Her­mes moves back into Leo and so you must adjust your think­ing accord­ing­ly. The prac­ti­cal details and finite re-order­ing of your thoughts in Vir­go must give way to larg­er con­cerns; you must now exam­ine the under­ly­ing assump­tions of your point of view.

Where­as since Aug 2 till today Mer­cury’s ret­ro­grade offered the oppor­tu­ni­ty to recon­sid­er your per­cep­tions as reflect­ed through the lens of Vir­go, now you must shift and con­sid­er the ide­al behind the idea as Mer­cury slides back­wards through Leo. Until August 26, when Mer­cury turns direct, you need to re-exam­ine your assump­tions, the prin­ci­ples-ideals-truths, which col­or the lens of your mind’s eye.

Use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er how your need for respect and approval (Leo), may lead you to form “blind spots”, and there­by lose the con­nec­tion you must have with those before you. You must offer that respect and approval to those before you if you wish to receive it. Like­wise, you must guard your­self from too eas­i­ly “waver­ing” on your own truths so as to “please” oth­ers as you seek their approval. All you will affirm by such a per­for­mance is your own lack of self-respect.

Enhanc­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty for you today, Mer­cury forms an oppo­si­tion to Nep­tune who is now in Aquar­ius. This is the sec­ond of three such align­ments between Her­mes and Posei­don. Dur­ing the first on July 29, the chal­lenge seemed to take place between your­self and anoth­er as regards mis­per­cep­tion, illu­sion or, at its worst, decep­tion. But as not­ed then, the real chal­lenge was with­in your­self, you need­ed to work on your pow­ers of per­cep­tion by re-exam­in­ing your cer­tain­ties, by ques­tion­ing your per­cep­tu­al assumptions.

Here, today, the empha­sis is even more deter­mined­ly turned inward with Mer­cury’s ret­ro­grade motion. Though a disturbance/confusion/delusion will prob­a­bly man­i­fest between your­self and anoth­er, it will most cer­tain­ly lead you to ques­tion those ideals which inform your point of view.

Wel­come the gift of Nep­tune’s Intu­ition­al Inspi­ra­tion, which helps you to inward­ly pierce through that veil of pride­ful-cer­tain­ty, the veil which obscures the deep­er truth about the ques­tion before you. Guid­ed by Nep­tune’s com­pas­sion, you will be able to let go of any one-sided approach and appre­ci­ate the Mul­ti-Verse you tru­ly live in.

Though Nep­tune’s grace may lead you through an ini­tial peri­od of uncer­tain­ty and doubt, yes even fear, know that this is the Path that you must trav­el towards true accep­tance, greater under­stand­ing and divine wisdom.

Com­pas­sion, Humil­i­ty and Love…follow the Path­way to the Light.

Venus style meets proven sub­stance in a grace­ful pas de deux; beau­ty, love and val­ue are ground­ed by and made more pro­found through the gift of Sat­urn’s expe­ri­ence. Pass­ing fan­cies will just not make it today; you need to expe­ri­ence last­ing val­ues, clas­si­cal beau­ty and endur­ing love.

With Venus mov­ing through Leo, and Sat­urn through Libra, their felic­i­tous align­ment affirms the truth that all great val­ue is found­ed upon expe­ri­ences that are shared; that the truth in beau­ty you find before you reflects your inner grace; and that ever­last­ing love is the won­drous real­i­ty which affirms your jour­ney in Life-Consciousness-Spirit. 

Take some time today to build upon the last­ing val­ues between your­self and anoth­er; enjoy the beau­ty around and with­in one anoth­er; and acknowl­edge, embrace and be assured by the force which binds you togeth­er with a great host of shin­ing ones, seek­ing to find your way to the One…again.

When is too much, Too Much?…Today!

Venus and Jupiter are called the “less­er” and “greater” benefics in Astrol­o­gy; today they meet up in a square and that typ­i­cal­ly means you will over­do, overindulge and gen­er­al­ly ere on the side of excess. But real­ly, what does this align­ment mean spiritually?

If Venus rules your wants, and Jupiter defines your social prin­ci­ples, then today you are torn between your per­son­al val­ues and your social sen­si­bil­i­ties, between your needs and your social con­science (or spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment). You may feel that you have to choose between per­son­al enjoy­ment and social accept­abil­i­ty, between love and honor.

What you may want for your­self may not be good for your rela­tion­ship or vice ver­sa. Maybe you find your­self in a sit­u­a­tion where you are in love with some­one, but the rela­tion­ship is some­how just not work­ing. Or, you are in a good rela­tion­ship, but you do not feel (any­more) the love that you want. Of course you should not choose between one and the other…as always, you need to find the high­er way, the spir­i­tu­al path of inte­gra­tion. What is the nature of the challenge/choice and how do you do that?

Venus is in Leo, so it is speak­ing from those ide­al­is­tic realms of roman­tic love, of respect, appre­ci­a­tion and approval. Venus is enthralled by and act­ing out emo­tion­al­ly in the dreams of great romance, of Princes and Princess­es and sto­ry book end­ings. Jupiter weighs in (lit­er­al­ly, since it is after all the largest plan­et), from the prac­ti­cal realms of Tau­rus. What is the point of “great romance” if your cup­board is bare? How roman­tic is it when those dra­mat­ic ges­tures lead to dra­mas of despair instead of con­stan­cy, trust and commitment?

What you need (and what you want), as the famous slo­gan for wom­en’s rights had it, you must have “Bread and Ros­es”, secu­ri­ty and romance, com­mit­ment and excite­ment. As always, you must find the mid­dle way, the noble path where your per­son­al val­ues and social needs are inte­grat­ed and not torn apart from one another.…You must cre­ate a whole life, where each informs and shapes the other.

Rather than choose between love and hon­or you must work them back togeth­er if you can. One with­out the oth­er is not sus­tain­able (or healthy), for you or the other.

As always, the chal­lenge is not to choose but to take up the task of mak­ing whole what has come apart…

Love and Hon­or one another!

This is the sec­ond of three sex­tile align­ments of Mer­cury and Mars. With Mer­cury ret­ro­grade and so turned inward in Vir­go, and Mars new­ly feel­ing its way in Can­cer, the mes­sage from the stars has shift­ed from July 11 when Mer­cury was in Leo and Mars in Gemini.

Now the quick­en­ing touch of Mars inspires Mer­cury to lead you inward and deep­er; reflec­tion, intro­spec­tion and self-crit­i­cism are all enhanced. Your insight is sub­tilized by the watery depths of Mars in Can­cer as it com­bines with the ana­lyt­i­cal lucid­i­ty of Mer­cury in Vir­go. Thoughts and Feel­ings work togeth­er here to guide you into a greater depth of self-awareness.

Where in July your mind was aflame with the desire to explore and share your excit­ing dis­cov­er­ies and real­iza­tions, this time is more pri­vate, more per­son­al as you explore the inner depths of your assump­tions, per­spec­tives and points of view.

This is a gift, a gift of clarity…think well.

Nep­tune pays a return vis­it to Aquar­ius today till Feb­ru­ary 3, 2012. The dream of sal­va­tion through inven­tions and tech­nol­o­gy is kin­dled anew. The world hungers for and seeks some quick fix or easy escape from the phys­i­cal, social and spir­i­tu­al debts it has incurred.

When Nep­tune returns to Pisces in 2012 there will be a gath­er­ing real­iza­tion and acknowl­edge­ment of the need for pro­found spir­i­tu­al trans­for­ma­tions and sac­ri­fice. There will be no quick fixes…

You are already in the shad­ow time of the old order; the twi­light, the dawn of a new age is gath­er­ing and you must turn and let go of that which can­not pass as you move into the light…

A new world is arising…believe and behold.

Mars leaves Gem­i­ni and glides into Can­cer for the next 45 days…Your Desires, Aims and Aspi­ra­tions become focused upon home, fam­i­ly and secu­ri­ty. Gem­i­ni brought curios­i­ty, diver­si­ty and debates…but now you want to pro­tect and pre­serve who and what is close to your heart.

You will act with more care­ful­ness (or cau­tion) now; it is time to lead with your feel­ings. You will act (and react) with height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ty. Out­ward dis­plays and actions are super­seded now by inner jour­neys and dis­cov­er­ies. Whichev­er way you trav­el, before you sal­ly forth you will have to feel just right with it.

Stand­ing at the gate­way of the last Water Sign (and about to make a return vis­it back into Aquar­ius tomor­row), Nep­tune in Pisces wel­comes Mars to Can­cer by gen­tly caress­ing the Lord of Desire with gifts of Imag­i­na­tion, Intu­ition and Dreams. The Trine of Mars and Nep­tune is mag­i­cal, won­drous and inspi­ra­tional. This is a day for dream­ers who live to live their dreams!

Some­times it feels as if your dreams and your abil­i­ties will just not, or can­not, match up…But today, today if you believe in your dreams, if you fol­low your heart, you will expe­ri­ence the joy and truth of “Dream-mak­ers”.

That is when Imag­i­na­tion and Belief, when Inspi­ra­tion and Action, dance as one…That is where you find the Shin­ing Ones, the dream­ing-mak­ing Devas, who dance the Dance of Cre­ation that is Life-Consciousness-Spirit.

Today, you will dance the dance of the Cre­ator. You will be inspired and inspi­ra­tional. You will dream and you will do…for that is your path, always and forever.

Dream on you shin­ing ones!