What's Headed This Way in July

Now that you’ve survived Venus’ retrograde (May 15- June 27),  and are getting ready to enter July, here are some highlights:

July 3 features a full moon in earth sign Capricorn. Full moons tend to   bring about culmination, harvest, and can also bring news related to the sign and house in which they fall.  This full moon in Capricorn can help to ground us, keep us focused. Powerhouse Pluto forms a close conjunction with this full moon, suggesting that any news you hear is likely to be transformative. It occurs at 8 degrees and 9 minutes of Capricorn, so if you have planets at or near that degrees, you may feel the effects of this full moon more than other people. (Click here  for your free natal chart and here  for the house meanings).

Uranus, the planet of sudden, unexpected change, forms a challenging angle to this full moon, suggesting an element of irritability, impatience, even anger.  If you feel like stepping outside to bay at the moon, by all means do so!  Even if it annoys your partner or your neighbors, you’ll feel better afterward.

On July 19, there’s a new moon in water sign Cancer. New moons generally usher in new opportunities according to the sign and house in which they appear. Cancer rules home and hearth, your domestic environment, the more nurturing parent,  and is connected to intuition, your inner world. So new opportunities may arrive in any of those areas. check your natal chart to see where Cancer falls. This moon occurs at 26 degrees and 55 minutes of Cancer. 

On July 15, the second Mercury retrograde of the year begins, in fire sign Leo, and it’s in place until August 8, when it turns direct again. Mercury rules both Gemini and Virgo, communication, travel, the conscious mind, contracts. The best rule of thumb for a Mercury retro is what I call the three Rs: revise, review, rethink. For a writer, this is the perfect revision time. For people in other professions it’s smart to tie up  loose ends, work on projects you’ve already begun, and avoid starting anything new.  And be sure you communicate succinctly and clearly to avoid miscommunication.

Travel can be a challenge during a Mercury retrograde. Your carefully planned itinerary suddenly goes haywire, your flight is rerouted or cancelled, you have a flat on the Interstate…well, you get the idea. That said, if you do travel, then at some point in the near future, you may revisit that destination again.

It’s fine to enter into a verbal agreement with someone, but don’t sign any contracts when Mercury is out of synch.  We did that once, mainly because it couldn’t be avoided, and everything about the contract was messed up.  Another area to avoid? Try not to schedule a move during a Mercury retro period. We did that once, too, and it was disastrous – the moving van was late, the people buying our house had last minute demands, and we were late for the closing on the house into which we were moving.

The good news is that Venus (love, romance, money), Jupiter (expansion,  luck), Mars (physical energy, sexuality, your booster rocket) and Saturn (structure) travel fairly close together in air signs for most of July. Their camaraderie helps to mitigate some of Mercury’s shenanigans.

May Highlights

 solar eclipse of the sun

This month has some terrific astrological events that are worth noting. 

Circle May 12-13. These two days are the luckiest this year. The sun and Jupiter meet up in Taurus and spread around luck, expansiveness, optimism, and good cheer generally. This conjunction falls on a weekend, but the effects will be felt for a couple of days on either side of those dates. So send our resumes, schedule interviews, submit manuscripts, buy a lottery ticket, make travel plans, get out of town with the one you love, have a family reunion. You get the idea here. These two days are about joy.

May 20 features a solar eclipse in Gemini. Solar eclipses are like double new moons, with double the new opportunities that surface. This eclipse is particularly good because Jupiter is only six degrees away from the eclipse degree. Check out your natal horoscope here  to find out where the eclipse falls in your chart.   Then go here to read the description of the house in which the solar eclipse falls. That house is where the new opportunities should surface.

On May 22, Mercury and Jupiter link up in Taurus and   suddenly, your consciousness swells with ideas, your communication skills are sharper, your mind buzzes with ideas.   

Between May 15 and June 27, Venus is moving retrograde in Gemini. There may be some bumps and bruises in romantic relationships during this period and it’s a good idea not to buy any large ticket items. Sometimes, a Venus retrograde can create discomforts and inconveniences in your physical environment – no air conditioning, for instance, or no heat.

That said, excellent deals can be found during Venus retros. Several years back, we bought a used car during a Venus retro. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted – namely, it was a manual shift rather than automatic – but it had low mileage and we got it for a great price.

However, when we took it in for its first oil change, we discovered the car had some problems. It had been in an accident and Mazda refused to cover the warranty because the work had apparently been done somewhere other than Mazda. So we complained to the place that had sold us the car and they covered the costs. A year later,  we sold the car for exactly what we paid for it.

One other thing to avoid during a Venus retrograde: don’t sign contracts. Venus retros can depress your profits.

April 2012 Roundup

Mercury went retrograde in Pisces on March 12 and will be turning direct again on April 4. I don’t know about you, but it can’t happen soon enough for me.   This retro in Pisces has been strange. Opportunities surfaced that looked promising, then didn’t pan out. We had to replace a pool pump. Friends had plumbing problems. A neighbor received a generator two weeks late. Checks that were en route never arrived.  E-mail problems, computer problems. All these things are status quo for Mercury retrograde.

The good news is that this retro is over and there won’t be another until July – July 15 to August 8.

Other news for April: Mars, which has been retrograde since late January, turns direct again in Virgo on April 13. This means that projects and endeavors which have been moving sluggishly -– if at all – suddenly zip forward again.  Our motivation, momentum, and physical energy will increase. We begin to feel we’re in our groove again.

On April 6, there’s a full moon in Libra and on April 21, there’s a new moon in Taurus. The full moon first. Don’t be surprised if the people around you act erratically during this full moon.  The planets are stressed and here on Earth that can result in bickering, miscommunication,(even though Mercury will be direct by then) and a sudden flare-up in tempers. You may find your teenagers, howling at the moon. In fact, you may  decide to join them!

The new moon in Taurus on April 21 should be a lot calmer.  Mars forms a close, beneficial angle to this new moon and Pluto is also on board. The combination suggests new opportunities that are grounded and stable. Take time to carefully consider these opportunities, then select whatever feel right to you.

Check here to get your birth chart. Look for where Taurus falls in your chart.The symbol resembles a circle with a smile on top of it.Then check here for what the houses mean. The house placement of the new moon should usher in new opportunities according to what that particular house rules.

A date to circle? April 23. The sun and Mars connect in a positive way, perhaps in celebration of spring!

Paradigms and Neptune

A woman believes that people are stealing her clothes, her jewelry, her money. She holds conversations with her mother, dead now for 30 years, and sometimes thinks that her son is a distant cousin and that  husband is her father. She hears voices and sees things and people that aren’t there.

Another woman holds conversations with the dead, hears voices, sees things that aren’t there, and knows that her son was her husband in a previous life. People seek her out for precisely these reasons and pay her handsomely for the messages she brings from the dead.

The first woman is an Alzheimer’s patient; the second woman is a psychic medium. Both illustrate the elusive nature of Neptune, its ethereal veil, the way it dissolves barriers between realities. Think of Neptune as a tuning fork. Tap it. It hums. But no two people hear the hum in exactly the same way. Neptune transported Edgar Cayce into other realms and swept Einstein into the heart of scientific truth. It gave diarist Anais Nin penetrating insight into other people. But it can also lead into the basest escapism through alcohol, drugs, sex, addictions of all kinds, the darker side of the occult. It can lead to religious fervor, religious wars, extreme religious views and beliefs.

Neptune also rules compassion, the higher self, inspired art, escapism, addiction, , everything psychic, spirit communication, imagination, connection to something larger than ourselves. It dissolves the boundary between ego and others, so there’s often an element of confusion involved in any Neptune transit, but particularly with this one.

Neptune dipped into Pisces briefly in 2011, then retrograded back into Aquarius. On February 3, 2012, it entered Pisces again and will be there for the  next 14 years.  We can already see its influence being played out on the global stage.

In American politics, particularly in the Republican party, the religious fervor has reached frenzied proportions. But beneath this frenzy is another current – a burgeoning interest in the nature of reality and of consciousness, in how we are all connected, and in how we can live more compassionately. In other words, we are witnessing the war between paradigms – the old and the new.

This struggle between the old paradigm and the one that is evolving, emerging, is sometimes so glaringly evident that it’s shocking. Here’s the old paradigm:

Ø  Mostly male white politicians talk about legislation to ban contraception and to require transvaginal ultrasound – medical rape – before a woman can have an abortion.

Ø  Scrap social safety net  programs – Medicaid, Medicare – and privatize Social Security.

Ø  The real extremists in the old paradigm consider college “elitist” and advocate doing away with public education and having every kid in America home schooled.  

Ø  Never allow gay and lesbian couples to get married.

Ø  Stoke the war machine; it’s great for the economy.

Ø  If you’re poor, elderly, you’re on your own. If you’re sick and don’t have health insurance tough.

Ø  No tax hikes on the wealthy, keep the burden on the poor and the middle class.

Ø  We live in a mechanistic universe, where everything is cause and effect.

Ø  There’s no connection between mind and body; that’s just New Age silliness.

Ø  UFOs/ETs are nonexistent. We humans reign supreme in the universe.

Ø  We have the best medical system in the world and we’re working on drugs that can cure anything.

Ø   Climate change/global warming is a myth.

This list is long and depressing, so I’ll stop here. Just tune in the evening news for more.

Here’s the new paradigm:

Ø  What affects you affects me. We are connected.  We are all a part of Indra’s net.

Ø  If you can imagine it, it’s possible.

Ø  We create our realities from the inside out, based on our beliefs, emotions,  and thoughts.  

Ø  Compassion, forgiveness and diplomacy are more powerful than war.

Ø  Regardless of differences in ethnicity, culture, religious beliefs, gender, belief systems, we are equal.

Ø  The universe – or Source, God, the higher self, whatever you want to call it – communicates with us constantly.

Ø  We are the change we can believe in.

Ø  Now, this instant, is the only moment that counts. Make good use of it. Make a difference.

Ø  Each of us has a purpose on the planet and every purpose is equally important.

Ø  Keep an open mind even when the idea seems preposterous. After all, it was once widely believed that the world was flat, that electricity wasn’t feasible,  that travel to other planets was possible only in science fiction.

Ø  We share the planet with wildlife that may be more intelligent than we are.

Ø  We live many lives.

Ø  Confront your fears and move on.

Ø  Be forever curious, honor your own wisdom, never lose sight of your dreams.

Ø  Indulge your innate creativity.

Ø  And okay, if ET knocks at your door, invite him/her in for a cup of tea or coffee.

I’m sure I’ve left stuff off this list. But you get the idea. The new paradigm is Neptune’s domain.

War, Neptune, and Hit Counters

Hit counters like sitemeter and statcounter have various categories that provide specific information about the visitors to your blog or website. One of the most intriguing categories is the search term visitors use.

Whenever a word or phrase appears repeatedly over the course of several days, particularly if it’s something  I haven’t seen before, I take notice. That term could be a kind of oracle that points to an emerging pattern in the collective unconscious. In the past several days, we’ve had multiple hits for the word war. 

Granted, with 7 billion people in the world, there are probably millions who daily Google that word. But in the three years since we started this blog, this word has never appeared as a search term in sitemeter. Never. I mentioned it to Rob in a sort of offhanded way, and explained that all these individuals landed on this post,  for its image.

The searches came from all over the world – war.  Why? War certainly isn’t a new concept. The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars aren’t new. But there it was, over and over again in sitemeter. War, war, war.
So this evening, February 2, 2012, I heard Wolf Blitzer on CNN talking about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran.  And if Israel attacks, that means it happens with the sanction of the U.S. and, perhaps, of other countries, too. (Good explanation about what’s going on.)

This news coincides with an astrological event that no one alive on the planet has ever experienced: today, at 2:03 EST,  Neptune enters Pisces, where it will be until 2026. It hasn’t been in that sign since 1844. History is our best measurement here about possible events, so let’s look back to some of the major events that occurred.

Neptune rules spirituality and escapism, our personal unconscious and dreams, our ideals and our blind spots and our illusions. It can be the archetype of the victim, the martyr, and dissolves the boundaries between ego and other. It urges us to reach and help others, to give something back. It is deeply inspirational, creative, innovative, intuitive, psychic.

Neptune  also rules religious fervor and zealotry, a kind of spiritual ping pong where each side is convinced he is right and knows it in his gut. But because Neptune is a subtle trickster,  neither side turns out to be spiritually correct. In fact, words like right and wrong no longer mean anything at all. There are only opinions and beliefs and all of them are flawed in some way. We can visualize the ideal, but it eludes us unless  we surrender to whatever it happening, go with the flow, read the synchros.
2012 isn’t about Armageddon. It’s about how we, as a human collective, as a mass consciousness, react to the events around us.  Do we cower in fear and or do we reach out and help a stranger? Do we allow ourselves to become victims or martyrs or do we become heroes when we step up to the plate and live our ideals? Do we start wars or try to negotiate peaceful, idealistic settlements?

I want to say that Neptune in Pisces is about living from the heart. That’s part of it, but not the whole picture. Yes, this 14-year transit is about compassion and empathy, but it’s also about intuitive understanding and  manifestation. If we can imagine it, if enough of us desire peace, tolerance, good will, and freedom for all and back this desire with powerful emotions, then the quantum wave becomes quantum particles and crashes into physical existence.  And then the world by 2026 is going to be a very different place.

I’m not sure how a post intended to be about hit counters and words as oracular patterns became a statement about war and Neptune and the choices ahead of us, but here you are. It must be an early taste of Neptune’s entrance in Pisces. Who am I? Where do I fit? Why am I here? How can I make a difference? These are Neptunian questions and they beg for answers.

from the http://www.touchdrawing.com/
+++


On January 23, there’s another new moon, this one in Aquarius.  New moons occur once a month and are always times to anticipate. They spell new opportunities, new chapters in our lives, new, new new.
Aquarius is an intriguing sign – idiosyncratic, a humanitarian, thinks way outside the box, a visionary, independent. Aquarius enjoys group activities that concern his interests and passions, but would otherwise prefer  doing his own thing, as his own pace.

As usual, go here to find out where this new moon falls in your chart. Then read on:
+++
Aries/1^st house: If you are born near March 22, with five days on either side, then you’re in for a real treat. New opportunities don’t just head your way; they fall in your lap, land on your doorstep, in your inbox. Friends are extremely helpful and may play vital roles in helping you achieve your desire. The suddenness to events may take you by surprise, but you’re ready to seize whatever comes your way.

Taurus/2^nd house: New financial opportunities surface.  You have to be on your toes, though, ready to recognize opportunity when it knocks. Inner, hidden stuff may surface that actually helps clarify your goals, desires, wishes and dreams. If you don’t meditate yet, then start on the day of this new moon. Thanks to the angle Uranus makes to this new moon, there’s an unexpected suddenness to these opportunities.

Gemini/3^rd house:  Yes, indeed, you are about to experience a new opportunity in something you love – communication! It may be a new  writing or speaking project of some kind. You  could sell an article, a novel, a screenplay, or suddenly your blog gets a hundred thousand hits. You may have an opportunity for foreign travel with perks – a free place to stay, for instance. Your worldview does an abrupt 180.

Cancer/4^th house: This new moon jerks you out of your comfortable routine. You’re suddenly able to see the world the way others around you do. Your partner could and a raise – new income. Your mortgage comes through. You see a ghost, communicate with your dead father. The abruptness of events may be jarring, but the opportunities are very sweet, indeed.

Leo/5^th house: New creative opportunities surface and, again, there’s an unexpected suddenness to this, so you should be vigilant so you can seize the opportunity as it appears. There could also be new opportunities with  children or grandchildren, with what you do for fun and pleasure, and in romance/love. Don’t shrug off coincidence as some random glitch in the universe’s digestive system. These synchros hold messages for you. You could find a new business partner – or you and your significant other  deepen your commitment to each other.

Virgo/6^th house: New work opportunities, the very thing you Virgos love. Work, work, work. As the perfectionist of the zodiac, your gold standard now pays off. You get a raise, a promotion, or change jobs for something that really suits you.  New opportunities emerge in communication, too, and whatever it is, it’s a new venue for you.

Libra/7^th house:  Well, Libra, you’ve got a choice and you know how crazy choices make you. New opportunities surface in your love life, your creative life, with your kids, your social life. If you don’t have kids but want to start a family, then this new moon could make it happen. To my Libra friend who is experiencing trouble with her mother’s illness, listen up: new opportunities and possibilities for your mom’s care seem to come out of nowhere. Your partner/spouse is helpful.

Scorpio/8^th house: Your new opportunities come in the domestic area. If your home is for sale, it sells. If you’ve found your dream home, you buy it. You’re able to get a mortgage, home owner’s insurance, whatever else you need. But because you’re a Scorpio or have this new moon in your eighth house,  new opportunities also come through metaphysics, research and investigation, your intuition, through the big cosmic questions: what happens when you die? Can the living and the dead communicate? This is Scorpio’s natural terrain.

Sagittarius/9^th house: New opportunities surface in communication, publishing, higher education, overseas travel. It’s never just one area for you that’s impacted by a new moon. You wear so many hats that even your mother isn’t sure who arrives at the front door on a given day. Uranus in fellow fire sign Aries forms a beneficial angle to this new moon and lends itself to unexpected suddenness with whatever unfolds.

Capricorn/10^th house: Think of this new moon as your career and financial infusion –or is that transfusion?  Either one is good. New professional and financial opportunities surface that impact your domestic environment. Sounds as though a pay raise or promotion enables you do some work around your house  or property or enables you do put out money for a family member. Parent? Partner? Child? Regardless, the new opportunities strengthen you financially and professionally.

Aquarius/11^th house:  Just once a year, there’s a new moon in each sign and January 23 is your new moon. Plan for it.  Make a list of what you would like to manifest, be as specific or as general as your intuition directs. Friends and group participation are helpful, but the but the real power to manifest lies in you. What do you want/desire more than anything else? Give it some thought. Back the desire with strong emotion. Then step aside and let the universe deliver.

Pisces/12^th house: New opportunities surface to delve into your own unconscious, to work behind the scenes doing something you love. Whatever  it is comes about so rapidly that if you blink, it’s gone.  Therapy, meditation, dream recall are all valuable tools now. There’s something new emerging on the financial front, too, and it’s positive, affirming, and right in line with your magnificent imagination and intuition. Be on your toes, Pisces. You don’t want to miss this opportunity.
+++

Full moons are often a time of madness on the planet. The crazies come out of the woodwork, people are more accident prone, impatient, reckless.  At the heart of it, though, the hidden is illuminated – on both a personal and a collective level- and that can drive many of us to emotional extremes.

On January 9, the full moon in Cancer falls at 18 degrees, 26 minutes. Go here to find out where this moon falls in your chart.

Cancer is a nurturing, subjective, and family-oriented sign. It is highly intuitive, its feelings are easily hurt, and its energies are focused, directed. It dislikes emotional confrontations and, like the crab that represents this sign, it retreats at the first sign of conflict, withdrawing tightly into its shell.

What’s interesting about this full moon is that Mars forms a close and beneficial angle to it. Mars represents our physical and sexual energy. It’s our booster rocket in life, that part of us that explodes forward to pursue what we desire. It’s our heat sensor, our personal GPS. While it’s in Virgo, it’s able to get us from point A to B without any problem. We might even get from B to G. But too many steps beyond that, and we’re lost. We become Hansel and Gretel stealing off into the forest at night, tossing bread crumbs behind us in the hopes that we find our way back.

If we rely on our left brains, our ego-centered selves to get to where we want to go, we can pretty much figure we’ll be wandering for along time. If we allow our intuition to guide us, our emotions, our hunches, then we’ll do just fine during this full moon.

On the night of this full moon, Mercury and Pluto are widely  conjunct in earth sign Capricorn. This means that any type of visualization and meditation you do clarifies whatever confusion you have about something, and puts you in the power seat because you suddenly get it. Venus and Neptune are closely conjunct in air sign Aquarius, a wonderful indicator for creativity and the beauty of romance in any intimate relationship.

Jupiter forms a tight and beneficial angle to Mercury on the night of this full moon (in earth signs, Taurus and Capricorn) so your conscious mind is primed and ready for expansion.
Between January 1-22, every planet is moving in direct motion – they’re all behaving! Then on the 22^nd, Mars in Virgo turns retrograde until April 14. And that aspect is for another post.

The sign of Cancer refers to your native country.  Look for revelations about something that has been hidden. In the U.S., for instance, it might be this headline.

In your country, it might be something else. That headline may define the year ahead for your country.

Predictions from 2008

 First, happy 2012!!  Here's our outlook on this year.
+++

During the recent lunar eclipse on December 21, 2011, I cleaned out the closet in my office and tossed out many of the issues of Mountain Astrologer, a must have for any astrologer.

But I happened to save the February-March 2008 issue, and found it this evening when I was looking for something else. The lead story, as you can see by the cover, is about Pluto in Capricorn from 2008-2023. So I turned to that article and started reading.

Whenever astrologers are dealing with the outer, slowing moving planets, they look first to the historical references. Pluto, the snail of the zodiac, takes 250 years to move around a horoscope. Between December 24, 1515 until the end of 1532 when Pluto was in Capricorn, Europe saw the incipience of the Protestant Reformation; Megellan  set sail for the first time; Cortez conquered Cuba; the Ottoman Empire reaches its pinnacle.

Between 1762 and 1772, the last time Pluto was in Capricorn, James Watt invented the steam engine, one of the driving factors in the birth of the Industrial Revolution. During this period, we produced a lot of stuff that was released into the market. The slave trade was at its height. In 1762, Jean-Jacques Cousteau published Social Contract.  According to Wikipedia: “The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments.”

Now, for the synchros in all this. Mountain Astrologer is published bi-monthly. This issue was the 137^th, February-March 2008.  That means the author probably wrote it in the late fall of 2007, before the economic meltdown in March 2008, before Obama was elected, before the Euro crisis, the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, the housing meltdown. Here are some of the highlights, under “Global Trends’:
-       Ecosystem breakdown: well, we had the  BP oil spill and more and more species are going extinct. http://dodosgone.blogspot.com

-       Increased tectonic movement: As the planetary empaths know, earthquakes have increased dramatically in this century, particularly since 2008. Take a look. Scroll down the page for the graph.
-       The end of cheap oil: When George W. Bush entered office, gas cost $1.43 a gallon. Today, it ranges between $3.49 to just under $4. But it has gone over four bucks a gallon at various times this century. The cost in Europe and other parts of the world may be higher.


-       Popular unrest and Global conflicts: Gee, this is daily news now. The Occupy movement and the Arab spring go into  this category.



-       Economic Crisis and reform of the monetary system: the accuracy here is eerie, and I quote: “One of the main consequences of all this is likely to be a large-scale economic crisis. The financial institutions will almost certainly gain a great deal…and will try to use the situation to increase their control over the people.”


The author, Maurice Lavenant, concludes his article with what may be a battle cry:
“As always, it is largely up to the people to decide what they consume and how it is I produced. It’s also up to the people to decide how their resources are managed and, indeed, how they themselves are managed…How much abuse we can tolerate before we take our destiny into our own hands is anybody’s guess. In this case, though, the stakes are high because we are dealing with no less than the long-term survival of the entire biosphere. Given this fact, can we afford to be complacent?”

So now that we've stepped into  2012, there are many things to consider. How can we embrace the change around us and within our own lives? Do we need to redefine ourselves professionally, personally, spiritually, emotionally? If so, how?  What do we desire for ourselves, our families and loved ones in the coming year?

I’m always looking for the absolute bottom line and for me, it’s this: If I knew I had one day to live, what would I do? How would I live? With whom would I spend my time?

New Moon in Capricorn

from touch drawing



On December 24, we have the last new moon of the year, in Capricorn, a focused, determined earth sign. Before we even get started about this new moon, check out your natal chart to find out where Capricorn falls. That house will be most impacted by this new moon. Go here to find out what the houses means.

This new moon is at 2 degrees Capricorn, so for me it  lands in my third house of communication, writing, siblings, education, travel, my neighborhood, my conscious mind. I can expect new opportunities in any or all of these areas.

One thing you can count on with the Cappy new moon is heightened ambition, strategy, planning. You’re suddenly a paragon of the efficient. You’re the arrow headed for the target, right into the bull’s eye. Listen to your intuition and then act accordingly.

One of the things this new moon represents for Rob and me is the empty nest again. Megan has been living with us for the last seven months, since her graduation from college. Even though her activities are quite separate from ours, the three of us inhabit the same space, come together as a family when we need each other’s support and unconditional love. Her internship with Disney begins in mid-January, she’ll move  the weekend before it begins. But for you, this new moon could mean a new job, a new career, partnership, creative endeavor. NEW. That’s the operative word.

If you’re an earth or water sign, or have your moon or rising in earth or water, you’ll be as pleased as a pig in mud. But because we all have Capricorn somewhere ,  you will  enjoy something new in whatever house Capricorn falls.

Pluto falls within five degrees of this new moon, so whatever this new opportunity is, it has the power  to transform some area of your life.  Uranus, the planet of sudden, unexpected events, forms a challenging angle to this new moon. It could mean some tension in the air, but it also suggests that the new opportunities come to you out of the blue. Surprise! Here I am. 

Then, the really good news: Jupiter in Taurus forms a close, beneficial angle to this new moon and that is certainly cause for celebration. It means the new opportunity expands some area of your life. Even though Jupiter is retrograde on the 24^th, it turns direct the next day, so once Jupiter is behaving, you’ll start to see some action.

Happy New Moon!

Lunar Eclipse in Gemini

On November 24-25, there was a solar eclipse in Sagittarius. On December 10, there’s a lunar eclipse in Gemini. Where solar eclipses usually concern external events, lunar eclipses are about inner events, our emotional reactions, our deeper feelings.

On December 10, at 9:36 AM EST, the lunar eclipse in Gemini is at 18 degrees. Before we talk about it, go here first to see your own natal chart. You’re looking specifically for the Gemini glyph so that you can tell in which house the eclipse falls.  Let’s say Gemini appears on the cusp of your 10^th house at 23 degrees. Since the eclipse is at 18 degrees Gemini, your ninth house rather than your tenth would be the impacted. For what the houses mean, click here.

Lunar eclipses not only impact our inner lives, but also the women in our lives. (The moon in astrology is considered to be feminine and the sun is thought of as masculine.) Gemini rules communication, travel, our conscious minds. So with a lunar eclipse, our inner worlds become more conscious. Whatever we need to know becomes glaringly obvious. It could concern a relationship, something about your job or profession, some element of your personal life. Something - or someone - is "eclipsed," marginalized, and that's what you see.

The solar eclipse of November 24-25 and this eclipse occur on an axis of energy. If the SE fell in your first house of self, then this one falls in your seventh house of partnerships.  If the SE fell in your second house of money and values, this one falls in the eighth, the house of shared resources and your partner's income, and so on around the zodiac. For me, these two eclipses fall on my financial axis – the second house of money and values and the eighth house of shared resources, partner’s income, and things that go bump in the night. Sometimes, lunar eclipses spell a culmination or the end of something. For me, it could be that a source of income is reaching an end. Or, equally likely given my interests, I have some sort of powerful psychic experience that answers questions I have.

So once you determine which house is affected by the lunar eclipse, look to the opposite side of your chart to see where the SE hit on November 24-25.  Let’s say the lunar eclipse occurs in your tenth house – your professional life and career. That means the SE in November  occurred in your fourth house – your domestic environment, home, family. One house is very public, the other very private.
Both Saturn and Neptune form strong, beneficial angles to the eclipse degree. Saturn’s angle suggests a stabilizing influence of some kind; Neptune’s angle suggests higher inspiration, spiritual issues, creativity that comes from deep within.   Mars, the warrior, forms a challenging angle to the eclipse degree, so it’s best to avoid confrontation on or around the time of this eclipse. Uranus, the planet of sudden, unexpected events, turns direct the same day as the eclipse, in Aries, so there’s an explosion of intense internal energy.

Mercury is still retrograde until December 13 and forms a  close, beneficial angle to Uranus. Sudden, unforeseen – and positive news – is a distinct possibility.

This evening, we came up with a good thing to do on the day of the eclipse – a virtual Abraham/Hicks workshop. This workshop will the first Esther has done sine her husband, Jerry, passed away several weeks ago from leukemia. We've tried to sign up four or five times for this workshop and, true to Mercury retro, the Google checkout doesn't seem to be working. We'll keep trying.

Wishing everyone a positive, happy lunar eclipse!