; folks were kinder, jollier, more tolerant towards each other. Clearly the ritual had magic in it.

This ritual, of my own creation, was inspired by Carolyn Casey’s description of Saturnalia in her book Making the Gods Work For You. It was originally performed in my living room, but you can do it anywhere. Saturnalia originally began on December 17 through December 23, but I think you can do it anytime you want to: be free of restrictions, or move into a more peaceful relationship with that which you must do.

Do it when:

-You feel burdened by your obligations and responsibility to others.

-You feel limitation, lack.

-You’ve been too “good” or too “strong” for too long.

-You’ve been denying yourself anything – especially pleasure and joy.

-You feel enslaved, under someone’s thumb, and/or need your authority back (the root word of authority is ‘author’, as in being the author your own life and choices).

In preparation, ask:

What fears and anxieties are keeping me enslaved?

What responsibilities are bringing me down?

Am I blaming other people and their situations for my problems?

The ritual: Get a string and tie it around your belly- the string representing the burdens, responsibilities restrictions, limitations that tie you up in life and are currently weighing you down. Then do as the Romans did: untie it. Afterwards, feast. Dance around the room and make faces. Jump up and down. Listen to music. If you can get your partner to play with you, even more power to you. Raise some hell.

After you’ve sufficiently loosened up and laughed, willingly step back into the commitments you’ve consciously chosen. Vow to take on future commitments more consciously. Leave behind any unfulfilling authority stealers. These can be behaviors, like approval-seeking, or instances when you’ve violated your integrity by neglecting to tell another person when they’ve trespassed your boundary.

Then, take a deep breath. Inhale back your authority. Feel the integrity of this act.

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image: Twelfth Night 

Every year as Capricorn season arrives with bells on, so does our awareness of the passage of time, along with just how tightly we’ve scheduled our self, how pressured we feel by our numerous commitments, and how many hungry mouths and empty bank accounts we’ve got to satisfy. This sobering influence, on the holiday known for its generosity and good cheer, creates that unique schizophrenia characterizing “the holidays”. I don’t know about you but many of my childhood Christmas memories involve experiences of extreme stress and wondrous magic, abundance and lack, side by side. Holidays are crazy-magic like that.

One of the pleasures of being an adult is being able to author my own experience. And so, after years of enjoying the holiday season a lot less than I’d like, I decided to take the old goat by the horns, so to speak. Eyeing the season’s intense astrological weather (first Venus, then Mercury and Sun forming a t-square to Uranus-Pluto) I decided to commit to less. I decided to not send out Christmas cards. I decided to allow my husband and stepdaughters to prepare the holiday meal. In short, I decided to attempt to pre-empt crazy.

This New Moon falls at zero degrees Capricorn, marking a new beginning for dedicating our self to goals that matter. With Sun, Moon, Venus Mercury and Pluto all answering to Saturn (now changing signs), before we make our list of resolutions, it behoves us to look both forward and back, to clearly assess how we’re spending our energy. Capricorn rules the boundaries of time and space. Our life energy is the biggest resource we have, far more valuable than money. What pressures can you ease and loosen in your own life? If you feel overcommitted, overworked and undernourished in the fun department, with Saturn’s imminent change of guard, it’s a good time to jettison obligations that no longer make sense for you. Meanwhile, Vesta, keeper of all we hold sacred, also in Capricorn asks: Are you spiritually aligned with your life’s work? Or is the modern mantra of workaholism and ambition disconnecting you from this?

With my book coming out in January, I’ve been thinking a lot about consciously choosing to have experiences of peace (not stress). Uranus transiting my Aries Moon has been an emotionally enlightening but demanding time requiring far more time for inner work than I’d anticipated needing. And I know it will continue. For about the next three months, the Uranus-Pluto square is applying to exact -which means it’s still gonna keep getting worse before it gets better. We’re witnessing this in our larger world, if not our personal one. It’s become harder to stay in our ego shells when the world is on fire. This is a time of feeling into our humanity. This includes: all the ways we hurt, feel terrible and shut down. We want the freedom to author our own experience, but to do that we’ve got to get out from under the logjam we’re operating under.

Uranus will move forward at this New Moon, too, inciting the freedom-loving Trickster spirit/sprite/rebel in each of us, asking: Can you move forward and do that which you must do, with more freedom and authenticity? Uranus is like a circuit breaker, guiding us to envision and then act on the radical adjustments we need to make in order to be freer, saner, happier. In the tarot deck, pattern-breaking, awakening Uranus is depicted as an old stone Tower (the old guard, traditions) set aflame, with tiny people leaping out the window. At this time, a little conscious rebellion is in order – though with our ingenuity, forethought and self-knowledge we can avoid high drama, and casualties. For instance by turning an old tradition on it’s head, or deciding not to play into the same old holiday family of origin dynamics pattern. For instance, the minute the heat gets turned up at the holiday table, you might excuse your self by saying, “I suddenly feel the need to take a shower”. If  you need trickster inspiration, check out my Saturnalia ritual.

This New Moon heralds a time to reach deep down into the touchstone of our very being. Our fundamental genuineness, and our ingenuity, will be tested. To locate our authority, in who we are and what we do, not in what other people tell us we must be or do. To hold those we love close to us. To honor our self, and one another. To remember what’s eternally important, not just what’s important today. These actions are not only a cure for overwhelm, pressure and the holiday blues, but a Christmas lesson we can take into the New Year. And if we can do that… the magic of the season will take care of itself.

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