First came Aries, you expe­ri­enced “I AM”.

Then came Tau­rus, you expe­ri­enced “I HAVE”.

Now, as you dance through Gem­i­ni you are to focus on the expe­ri­ence “I THINK”, (there­fore “I AM”).

For the next 30 days the core spir­i­tu­al les­son is upon the devel­op­ment of your mind as it seeks to relate to the world with­in and with­out. Gem­i­ni is all about net­work­ing; it rules your ner­vous sys­tem, your intel­lec­tu­al fac­ul­ties, your com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills…it rules inter-con­nec­tiv­i­ty. You have moved from Fire in Aries, to Earth in Tau­rus, and now you extend your­self through the first of the Air Signs.

The ele­ment of Air is all about Mind, Intel­lect, Ideas…it is about the devel­op­ment of Self-Con­scious­ness. Self-aware­ness is prob­a­bly one of the most dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of your evolv­ing Spir­it. The pow­er of your mind is not to be mea­sured by its stor­age capac­i­ty, (it is not how much you know, how many megabytes of stor­age you have), rather, it is how well you “think”, (it is about your proces­sor!). One of the prin­ci­ple gifts of your mind is the abil­i­ty to exam­ine what­ev­er is before you in such a man­ner that you come to per­ceive it from as many dif­fer­ent “angles” as possible.

Each angle or point of view is like a facet of a prism or lens through which you look out upon the world around you. When you bring your aware­ness to bear through one such lens it is as if you are shin­ing a very bright light upon the object of your aware­ness. It is illuminated.…but there are also shad­ows, and dark spaces that remain unlit. So, you need to shift your per­spec­tive, make new assump­tions and so cre­ate anoth­er lens to see with. By doing this you can even­tu­al­ly cre­ate a more com­plete under­stand­ing of what is before you.

This is one of the prin­ci­ple gifts of Gem­i­ni, the gift of men­tal adapt­abil­i­ty. It is the source of your inge­nu­ity and prob­lem solv­ing, your tool-mak­ing pow­ers and crit­i­cal aware­ness. Ulti­mate­ly, it is your means towards the devel­op­ment of knowledge…and that knowl­edge can be passed on. This gift of Gem­i­ni is the foun­tain-source for the devel­op­ment of Civ­i­liza­tion. The foun­da­tion for it all is this process of build­ing a net­work of asso­ci­at­ed expe­ri­ences, of see­ing the whole world as a net­work of rela­tion­ships between you and the world around you.

Cel­e­brate this next step in the jour­ney of life-con­scious­ness-spir­it; mov­ing ever onward you reach for the under­stand­ing of who, what, when, where and how. You seek to know, by going out and going in, and then you repeat.

Remem­ber always, in every step, and at every stage in your jour­ney, there is but one injunction:

Know Thy­self!

Anoth­er Triple Play! This time you have Mer­cury, Mars and Plu­to danc­ing with one anoth­er. That’s a potent com­bi­na­tion, Mind-Action-Will, so how do you make the most of this energy?

Mars in Tau­rus com­bined with Plu­to in Capri­corn favors great accom­plish­ments along mean­ing­ful lines. You are not the­o­riz­ing here, you are build­ing some­thing strong, some­thing sub­stan­tial and, of course, it has to be prac­ti­cal. Mars, who is act­ing for mate­r­i­al man­i­fes­ta­tion now, is here shaped by the will of Plu­to and so guid­ed towards achieve­ment that is trans­for­ma­tion­al. What­ev­er seemed impossible…well, now you will make it hap­pen! Today is the day you make a breakthrough…so go for it!

Mer­cury in Tau­rus comes along next. Now it’s your mind that is being mold­ed by the Will of Plu­to. You have a more laser-like pow­er of per­cep­tion. Nor­mal­ly, you accept the sur­face appear­ances of the mat­ter at hand, and why not; today you are strip­ping away the appar­ent to dis­cov­er the under­ly­ing lay­ers of real­i­ty (or truth). The ques­tion then becomes, now that you know that inner truth, that hid­den secret, what will you do with it?

You will be very pow­er­ful in your com­mu­ni­ca­tions today, but will you be wise too? Some­times a dis­cov­ery, or an insight, or secret, is for you to know. The oth­er par­ty may not be ready to receive it just yet. As in all things, con­sid­er whether it is wise to offer up your new under­stand­ing; always remem­ber, first do no harm.

Which brings us to align­ment num­ber 3, which is Mer­cury com­ing across Mars. Okay, you bet­ter watch out, take a deep breath, and con­sid­er what you should say, (and how you should say it). Your mind is eager, excit­ed and burst­ing with ener­gy. Yes, you are think­ing faster, but that does not mean you are right or that you should just let it out. Do not allow excite­ment and eager­ness to lead you into “foot in mouth” syn­drome. And remem­ber, oth­ers are just as eager and excit­ed as you are, so do not let things spin out of control.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is not a com­pe­ti­tion, it is about under­stand­ing; it should not be seen as a win/lose sce­nario. That is not how you advance your aware­ness or raise con­scious­ness. Just look at that word, “con­scious­ness”. It real­ly means Togeth­er (Con), Know­ing (Scious­ness). The growth of your under­stand­ing and con­scious­ness is depen­dent upon you com­bin­ing your thoughts with oth­ers so that you can cre­ate a more com­plete viewpoint.

The com­bi­na­tion of Mer­cury and Mars will cer­tain­ly speed up your mind and speech. Just make sure that the eager­ness to com­mu­ni­cate is rec­i­p­ro­cal; the most impor­tant fac­tor in being a great com­mu­ni­ca­tor is in being a real­ly good listener.

You walk the path of self-unfold­ment, to become what you are to become. Your jour­ney is long, the lessons are many. But there are some who have gone ahead; they have accom­plished what must be done. They have shown the way. Their life, their mes­sage is a gift that lifts your spir­it as you strug­gle to under­stand what is it all for; and in the sto­ry of the Bud­dha we have the reas­sur­ance that no one will be left behind, the door will not be shut, ’til all have come back home again.

Today we cel­e­brate what many con­sid­er the great­est of these Great Souls, The Bud­dha. Sid­dhārtha Gau­ta­ma was said to have been born at the Full Moon of Tau­rus; achieved Enlight­en­ment at the Full Moon of Tau­rus; and left of his own voli­tion the human phys­i­cal form at the Full Moon of Tau­rus. The teach­ings that he shared are some of the purest expres­sions of the Ancient Teachings.

The Ancient Wis­dom has been passed down from the begin­ning of time; it forms the core of under­stand­ing behind Sci­ence, Phi­los­o­phy and Religion…and Astrol­o­gy. At times more revealed, and in times more obscured, it endures as the promise that there is a pur­pose to your jour­ney and a path that you must fol­low. Many teach­ers have come, many unsung and known but to a few, but all have sought to re-affirm and pass on the truths of your existence.

The core under­stand­ing of the Bud­dha con­cerns noth­ing less than the way to ful­fill your human des­tiny. The heart of the mys­tery is that we are sparks of the Divine and our jour­ney through all the forms of exis­tence is so that the Divine may become man­i­fest. Yet, in mov­ing through these forms we become attached to form and so suffer.

We, as spir­its of the One Spir­it, must descend and be “formed into forms” that delight us, and yet lim­it us. These forms help us to grow, learn and under­stand our true nature as our pow­ers unfold. Yet, ulti­mate­ly our mov­ing into forms caus­es suf­fer­ing, because each form is lim­it­ed and must even­tu­al­ly fail us.

The Bud­dha’s mes­sage, which is so beau­ti­ful­ly demon­strat­ed by the Sun in Tau­rus and the Full Moon in Scor­pio today, is that the jour­ney of Spir­it is from the Un-Man­i­fest to the Man­i­fest, from Pure Poten­tial to Mag­nif­i­cent Fullness…and back again. This is your jour­ney, to go out into the Uni­verse and by your con­tin­u­ous “becom­ing”, to evolve through your expe­ri­ence of Spir­it in Mat­ter-Forms. You move from the Ide­al of Val­ue and Beau­ty, to Val­ue and Beau­ty Real­ized. But your true nature is Spir­it, and it is always about this jour­ney of Spir­it, and so you must con­tin­u­ous­ly move through the forms, and not stay in any form.

Bud­dha taught that the nature of your mate­r­i­al exis­tence leads to suf­fer­ing because you become attached to the form of val­ue. He showed that the way to peace, the way back home to your Spir­i­tu­al home, is through devel­op­ing the “Way of non-attach­ment”. The key to life…is to be the light flow­ing through the forms, breath­ing life into the forms, but not iden­ti­fy­ing with the forms of existence.

This is the great mes­sage of the Tau­rus Full Moon. That pre­cise­ly when you feel most strong­ly the life force surg­ing, and all of the delights of Mate­r­i­al Cre­ation are arrayed before you so that you wish to hold onto the form of val­ue, when all your sens­es are aroused, and you are most keen­ly aware of your phys­i­cal self, it is then that you need to remind your­self that this is only for a time.

Yes, you should gaze with won­der at the dawn of a new day, and dance in cel­e­bra­tion at the resplen­dent abun­dance of life increas­ing, but you must always be ready to release the val­ue-spir­it behind the form when the day is done. The les­son of Bud­dha is that even as we cel­e­brate and move through the forms of val­ue, we must devel­op in equal mea­sure our capac­i­ty for non-attach­ment to the form.

You left long ago on a jour­ney of self-real­iza­tion, of self-unfold­ment, of becom­ing. You start­ed as an unself-con­scious spark of the Divine. You will return when you have achieved a ful­ly awak­ened con­scious­ness, which is your gift that you offer to the Spir­it upon your return. How far away that is no one can say.

You can take com­fort in the knowl­edge that your jour­ney is guid­ed, encour­aged and inspired by those who have gone before you. For at the end of the path, The Great Ones, the “Bud­dhas of Com­pas­sion” stand, watch and wait for you to return. This is the Bud­dha’s great sac­ri­fice; that although he has fin­ished his jour­ney in the human form, he will not cross over till all have com­plet­ed their jour­ney. The door will not be shut.

We began as many com­ing from the One. We return to the One, bring­ing our gifts of expe­ri­ence, of life and love made man­i­fest. So cel­e­brate the Tau­rus Full Moon, of life surg­ing and beau­ty beheld for it is a nec­es­sary part of the great cir­cle of Life-Consciousness-Spirit…and then think of those who patient­ly wait for your return, and be thankful.

Her­mes, the Mes­sen­ger of the Gods, the “fleet-foot­ed” one, over­takes Aphrodite and bestows a gift in pass­ing. Remem­ber it was just last Mon­day that Venus passed over Mer­cury; today Mer­cury catch­es Aphrodite…we are danc­ing a “do-si-do” indeed!

Now Her­mes calls the tune as he brings stead­ied thoughts to your appre­ci­a­tion of the beau­ti­ful; lis­ten for the mes­sage that he brings from the Sun. The Solar Logos, the man­i­fest­ed Light of the light that is with­in you, calls upon you to remem­ber that the source of value/beauty, the true foun­tain-source of love, is to be found with­in your­self. The light that is with­in you is a spark of the Divine; it is that which con­nects you to every oth­er part of this Uni­verse. The true source of your val­ue, of your love, of your poten­tial to be ful­filled, is that you and all of cre­ation are sparks of the divine; we are all lights of the Light. You are tru­ly of One Mind, One Love, and One Spirit.

Her­mes tim­ing could not be more per­fect as he pre­pares you for the great bless­ing of tomor­row, the Full Moon of Tau­rus, the Bud­dha Moon! This is one of the most sacred events in the cal­en­dar year; you fol­low the “Shin­ing One” who has walked the path that you are still upon. As you approach this sacred event, anoth­er mes­sage of illu­mi­na­tion is offered by one of our plan­e­tary companions.

While Mer­cury and Venus dance their dance today, the gen­tle voice of Nep­tune, the plan­et of imag­i­na­tion, illu­mi­na­tion and tran­scen­dence whis­pers to them both. She is mov­ing through her home sign of Pisces and bestows her bless­ings upon your inner companions.

To Mer­cury, Nep­tune offers the wis­dom that in order to per­ceive the truth you have to remove your blind­ers and see what has always been there. Wash away your illu­sions with Nep­tun­ian trans-lucidity.

To Venus, Nep­tune offers the wis­dom that in order to hold the truth you have to remove your shad­ow and see that you have always been loved. Wash away your fears with Nep­tun­ian compassion.

Now, turn to the heav­ens and pay homage to all those who have shown the way. For tomor­row is the day of the Full Moon and we should all bow our heads and acknowl­edge the con­tin­u­ing sac­ri­fice that has been made for us all.

As Her­mes catch­es up to Aphrodite, she slips away and dances into Tau­rus. There is no place like “home”; and Venus is back in her sign of sen­su­al, mar­velous, mate­r­i­al manifestation.

With Venus rul­ing val­ue and beau­ty, the earth­ly delights of Tau­rus are a source of true joy for Aphrodite. You appre­ci­ate the fin­er things in the world now; indulge your tastes, sing your song of cre­ation and bring more beau­ty into your world. The ide­al of aes­thet­ics has been con­sid­ered; now it is time to draw down the ide­al and make man­i­fest the good. Enjoy the next 3+ weeks as you remem­ber how won­der­ful it is to be able to touch, taste, smell, hear and see the world around you.

Cel­e­brate Venus as she brings you clos­er to the Beau­ty of Wisdom.

Right on the heels of Venus, Her­mes fol­lows into her gar­den of earth­ly delights. The mind is tem­pered; your thoughts become more focused, steadied…slowed down. After all the excite­ment and fre­net­ic agi­ta­tion in Aries, it is nice to take time to con­sid­er what’s important.

Mer­cury will only be here for about 2+ weeks, (he’s still pick­ing up speed after that ret­ro­grade), so do not miss this oppor­tu­ni­ty to cen­ter your mind by har­ness­ing your point of view to last­ing, prac­ti­cal val­ues. The only ideas that mat­ter now.…are the ones that work! No flights of fan­cy; your thoughts have to be sol­id and your answers have to work. The good news is you will cer­tain­ly see your ideas becom­ing real­i­ties as Mer­cury moves through Taurus.

Cel­e­brate Mer­cury as he guides you to the ever­last­ing Truth.