The Sun in Sagit­tar­ius aligns with Mars in Virgo…Okay, this is not going to be an easy day…in fact it will prob­a­bly be quite frus­trat­ing if you pro­ceed like every­thing is nor­mal. Hold­ing this in will not be healthy, and just let­ting it out will not be very pret­ty either. So, take a deep breath, step back and con­sid­er what the Uni­verse is try­ing to teach you now…for you are only here to learn…and the only rea­son you suf­fer is because you are not yet what you are to be…

The Sun rules your “self”, your pure poten­tial wait­ing to unfold into self-real­iza­tion. Mars, nor­mal­ly, serves that self by pro­vid­ing the dri­ve, ener­gy, the “get up and go” to move you towards what­ev­er you desire, what­ev­er you are aim­ing for. If the Sun is your­self, then Mars is your­self being assert­ed, it is your self-assertion.

Ide­al­ly what you want and how you move towards it should cor­re­spond with one another…You move towards more excite­ment through ener­giz­ing actions, you move towards calm­ness through more gen­tle means. But today you seem to be, as they say, “at cross pur­pos­es”, your inten­tions and actions are out of phase with one anoth­er. You may, in fact be act­ing against your­self, in ways that are self-deny­ing or self-destructive…you may be tak­ing one step for­ward only to stum­ble back sev­er­al steps, and the hard­er you push the worse it gets. What do you do?

Well, you stop! You stop and think about two things: “Where am I going, is my goal correct…and How am I get­ting there, is this the way to get there?” The Sun in Sagit­tar­ius wish­es to fol­low big ideals and ideas, broad and sweep­ing, expan­sive goals and path­ways, to be a risk-tak­er. But Mars in Vir­go is focused, real­ly focused, riv­et­ed by details, exact­ing in crit­i­cism and the prac­ti­cal ways of life…Mars in Vir­go is risk-averse.

You need to find the bal­anced path, the mid­dle way, so that you inte­grate your ide­al­ism with your real­ism, your risk-tak­ing with cau­tion. Instead of being over­ly opti­mistic or fear­ful­ly pessimistic…you need to blend the two and be a rea­son­able optimist…with a greater empha­sis upon the rea­son-side since Mars is stronger here.

The uni­verse is always seek­ing to bend you back towards the mid­dle way, back to your path­way of spir­i­tu­al truth. Today the empha­sis is upon curb­ing your enthu­si­asms and focus­ing your ideals so that you can main­tain or re-estab­lish a way of being that makes sense…

A way that takes you to where you need to be, to the only place…

At Peace.

Are you ready? Are you ready to go deeper?

It’s time again to dive deeply into those spaces below, down into the ancient cat­a­combs of your val­ues. Venus, like Perse­phone, is going on her jour­ney with­in. Plu­to, as Hades, is tak­ing her on this renew­al jour­ney, to refresh and restore your expe­ri­ence of beau­ty, mean­ing and love. 

Venus rules your val­ues which are formed by, found­ed upon and express your val­ue of your­self, your self-worth. Most pro­found­ly, yet sim­ply put, this is real­ly a reflec­tion of your expe­ri­ence of love, your love of self…which is real­ly your essen­tial expe­ri­ence of being one of the ones of the One.

Plu­to rules your will-pow­er which forms, main­tains and pro­tects all of your sacred spaces. It is through the pow­er of Plu­to that you can form the bound­aries between your­self and any oth­er and most impor­tant­ly form that essen­tial sacred space, the sacred space you call yourself.

Venus aligned with Plu­to cre­ates the oppor­tu­ni­ty to more deeply under­stand the mys­tery and joy, the chal­lenge and reward, of expe­ri­enc­ing your love for one anoth­er, a love which is formed in and bound­ed by your union, by cre­at­ing that shared sacred space, the sacred space of “we”.

The depth of that shared love and the great­ness of that shared space is set by you and the other…it is deter­mined, formed and made pos­si­ble by what you each indi­vid­u­al­ly bring from the unfold­ment of self-love and the integri­ty of your own sacred space. The more you have come to love your­self tru­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly, and the more you have come to cen­ter your­self in your own sacred space…well, then to that same extent can you love and cre­ate that sacred space of “we” with one another.

Today Venus and Plu­to take you deep­er, into the foun­da­tions of your love and sacred space. You need to reex­am­ine what you pos­sess with­in so that you may bet­ter share it. You need to under­stand how you cre­ate your bound­aries so that you may bet­ter tran­scend them.

Then you can move out again, into that vul­ner­a­ble but nec­es­sary space between you and you, where one heart meets anoth­er. You can, hav­ing found a greater love with­in and stronger will to cre­ate, you can move into the sacred space of co-cre­ation with all the oth­er ones of the One.

You can come togeth­er, you can move clos­er to home…and it is good.

Now this is more like it! Bless­ings and more blessings…Today enjoy the gifts of good for­tune, because you have earned it!

Yes, good for­tune (Venus) meets Greater good for­tune (Jupiter)…and all is well in your world. This is your “lucky day”, but don’t let it go to your head…instead, under­stand why this is hap­pen­ing and what you need always do.

Venus is mov­ing through Capri­corn. What mat­ters now are your tra­di­tion­al val­ues; qual­i­ties like ele­gance, style any and all clas­si­cal forms are in demand. Jupiter is sta­tioned in Tau­rus; your prin­ci­ples of relat­ing are whol­ly focused upon last­ing val­ues that are tan­gi­ble, sen­su­al and com­fort­ing. They are both in Earth and form­ing a beau­ti­ful aspect that makes man­i­fest the good in tan­gi­ble ways.

Their won­der­ful align­ment today means you will be reward­ed now. Of course, the nature and extent of that reward most­ly depends upon you; because it is your own past actions that will mea­sure out the reap­ing of your good for­tune now. That’s right, each and every, one and all are always sub­ject to that fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of “Cause and Effect” which deter­mines the wax­ing and wan­ing of your life experiences.

You make your future in all ways…so the extent of your “good luck” is the result of the gen­eros­i­ty you have shown to oth­ers. Enjoy your good for­tune but con­tin­ue to build a bet­ter future for oth­ers and your­self by shar­ing your bless­ings con­tin­u­ous­ly with those in your life.

For what you give is what you get…

Today is a good day!

Venus is mak­ing her gra­cious, dig­ni­fied and pur­pose­ful entrance into Capri­corn for the next 3 weeks…only to be tripped up imme­di­ate­ly by Mr. Con­trary him­self, Uranus. How are you sup­posed to observe the niceties, uphold tra­di­tions, main­tain deco­rum (and your com­po­sure) while you are tum­bling head over heels? Real­ly, what is the Uni­verse say­ing now anyways?

Venus leaves the expan­sive, explor­ing and ide­al­is­tic sign of Sagit­tar­ius for the Earthy plea­sures (and seri­ous sen­si­bil­i­ties) of Capri­corn. The Exot­ic los­es its appeal, you want and need what is steady, re-assur­ing and has with­stood the tests of time, what endures is what appeals…No pass­ing fan­cies now, noth­ing casual…you’re mov­ing from the Sagit­tar­i­an trav­el­ling bazaar to the court­ly realms of pres­tige, posi­tion and deference…

What you need to know, where you seek to find and secure your val­ue is by under­stand­ing where you stand in the hier­ar­chy of your social order…What is your role or Title, what are your rights, and what are your respon­si­bil­i­ties towards one another?…This is what you seek to find in your­self and through the oth­er now…you need to know your social sta­tus and you want to be in a posi­tion that is wor­thy of you, a role that ful­fills you and bestows honor.

But as you try and get your bear­ings, to find what (and who) is above and below, to ascer­tain who is respon­si­ble for what and to whom, as you try to walk those ancient, prac­ti­cal paths of duty and tra­di­tion, Uranus comes spin­ning by to add his “out­sider” oth­er­ness to Venus’ sensibilities…Okay, now how do you man­age this?

Uranus is throw­ing down his chal­lenge to the sta­tus quo…to those time-test­ed, rev­er­ent­ly held hier­ar­chi­cal posi­tions and powers…he comes along, like a breath of fresh air (or howl­ing wind) and says, “Why, why must life be ordered like this? What is “right” is what is earned…and what is true to growth, to the truth of indi­vid­ual free­dom and self-realization.”

Before you can claim those rights or priv­i­leges, before you can move up in the hier­ar­chy of life, you have to earn it by ful­fill­ing your respon­si­bil­i­ties and prov­ing you are worthy…that you are “trust wor­thy”. For what­ev­er your title and posi­tion, and the pow­ers that flow from them, it depends upon you under­stand­ing, acknowl­edg­ing and serv­ing the source of that power…it is not yours, it is only yours to exer­cise faith­ful­ly by serv­ing its source.

And remem­ber, behind all such hier­ar­chies there is the One, true hier­ar­chy of the Spir­i­tu­al fam­i­ly to which you belong and with whom you journey.

Uranus, the Awak­en­er, is only remind­ing you that you must not be enam­ored or entranced by appear­ances, by the forms of posi­tion and dis­plays of pow­er. Those out­ward trap­pings are here only to serve some­thing greater…

For what tru­ly endures is found within…and is seen to grow as that bright­en­ing light of your spir­i­tu­al unfold­ment, your self-becom­ing ascent in the Hier­ar­chy of Light.

Your nobil­i­ty and worth are already with­in you…Uranus is just remind­ing you to let it shine…

Shine on!

The Ninth New Moon of the Astro­log­i­cal Year is also a par­tial Solar Eclipse. Dur­ing an ordi­nary New Moon you receive a gift of new inspi­ra­tion, a release of ener­gy to fur­ther your unfold­ment through the themes of that par­tic­u­lar sign, in this case Sagit­tar­ius. But dur­ing the Solar Eclipse the Moon’s shad­ow (rep­re­sent­ing the past) cross­es over you. This release of new ener­gy requires a trip back in time so that you can resolve some­thing old before you can move forward…Okay, so let’s see what tune this Lunar “do-si-do” is danc­ing to…

In my Overview for 2011 I wrote about this New Moon:

The Solar Eclipse of Novem­ber 25 is in Sagit­tar­ius. The release of a new ener­gy in under­stand­ing must first address the need to repair our notions of truth­ful­ness. Do you know where you are going? Oh, then you know from whence you came? Remember.

One of the more impor­tant con­cepts asso­ci­at­ed with Sagit­tar­ius is the process of the devel­op­ment of your Under­stand­ing which pro­ceeds most­ly in a grad­ual fash­ion, but at times is sub­ject to a greater leap through Rev­e­la­tion.

For the most part, Under­stand­ing unfolds through the steady accu­mu­la­tion of expe­ri­ence, and that expe­ri­ence being trans­mit­ted through Phi­los­o­phy, Sci­ence and Reli­gion, cre­ates the devel­op­ment of human cul­ture and soci­ety which can be seen to unfold, devel­op and become more than it was. But this self-becom­ing does not hap­pen along one straight, sim­ple and step by step path.

The unfold­ment of Under­stand­ing is not lin­ear, it is cyclic and more spi­ral in nature, and cer­tain­ly appears to move for­ward and back­ward, advanc­ing and retreat­ing, around the world and through the ages. Often and for some time advances are seen as incre­men­tal, each addi­tion­al insight build­ing upon what has come before. But there are moments, schis­mat­ic bursts of light, which pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty to break up a set of old assumptions/constraints and cre­ate a new, hope­ful­ly more inclu­sive and wis­er world view.

Here is where the Solar Eclipse can lend a hand. For in the Moon’s shad­ow light there stand revealed some ele­ments missed in those brighter sun-lit realms. In the shad­ows you can dis­cern some of the old, under­ly­ing assump­tions that forms, that tru­ly cre­ates the lim­it­ed real­i­ty of what you per­ceive. The Moon’s shad­ow reveals, which means to unveil, to uncov­er what was hid­den, to bring into con­scious­ness what has been present but not yet per­ceived, and so your under­stand­ing of what­ev­er was before you has become truer, deep­er and clos­er to what is known as “That”.

But there is anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty present at such a moment of plan­e­tary cycling. When our Star­ry com­pan­ions align so that the light around is dimmed there can come a turn­ing, a recog­ni­tion of a greater light with­in. This inner bright­en­ing, this Illu­mi­na­tion is known as “Rev­e­la­tion”, a Dra­mat­ic unveil­ing often through some exter­nal agent like a Divine being (or per­haps your high­er self). The veil that you per­ceived real­i­ty through, or that cov­ered real­i­ty for you, is lift­ed, if only for a moment, and you expe­ri­ence the shock of Rev­e­la­tion, the shock of the Unveil­ing of the Greater Space you tru­ly move through…

It is not grad­ual, it is not easy (it needs to be shock­ing), but it is through this agency of Spir­it, through this quick­en­ing of your self-unfold­ment, that great leaps are made in your understanding…and you will be ever grate­ful for this help in your becoming.

More­over, this gift of Illu­mi­na­tion, this more com­plete Under­stand­ing, brings sub­stan­tial proof that your jour­ney is watched over by those who have come this way before…and they wish to help…

And it is from this, that you can know, for cer­tain, that you are nev­er alone, never…and that your jour­ney is part of a greater jour­ney too.

Pause at this New Moon, pause at this new begin­ning in your under­stand­ing. Dare to approach Isis who wears for you her Veil of Appear­ances, (the veil you helped to form)…and dare to lift, if but a lit­tle, and look beyond and into the heart of your Universe.…and gaze with new-found wonder…

Step into the shadows…and into the greater light of Truth.