Ready? (You know you are, real­ly you are ready)…Then Pivot!

That’s right, Her­mes has fin­ished his inner pere­gri­na­tions, his pil­grim­age with­in your mind…exploring…questioning…reexamining…your beliefs, prin­ci­ples and truths has run its course and you are mov­ing for­ward now…You are clear­er, wiser…and more hum­ble, that’s for sure. All those activ­i­ties and projects, all those miss­ing mes­sages (and pack­ages), all those func­tions or activ­i­ties that seemed to stall or slow down, well now it is time to forge ahead!

The last 3 weeks have pro­vid­ed numer­ous upsets, annoy­ances and exas­per­a­tions along the lines of “who let the grem­lins out, again?!”; and that’s what we usu­al­ly notice about Mer­cury’s retro-motion…but it is only the out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tion of a change of ener­gies that you are sup­posed to take note of and then use. You need times like these with its re-direc­tion­al­i­ty to go inside, to pon­der, to reflect and re-con­sid­er the themes and chal­lenges of the sign Mer­cury is mov­ing through. But, of course, life goes on and so those minor (and some­times major) annoy­ances accom­pa­ny his back­ward gambol.

But now, now you go for­ward with Mer­cury in Sagit­tar­ius till Jan­u­ary 8. He’s been in Sagit­tar­ius as I not­ed since Novem­ber 2, and that is a very long time for Mer­cury to be in one sign! It is a won­der­ful, extend­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty, now deep­ened and revised by Mer­cury’s cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion, to seek to under­stand your­self and one anoth­er bet­ter by expand­ing, explor­ing and shar­ing your dis­cov­er­ies, your beliefs and your points of view. You have become wis­er and so more hum­ble as you root­ed out some of your out­worn assump­tions, out­looks and beliefs. Your truth became refined and hope­ful­ly more nuanced as you move to that greater under­stand­ing that the process of rev­e­la­tion is and will always be nev­er-end­ing as you jour­ney in Life-Consciousness-Spirit.

Remem­ber now, with Mer­cury in Sagit­tar­ius you are posi­tioned to be bold and direct, to speak with enthu­si­asm and con­fi­dence, because you are ener­gized with the notion that you’ve got “truth” on your side…and so you do, you always do…relatively speak­ing. But so does that oth­er per­son you are try­ing to per­suade. And, of course, both of you are inca­pable of being all-know­ing and with­out error so you had bet­ter wrap that truth in a lit­tle humil­i­ty. For if your inner jour­ney the last 3 weeks has taught you any­thing it is that truth is relative…relative to your devel­op­ment and capac­i­ty for under­stand­ing your­self and your world…and what you hold to be true today is just a step­ping stone to a greater aware­ness that awaits you.

So yes, speak your truth…but look and lis­ten too! For you do not know what you do not know…

Your true and lov­ing mid­dle path is to be found in that bal­anced blend­ing of mutu­al­ly increas­ing self-con­fi­dence and humility.

Be wise as a ser­pent, and gen­tle as a dove!

This is the “oth­er half” of the Eclipse cycle. You expe­ri­enced the Sagit­tar­i­an New Moon which was a Solar Eclipse two weeks ago and now at the Full Moon Eclipse you should “get” your answer. Or do you? Here is what I wrote about this Lunar Eclipse in my Overview for 2011:

Lunar (Dec. 10)
The Lunar Eclipse on Decem­ber 10 is in Gem­i­ni. The illu­mi­na­tion pro­vid­ed at the Full Moon is inter­rupt­ed by our present cir­cum­stances. Though we wish to think more clear­ly (Gem­i­ni), old pat­terns and assump­tions need to be con­front­ed. The issue is “how intel­li­gent are you?”

The “nor­mal” rev­e­la­tion deliv­ered by a Full Moon is being “shad­owed” by the Earth (which is your present exis­tence or real­i­ty) as the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon. The mes­sage is there but some­thing in your cur­rent point of view is block­ing or shad­ow­ing the mean­ing for you. You need to under­stand the nature of the shad­ow and step beyond it to receive the mes­sage of the stars now.

Usu­al­ly the Full Moon in Gem­i­ni is there to illu­mi­nate the rela­tion­ship between the now dom­i­nant Sagit­tar­i­an approach and the Gem­i­ni expe­ri­ence of con­scious­ness. The Sagit­tar­i­an Sun’s light should help to reveal that those seem­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed, com­plex and mul­ti­fac­eted Gem­in­ian points of view, “of being all things to all peo­ple”, as being not so sophis­ti­cat­ed and wit­ty but, in the end, as some­what duplic­i­tous or unprincipled. 

It should pro­vide insight into how the Sun in Sagit­tar­ius avers the impor­tance of one mind­ed­ness, of the One Truth; while the Moon in Gem­i­ni declares the impor­tance of mul­ti-mind­ed­ness, of the many truths. Both approach­es are “true” for they depend upon one anoth­er as the devel­op­ment of your con­scious­ness pro­ceeds in its spi­ral dance between Ide­al­ism and Mate­ri­al­ism, between The­o­ry and Practice.

The Gem­i­ni gift, the capac­i­ty to hold more than one thought, often­times con­tra­dic­to­ry ones at that, is need­ed in order to move beyond what might have become rigid bound­aries in con­cepts, prin­ci­ples and points of view…but in the end it is there to serve Spir­it, to pro­vide you with your adap­tive capac­i­ty to come ever clos­er to The Truth that is Spirit.

But the shad­ow, Earth­’s shad­ow which is your present, gets in the way of the mes­sage today. What can you do? You need to open your mind even more, shift your view even fur­ther so that you can see this shad­owed, dim lit cov­er­ing of your per­cep­tu­al assumptions.

Step back from the imme­di­a­cy of the issue or prob­lem at hand; place the mat­ter or con­cern into a larg­er, wider and deep­er con­text. Imag­ine your­self as if you are from anoth­er land, anoth­er cul­ture and through those eyes see what is assumed to be truer and less true.

It was 6 months ago on June 15 that you gazed with won­der at a Full Moon Eclipse; tonight you look out in the oppo­site direc­tion, into the vast­ness of Space itself. You are look­ing away from your galaxy’s cen­ter, out into the beyond…into the spaces of Space.

And at such times, as before, you should bow your head, be hum­bled and inspired by the majesty that is Creation.

Uranus, the Awak­en­er turns direct tonight after 5 months of mov­ing back­wards. Of course, actu­al­ly, Uranus was and is mov­ing in the same direc­tion as do all the plan­ets cir­cling the Sun. What actu­al­ly occurred was that we on the Earth, being clos­er to the Sun, caught up to and passed Uranus on our “inside” track around the Sun. While we passed Uranus it appeared to us that it was mov­ing retrograde…and since on Earth is where we are, appear­ances do count and that real­i­ty is our truth!

The impor­tant thing for you, astro­log­i­cal­ly, is that all ret­ro­grades are peri­ods in which plan­ets turn their par­tic­u­lar ener­gies inward so that you may have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to use their influ­ence to improve your inner realms of emo­tion, thought and spir­it. What was Uranus offer­ing to you? And what do you do now?

Uranus was mov­ing ret­ro­grade in Aries so the oppor­tu­ni­ty was made to re-exam­ine your pres­ence in the world, to dig behind your masks or your per­sonas that reveal (well or poor­ly) “who you are” and what you know of your­self. Uranus offered you a chance to break with an old, out­worn or inap­pro­pri­ate way of being or act­ing. Either the world was chang­ing, or you were chang­ing (or usu­al­ly both), and the old atti­tudes and approach­es no longer fit or made sense…the mask con­cealed more than it revealed, it held you back from truer self-expression.

Now, now with Uranus direct you can go back out again with a renewed, more indi­vid­u­al­ized and authen­tic expres­sion of your­self. You can savor the release of your new, truer image and be more aligned with­in and with­out. You have a renewed per­sona and it is time to act through it…but for what?

You’ve blazed new trails with­in your­self for the past 5 months, now it is time to be a trail blaz­er in the world around you. The free­dom to be your­self is cre­at­ed in those sacred spaces that allow each and every that same free­dom of expres­sion…for none are free till all are free.

Uranus in Aries (and now direct) says it is time to lean into the lim­it­ing struc­tures between one anoth­er, to chal­lenge those old struc­tures and cre­ate greater spaces of self-realization…together.

Uranus the Awak­en­er moves you back upon your path­way of ful­fill­ment, your path of destiny.

Well, it may not be a Fri­day night…but this is most cer­tain­ly a “Date Night” kind of day. When the God­dess of Love (Venus) meets up with the God of Desire (Mars) your heart’s desire is easy to come by. But this ener­gy is not only about romance (not that there’s any­thing wrong with that!)…

Actu­al­ly, you should find that you have the ener­gy (Mars) to obtain what­ev­er you want (Venus)…so move with the flow that exists now and enjoy this beau­ti­ful sym­me­try, this grace­ful bal­ance of Yin and Yang…

It is a day to dance, a day to go to a muse­um, a day to lie in the sun or dance in the rain, a day to move clos­er in that relationship…

You get it…it is a day to enjoy life and love and the good that you and every oth­er, that all ones of the One have made pos­si­ble in this universe.

This is a very good day indeed!

It is Mer­cury’s “New Moon”; the release of new inspi­ra­tion that you have been wait­ing for since Mer­cury went ret­ro­grade on Novem­ber 24 is now at hand as Mer­cury comes between the Sun and Earth. You have, (hope­ful­ly), tak­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty while Her­mes moves back­wards in Sagit­tar­ius to re-exam­ine and ques­tion the assump­tions that under­lie your prin­ci­ples, beliefs and truths.

You have pon­dered, won­dered and sought for a deep­er under­stand­ing of how what you believe cre­ates, shapes but also lim­its what you per­ceive. You have sought for answers, but have prob­a­bly come up with more questions…but now, now the uni­verse offers a flash of inspi­ra­tion to help you move beyond your self-cast shadows.

If you can, set aside some time, qui­et your mind and lis­ten for that whis­per of anoth­er way or approach, a gift from your intu­itive self about the issue you have been pondering…or per­haps you could focus on a prob­lem or dilem­ma that has been trou­bling you and then go “sleep on it”…upon awak­en­ing, you may find that an answer has be offered up, a way through is shown to you.

Then you should brace your­self and work on slow­ing down, qui­et­ing or calm­ing your mind because, lat­er today, Mer­cury squares Mars and you will need to rein in your mind (and your opinions).

Mer­cury being “pushed” by Mars makes you dis­con­nect your think­ing and speak­ing; you may end up talk­ing too much or lis­ten­ing too lit­tle, giv­ing offense or being embar­rassed (or both!). You need to remem­ber that the most impor­tant part of being a good com­mu­ni­ca­tor is being a con­sid­er­ate listener.

Do not approach com­mu­ni­ca­tion as if it is a “zero-sum game”, with a win­ner and a los­er. Always remem­ber that the word “con­scious­ness” means “con” (togeth­er) “scious­ness” (know­ing), lit­er­al­ly Know­ing Togeth­er. The way beyond your self-cast shad­ows is by shar­ing and learn­ing from one another.

With Mer­cury in Sagit­tar­ius and Mars apply­ing a cor­rec­tive adjust­ment from Vir­go, you need to step back from uncon­di­tion­al state­ments and dog­mat­ic posi­tions; you need to be more self-crit­i­cal of your assump­tions and more solic­i­tous of var­i­ous points of view…for you do not know what you do not know!

Looks like today you are going to gain insight and cor­rec­tion too; today is a day to stretch your per­cep­tions, chal­lenge your opin­ions and be open to shar­ing in that greater understanding.

Today is a day to move beyond your shad­owed mind and draw clos­er to the light…

Today is a good day!