Hav­ing just received her part­ing gift from Sat­urn, (or was that a jolt?), Venus dances into her home sign of Tau­rus for the next month…Ah, that’s more like it…time to ease up, to slow down (and yes, smell those ros­es too!) as you more tru­ly appre­ci­ate the sen­su­ous, won­drous Beau­ty of Creation.

While Venus rushed through Aries you were all in “your head” about your val­ues; plans were espoused, ideals were declaimed and bursts of enthu­si­asm (and over-enthu­si­asm) ruled in all mat­ters about tastes, val­ues and your love-life…

But now, now it is time to turn to a slow­er pace, a more delib­er­ate approach because Venus in Tau­rus needs to touch, to smell…she needs to see and hear and taste the delights that sur­round you. Venus in Tau­rus does not want to dream or imag­ine what some­thing might be like; she wants you to take your time, to enjoy the beau­ty in the world, by real­ly expe­ri­enc­ing those lux­u­ri­ant feel­ings of com­fort, style and ease.

Not only do you have a keen­er appre­ci­a­tion for the world of delights around you, but you also will have a more nuanced accep­tance and lov­ing appre­ci­a­tion for your own tal­ents and sen­si­bil­i­ties. You will bet­ter appre­ci­ate your gifts now because you are stead­ied by your ground­ing in last­ing values.

Bow down to Venus as she brings you into her Gar­den of Earth­ly Delights…

Live in Beau­ty, Walk in Beauty…

But above all…Be Beautiful!

This is hard, tru­ly hard to bear…but bear it you must…and you can, you shall…because this is how you grow into your Greater Under­stand­ing. The time has come again to under­stand clear­ly how well you tru­ly know, under­stand and accept the nature of your val­ue, the extent of your self-worth…how much you have real­ized what is with­in you and come that much clos­er to that uncon­di­tion­al love of Self; and, how well you have tak­en this love of self and formed it into your Reality. 

The oppo­si­tion aspect always “presents itself” as an issue that seems to exist between you and anoth­er, (or many others)…and it does, it tru­ly does exist “out there”. There may well be a con­fronta­tion, or alter­ca­tion or rev­e­la­tion in and about a rela­tion­ship now. Cer­tain­ly rela­tion­ship mat­ters can come to a cli­max; they may achieve a breakthrough…or they may just break.

But the greater truth is that this is real­ly, and always is, an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see beyond this appear­ance, form or man­i­fes­ta­tion to the real ori­gin for this experience…that this encounter you meet “out­side” is the mir­ror of what lies with­in you, with your rela­tion­ship to yourself.

The Venus/Saturn Oppo­si­tion is a test of val­ue where­in you are asked to see how well you have come to accept and love your­self; for it is that self-love which is the one and only lim­it to the love that you may give…and the love that you shall receive. There is only one law, one fun­da­men­tal truth…love begets love…but first you must love yourself.

You must accept this awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ty, to accept the chal­lenge and so face square­ly and ques­tion your assump­tions, fears and self-doubts about your worth. You and only you can heal the wounds in your heart and soul by mak­ing that truer con­nec­tion to the spir­it with­in you…who loves you tru­ly, uncon­di­tion­al­ly and for all time. For your spir­it is part of the Greater Spir­it; the Light whose pres­ence is beside you as you move through these bound­less spaces of Space. You are watched and guid­ed by your Self who is your more per­fect­ed poten­tial wait­ing to be released…

And the key for that unfold­ment is to be found in your under­stand­ing and accep­tance that you are always loved, beloved by your high­er self. You need not ask, you need not act…And you will hear it in the gen­tle whis­per, in the chill of touch­ing some­thing deep­er, and you will remem­ber how you are always guid­ed to good­ness and kind­ness, inspired by acts of selflessness…and so you will feel your spir­it make its pres­ence known…again…

Yes you are loved; you are loved beyond mea­sure for there is no lim­it to the spir­it with­in you or that Spir­it that sur­rounds you…

You are loved Unconditionally…and so you must love ful­ly too…and by so doing you round the round and com­plete the circle…

You are one of the ones of the One…

And your des­tiny is in the Stars…

Now turn­ing, bright­ly brighter…you are shin­ing now!

You’ve wait­ed for it, you have been very patient…you have wait­ed for the answer to the ever-present ques­tion, “What is your heart’s Desire?”…And you know…you just might get some help from the Uni­verse right about now. That is because since Jan­u­ary 23 Mars has been mov­ing back­wards through Vir­go and you have re-exam­inined the nature of Desire and Action in your life…that’s the gift of Mars mov­ing retrograde.

Now your pure poten­tial to be (Sun) shines a “Full Moon” like light upon your self-direc­tion, upon what stands as the avatar who directs you out­ward in your search for mean­ing, self-real­iza­tion and the sat­is­fac­tion of your desires (Mars).  

This ret­ro­grade of Mars is in Vir­go which means the reex­am­i­na­tion of aims and actions should be under­stood with­in the ener­gies and lessons that sign bestows. Here is what I wrote at the begin­ning of Mars ret­ro­grade on Jan­u­ary 23:

As Mars grows brighter, night after night, as you move towards that moment of greater rev­e­la­tion, take time to re-con­sid­er where you are going and how you are get­ting there. Look more deeply with­in your­self and ask “Is this what I should aim for, is this my way to move towards it wisely?

The theme of Mars in Vir­go (the sign of heal­ing and whole­ness) will focus these reflec­tions so that you may dis­cern more clear­ly what aims and which actions move you along your bet­ter path of Inte­gra­tion, Sim­plic­i­ty and Well-being.

Vir­go is the sign of the Vir­gin, (prob­a­bly the most mis­un­der­stood sym­bol of our cul­ture); to be Vir­ginal accord­ing to the First Teach­ings or the Ancient Wis­dom means that one is whole and com­plete, bal­anced and inte­grat­ed in Body, Feel­ing, Mind and Spir­it. It is only when a per­son becomes so inte­grat­ed are they tru­ly ready and pre­pared to enter into ful­ly func­tion­al relationships.

With Mars ret­ro­grade in Vir­go you are learn­ing to Act with greater Vir­tu­os­i­ty, to be guid­ed by clear inten­tions and graced by con­sid­er­ate acts. Nei­ther dis­trac­tions of mind, nor wast­ed efforts for you…now you are the will­ing appren­tice seek­ing only self-mas­tery. This is the true path of the Spir­i­tu­al Warrior.

The one true and only goal…is to find and secure that great­est of trea­sures, a trea­sure sought by many and found by few…

To be at Peace.

Cel­e­brate the gift of Mars who lifts you up to your high­est aspirations…

This, the path you must walk, the path of self-mas­tery and peace…

This is your path.

Today you stand between your Self (Sun) and your Desires…

Today is the Day of Illu­mi­na­tion for your Avatar of Desire; for now you can see how you well you have under­stood the prin­ci­ple of Right Thinking/Right Action. Do not judge; Accept and Receive this Gift of Spirit…

Let the Light of Under­stand­ing guide you now on your path­way of Spir­i­tu­al Integri­ty, Com­pas­sion and Love.

For this is the Mes­sage of the Sun in Pisces…

This is your Heart’s Desire…This is your path­way to Peace.

Her­mes is leav­ing, depart­ing for a while those dream­ing seas of Pisces; he is leap­ing out of those deep, deep waters into the fiery realm of Aries. This is your time to move towards inde­pen­dent think­ing; it is time to stand apart in thought and be count­ed as spe­cial, unique and whole unto your­self. You need to be eager, assertive, inde­pen­dent and most of all quick-wit­ted; the past is in the past now…you crave excite­ment and the New!

But don’t go too fast or you might end up with a fraz­zled mind…and stum­ble into over­heat­ed argu­ments; remem­ber that your over-eager­ness can lead to say­ing out loud what was not quite ready for prime-time…Yes you are sharp and fast, but you want to be under­stood and appre­ci­at­ed too!

Now, don’t get too set­tled in Aries for there is yet anoth­er Mer­cury change com­ing your way…That’s right Mer­cury is actu­al­ly slow­ing down now, (though he is mov­ing through Aries, the “swiftest” sign in terms of ener­gy); Her­mes is com­ing to one of his thrice year­ly piv­ot points and will turn ret­ro­grade on March 12…and low and behold he is going to take you all the way back into Pisces start­ing March 23…Looks like there is yet more dream­ing-time com­ing your way…

But mean­while, until then, you had bet­ter fas­ten your seat belt (and but­ton your lip) because you are in for an exhil­a­rat­ing but bumpy ride as your mind catch­es fire!

So remem­ber:

Be enthu­si­as­tic, but not impatient.

Be assertive, but not aggressive.

But most of all…

Be true to the Spir­it of Aries…give voice to your ideals! 

The Sun, hav­ing just been graced by gen­er­ous Jupiter, has a very nice meet­ing with Plu­to, the Lord of Will. You began a new cycle in this rela­tion­ship between your pure poten­tial (Sun) and your will (Plu­to) at the end of Decem­ber. Now you expe­ri­ence the steady­ing hand of the sex­tile aspect; there is real progress to be had as you can see man­i­fest­ed and con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence the unfold­ment of self-trans­for­ma­tion you start­ed two months ago.

It is through the appli­ca­tion of your will that you release, form and express your pure poten­tial for being.

Today that poten­tial ever-wait­ing to be released from the cen­ter of your being, from your Self, finds sub­stan­ti­a­tion in and through your will.

Today is anoth­er good day!