Growth is Good… and your new cycle of growth com­mences today.

The Sun rules your “self”; it is the home of all of your poten­tials, all your tomor­rows. Jupiter rules your prin­ci­ples; it is that which deter­mines how you relate to the world around you. But always remem­ber, your first and most impor­tant rela­tion­ship is with your “self”. Now with the Sun con­joined with Jupiter you can re-align your­self to your “self”.

Take time today to reex­am­ine the prin­ci­ples of your life. What is “your truth”? Under­stand where you have come from so that you may bet­ter under­stand why and where you are going. With that greater under­stand­ing you can then decide how best to move your­self towards your dream.

As a new year­ly growth cycle com­mences, last year’s con­cludes. Turn inward today to under­stand what were your inten­tions, out­comes and lessons of growth expe­ri­enced in the year just end­ed. Then turn out­ward and use this under­stand­ing as the foun­da­tion for your new cycle of growth, your new round of self-realization.

This is the most fun­da­men­tal teach­ing of the cos­mos. It is the answer to the ques­tion: “Why are you here?” The answer quite sim­ply is: “You are here to grow”.

You have been on a long, long jour­ney of self-unfold­ment. You began as a spark of the divine flame. You moved out into the cos­mos to learn, to grow, to become. At each turn­ing of the wheel of life, you must har­vest the mean­ing of what you have learned, then use that under­stand­ing and go forth again to a high­er plane of self-real­iza­tion. And so on, and so on…

Cel­e­brate today your jour­ney, your growth. Ful­fill your des­tiny, which is to be a star amongst the stars. Go Forth, Grow and become your Destiny.

This is anoth­er of the major tran­si­tions this year that I men­tioned in the overview for 2011. Here is what I wrote then:

Nep­tune Enters Pisces (Apr.4, Aug. 4, Feb. 3)
Just as with Jupiter and Uranus last year, Nep­tune dances back and forth between one sign and the next this year. It has been in Aquar­ius since 1998 and it will stay in Pisces start­ing next Feb­ru­ary 2012 until March 2025. This is a com­ing home event, since Nep­tune is said to rule Pisces. 

The last time Nep­tune was here was 1848 to 1862 and the pur­suit of dreams (and fan­tasies) grew apace. In the US, the west­ward expan­sion was accel­er­at­ed as the vision of gold sparkled in the eyes of “forty-nin­ers”. In the spir­i­tu­al world, on the heels of the “Sec­ond Great Awak­en­ing”, a grow­ing reli­gious fer­vor spurred the calls for jus­tice as abo­li­tion­ists strug­gled to make our coun­try con­front the great evil and shame of slavery. 

For the next 13 years, a path­way has been offered for a renew­al of under­stand­ing, com­pas­sion and sac­ri­fice. We are mov­ing into a peri­od of spir­i­tu­al revival and growth. Dreams, romance and the imag­i­na­tion will take flight. 

Be pre­pared to wonder…be ready to embrace… and be able to sur­ren­der, so that the gifts of Spir­it may enter our hearts and so remind us that we are one. “E Pluribus Unum” 

Green Light — Red Light… okay Uni­verse which is it? Why both, of course!

Mars Con­junct Uranus (like a New Moon) cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty to align your actions (Mars) with your true indi­vid­u­al­i­ty (Uranus). Over any peri­od of time you set­tle into “pat­terns of action” that you have man­aged to estab­lish in order to accom­plish the many tasks in your life.

These pat­terns of action/reaction can be more or less func­tion­al, but they are always lim­it­ed by the under­stand­ing you had when you cre­at­ed them. The gift of this align­ment is that Uranus (The Awak­en­er) brings in a “dif­fer­ent” or alter­na­tive point of view.

Nor­mal­ly, you would view any task or prob­lem as if you were shin­ing a light upon an object. You see that side, that approach, bright­ly lit and the only answer/path/action is the one which is appar­ent to you. But with Uranus on Mars it is as if mul­ti­ple lights are shin­ing from var­i­ous points of view, you can see that there is more than one way to approach the issue; there is more than one action you can (or should) take.

With Uranus on Mars you can see that both in the way that you approach the prob­lem, and the result­ing solu­tion, that both of these can change giv­en the insight pro­vid­ed by Uranus. You have had your blind­ers tak­en off; you have lift­ed your con­scious­ness. You can choose anoth­er, more enlight­ened way of being.

Uranus bestows this bless­ing; the free­dom to choose a truer path to ful­fill­ment.… go for it.

The Sun Oppo­site Sat­urn (like a Full Moon), is a moment of revelation/reckoning. The Sun con­tains all that you can ever be, pure poten­tial as yet unre­al­ized. To be any­thing, the ener­gy, the vision, the plan must incar­nate (on this plane) into some “thing”. And yet, by so doing, it becomes lim­it­ed by your man­i­fest­ed form (Sat­urn).

Now with the Sun oppo­site to Sat­urn you see ful­ly revealed the dif­fer­ence between the orig­i­nal impulse, idea or plan and what has come of it mate­ri­al­ly. The jux­ta­po­si­tion this time is between Saturn/Libra and Sun/Aries.

The seed-idea that was released 6 months ago was for a new devel­op­ment in your rela­tion­ship to self and oth­ers. Now you are shown the out­come of that effort. The rev­e­la­tion you now have shows you how it is that your rela­tion­ship to your­self (Sun) becomes the very foun­da­tion yet, giv­en its devel­op­ment at any one time, the very lim­it for your rela­tion­ship to the world, (and for your rela­tion­ships in the world). 

In the light of this aware­ness, re-eval­u­ate your rela­tion­ship to your­self, and to oth­ers. Under­stand you are at a turn­ing point. A cycle has end­ed, so you must stop and under­stand. A cycle has end­ed, so that means a new one has begun. You are har­vest­ing the expe­ri­ence of your self­’s jour­ney to ful­fill­ment, and there is no end to this spi­ral of energy-form.

Now take your har­vest of mean­ing and use it to cre­ate an even bet­ter rela­tion­ship to your­self and to the world.…so be it.

The first New Moon of the Astro­log­i­cal cal­en­dar! 6 out of 10 plan­ets in Fire! It does­n’t get more ener­getic than that. You should be streak­ing ahead, blaz­ing new trails, leap­ing tall…but no, wait, that’s not how it feels at all…

So, why do you feel as if things are not real­ly mov­ing for­ward? Oh, you remem­ber, maybe it’s because Mer­cury is ret­ro­grade. That’s right, you can’t go for­ward with­out turn­ing back; you have to fin­ish or fix some­thing before you leap ahead. Tie up those loose ends, dig into the fruits of your life just lived, take those seeds of yes­ter­year, and plant them in the warm­ing rays of the wax­ing sun…

Okay, well that’s it, right? Actu­al­ly, that is part of it, tru­ly, but there is a mes­sage in this New Moon itself that should make you stop, con­sid­er your path ahead care­ful­ly, before you can con­tin­ue towards your des­tiny. (And that’s a good turn of phrase, “to con­sid­er your path ahead” since that very word, “con­sid­er”, lit­er­al­ly means to be amongst (con) the stars (sider). Isn’t it mar­velous how our lan­guage speaks to us with the wis­dom of the ages, the wis­dom of the stars?)

For it so hap­pens that the pat­tern of this New Moon has the Sun and Moon oppo­site to Sat­urn. This is no sim­ple begin­ning, no sim­ple release of pure ener­gy. This begin­ning reminds you that that the uni­verse is found­ed upon a fun­da­men­tal rela­tion­ship between ener­gy and form, of ide­al and real.

The Sun and Moon have come togeth­er to release a new mes­sage that cel­e­brates the Aries truth of being “I”. It is the way of Aries to be one­self with­out restraint; you must raise your ban­ner and pro­claim “I AM!”, and so begin again as pure energy.

But Sat­urn replies; it speaks from the truth of Libra. The Lord of Time, Saturn/reality, says you are nev­er alone and your life has no mean­ing with­out con­text, with­out “the oth­er”. You are filled with poten­tial, and yet what you have so far real­ized in your present self is the prod­uct of the lives of all that have come before you. You stand upon the social-spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tion of that greater life that gave birth, sup­ports and gives mean­ing to your very exis­tence. You are, in fact, part of a great com­pa­ny of souls who have helped one anoth­er since the begin­ning of time.

So as the New Moon in Aries pro­claims a new release of self, Sat­urn reminds you to tem­per this release of pure self through the con­text of your social con­scious­ness. Cel­e­brate the release of your truer self that is the Aries Way; and hon­or The Bal­ance that is Sat­urn in Libra, by mak­ing your life mean­ing­ful through right­eous relationships. 

Things are bound to “heat up” now as Mars moves into the sign of Aries till May 11^th. The next 40 days are going to be…“exciting”. Mars rules your desires, your actions… it is the “thrust” in your life. Mars is back in its own sign, the first sign, and so begins a new cycle of action and activity.

Mars in Aries brings enthu­si­asm, ide­al­ism, and dri­ve; it cre­ates a “can-do” spir­it in your life now. You want to begin some­thing, or forge ahead in what you have already start­ed, and you will, (you must). It’s out with the old and in with the new and Mars is lead­ing the charge. But, as always, you have to know how to work with this surge of energy.

Your enthu­si­asm will feel great, but watch out for impul­sive­ness. Don’t leap with­out look­ing or you are like­ly to bang your head, lit­er­al­ly. Mars in Aries bestows this resur­gence of ener­gy, but it tends to reduce (elim­i­nate) your capac­i­ty for patience. As a result, frus­tra­tions arise because every­one is act­ing up, act­ing out, tem­pers flare, and acci­dents hap­pen. So, after the new idea pops into your head, before you plunge ahead, stop, take a moment and con­sid­er the sit­u­a­tion from a more reflec­tive, calm and encom­pass­ing perspective.

Your ide­al­ism is charm­ing, but be aware of your naiveté. Great ide­al­ism is at the root of real­i­ty, but does your plan of action make sense, in this world, at this time? Don’t get too caught up in what “ought to be”. Remem­ber, you and the world have been evolv­ing for a very long time and you are not yet what you can be, just yet. Tem­per your ide­al­ism with the under­stand­ing that your jour­ney requires many steps, each pro­vid­ing a nec­es­sary les­son, and so you must accept what is pos­si­ble now. 

Your dri­ve seems impres­sive, but you will not suc­ceed if you are self-cen­tered. Your dream, your ide­al, may seem like the “only” or “true” way to be. But there are many paths that lead to ful­fill­ment, and yours is but one of many songs in the life of spir­it. Play your part, con­tribute to the greater life, but you have no right to claim your way to be the way. 

Mars is the ser­vant of the Spir­i­tu­al War­rior. Now it is time to draw again on your capac­i­ty to renew your life and raise the ban­ner of right­eous action. But, always remem­ber, the true strug­gle of Life-Love-Spir­it lies with­in the spir­i­tu­al war­rior seek­ing their destiny. 

Be Patient, Be Mind­ful, Be Hum­ble. So be it.