Oops…have you for­got­ten some­thing, or some­one? Mis­placed some­thing, or won­dered why you went into this room any­ways (it was to get some­thing, or some­one, right?)…Yep, you guessed it, there’s been a change com­ing in the last few days, a shift of energies…Your guide “down here” has been slow­ing down and today goes into “reverse” for the next 3 weeks. That’s right, wel­come to the first Mer­cury ret­ro­grade of the New Year from March 12 till April 4.…

Of course Her­mes nev­er “real­ly” goes back­wards; he’s just pass­ing Earth on his inside orbit and so com­ing between us and the Sun. Those Mer­cu­r­ial ener­gies are wax­ing now, but they are turn­ing inwards…towards re-exam­i­na­tion, reviews and revi­sions. Ide­al­ly, if you could make it so, you would take the next 3 weeks and go on a retreat, to take an inner jour­ney, into your space for reflec­tion and so use this won­der­ful shift to bet­ter under­stand you!

But, of course, for many if not all…life goes on! (But do set aside some extra time for reflec­tion). As your seem­ing­ly ordi­nary life unfolds, make sure to be more aware of the pit­falls of Mer­cury as he does his “Moon Walk”. Since every­one is expe­ri­enc­ing this rever­sal, this pre­dis­po­si­tion to be “inward”, you have to remind your­self to pay more atten­tion to all com­mu­ni­ca­tions, both the trans­mit­ting and the receiv­ing. Because your atten­tion to the here and now may not be what it should, you are more like­ly to make a mis­take (assum­ing too much, not being clear or dis­tract­ed) so you fail to make your point…and, the receiv­ing end is just as impaired because of the same deficit of attentiveness…

But do make use of this gift to bend your mind back on itself and use your won­der­ful self-reflec­tive fac­ul­ty to bet­ter know your­self. The first peri­od of Mer­cury ret­ro­grade will be in Aries till March 23. Dur­ing this pas­sage use this Mer­cu­r­ial Mir­ror to see how you present your­self to the world around you…how do you appear to oth­ers? Are you lean­ing too far for­ward in your bear­ing so that you are over-whelm­ing? Or, are you so pulled back that you pass un-noticed by the world because you are under-whelming…Or maybe, just maybe you’ve got it “just right”, you are in that sweet spot…You are Strong and Sen­si­tive, know­ing when to take a stand… and when to yield…so that you walk on Earth with the right amount of pres­ence and your influ­ence upon those who accom­pa­ny you is beneficent.

Then from March 23 till April 4 Mer­cury will make a return vis­it to Pisces, and you will tru­ly need to go deep­er, down into the mys­ter­ies of your Imag­i­na­tion and reex­am­ine those well-springs of your Faith. Your aware­ness then will call for more sub­tle­ty; you will need to be more open and aware to the less appar­ent but under­ly­ing real­i­ty you move through. Where­as Mer­cury in Aries is all ideals and excitabil­i­ty, Pisces calls for a soft­er more recep­tive approach, to the worlds with­in and without.

To enter these sub­tle realms, to move into your intu­ition­al know­ing, you will need to let go of cer­tain­ties, to the fixed geome­tries of your out­ward real­i­ty as you open your­self again to won­ders, mys­ter­ies and the deep, deep waters from which all life springs…

Remem­ber, as before, the inspi­ra­tions of Mer­cury in Pisces will not come in the obvi­ous forms…your high­er self, your truer self will not shout or declaim…The gifts will come in that gen­tle whis­per, in the hint of some­thing pro­found but so famil­iar too…And then you will know that you have been touched, you have been graced by the mys­tery that is with­in you.

Yes, it is going to be an inter­est­ing 3 weeks…

All hail Her­mes, the Mes­sen­ger of the Gods who brings you the gifts of Greater Awareness…

The Greater Aware­ness of You!

Twelve New Moons have come and gone; twelve times you have received those Gifts of the Spir­it. For at each Moon there is a release of inspi­ra­tion, a present offered to you, filled with the bless­ings spe­cial to that sign…

And equal­ly, twelve times a year, the Sun and Moon come to their oppo­si­tion­al alignments…And it is at these Full Moons that a rev­e­la­tion is offered, a greater mean­ing is unveiled, and you are shown the way, the way to find the bal­ance between the dark­ness and the light.

Today as the Sun sets in the West a Beau­ti­ful Full Moon will rise; now you face the last Solar/Lunar coun­ter­point of the Astro­log­i­cal year. This, the final rev­e­la­tion, is your Omega moment of mean­ing. The Sun soar­ing through Pisces forms your pur­pose here which has been to under­stand, accept and appre­ci­ate the whol­ly spir­i­tu­al nature of your jour­ney year after year.

It is in Pisces that you meet again with the Full­ness of Spir­it through which your life unfolds. And, you can actu­al­ly expe­ri­ence the most fun­da­men­tal reas­sur­ance, that super­nal affir­ma­tion which was Sung by all the ones of the One at the dawn of Cre­ation. It is the cen­tral prin­ci­ple of the Ancient Wis­dom and is held up as a Bea­con of hope to com­bat the weary des­per­a­tion of all those who have fall­en for the great untruth. (What untruth is that? The mis­un­der­stand­ing that aris­es from a fun­da­men­tal flaw of per­cep­tion, (what is called the “Great Illu­sion”), which came about for you from your “falling into matter”…It was this that formed your expe­ri­ence of the Untruth of Sep­a­ra­tion from one anoth­er and from the whole of Creation)…

Pisces, the Final Por­tal in the Cir­cle of Life, affirms the Way of Truth.…That all of Cre­ation is One in Spir­it, One in Con­scious­ness and One in Love.

But this expe­ri­ence of Uni­ty, this Dream­ing Won­der, (at what­ev­er lev­el you may per­ceive it and through what­ev­er form you may touch it), can some­times lead you beyond the bound­aries of the expe­ri­ence of Space that you are pre­pared for. That razor’s edge, between the Dark­ness and the Light, between Illu­mi­na­tion and Delusion…that bound­ary realm is mag­i­cal, mys­te­ri­ous but may trap the unwary, may con­found the unprepared…

To find your way, to find The Way, you need some assis­tance, a lit­tle clarity…a guide to help you dis­cern a path through these won­drous, swirling spaces of Space…Tonight, look up and behold that Lumi­nous Sphere, look up to Luna who shines resplen­dent­ly with the Truths from Vir­go’s realm. She brings you bal­ance by way of Ser­vice, she extends a help­ing hand…

For equal to these gifts of Pisces, you have need of this bal­ance offered by Vir­go. As much as the Pis­cean expe­ri­ence of the One­ness of Cre­ation is the foun­da­tion for your expe­ri­ence of Com­pas­sion, Sac­ri­fice and True Uncon­di­tion­al Love…you need to stay upon your path of Pur­pose­ful Inte­gra­tion which is the Way of Beau­ty, the Path of Wholeness.

So give thanks and accept these bal­anc­ing gifts of Virgo…

The Gift to be Dis­cern­ing in your Compassion…so that you may tru­ly hon­or your­self as much as you care for the other…

The Gift to be Mind­ful in your Sacrifice…so that you may wor­ship the sacred with­in you as much as you feel it in the other…

The Gift to be Whole in your Love…so that you may open your heart to the beau­ty that is You as much as you see it in the other… 

Cel­e­brate the final Full Moon in this year’s Cir­cle of Life…

Cel­e­brate this “Har­vest of Spirit”…for all the mean­ings you have mas­tered in what has come before…

Now use your har­vest to pre­pare, the seeds from fruits you made…for just ahead are those New Begin­nings, your Equinox is com­ing soon…

It brings renew­al, a chance to begin again, high­er now…as you con­tin­ue your nev­er-end­ing journey…along your Spi­ral Light­way to the Stars.

Your mind is lean­ing for­ward now, eager to push beyond old men­tal bound­aries as Mer­cury skips through Aries. But the thing about those bound­aries, (your assump­tions, your par­a­digms, your “Matrix”), is that you often can­not either see how you are bounded…or how, even if you do espy those self-made blind­ers, how exact­ly do you get beyond your con­di­tion­ing, beyond your dimen­sion­al space with­in Space?

But lucky you, today Her­mes is graced by Uranus, who offers you his gift, the pow­er of re-con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion that takes you beyond those assump­tions, beyond your bound­ed spaces…Uranus moves your mind along that razor’s-edge of reason/intuition by elic­it­ing a spark of spir­i­tu­al light­ning which illu­mi­nates the dark­ened spaces, the shad­owed realms that you your­self have cast about you.

For Uranus is one of the 3 gifts of the Spir­it, here to lead and lift you up, time and time again. Uranus lifts up that “Veil of Isis” by elic­it­ing a high­er con­scious­ness, a more inclu­sive view­point, as you ever seek to under­stand your­self and your world.

Your con­scious­ness is pro­gres­sive­ly devel­op­ing, but more often in incre­men­tal, step by step accu­mu­la­tions of per­cep­tive capac­i­ty. But through­out that devel­op­ment you will find your­self at those bar­ri­ers beyond which you seem­ing­ly can­not pass…because those bar­ri­ers or lim­its are cre­at­ed by your lev­el of con­scious aware­ness. You have come to your Ring Pass Not, and beyond lies the shad­ows (and fears) of the great unknown.

Uranus, the awak­en­er, comes along and pro­vides the “Eure­ka” moment, the break­through or Epiphany where­by you are lift­ed up into a new realm of con­cep­tion, a new realm of con­scious­ness. Now it was not that the old con­scious­ness was wrong or bad. It was a nec­es­sary stage, a space that you resided in so as to expe­ri­ence your­self and your world for a time. It was true, it was real…but it was limited…shadowed.

There is (always) a greater Real­i­ty and Con­scious­ness wait­ing for you…because your jour­ney is found­ed upon your ever-unfold­ing, ever self-becom­ing spir­i­tu­al spark of the Divine. You will reach many stages of aware­ness; you will pass through many por­tals of con­scious­ness in your journey…

And always and for­ev­er you must be will­ing to let go of the famil­iar and brave the bound­ary realms…

But you will not walk them alone, you are ever accom­pa­nied by your high­er self and oth­ers sent to help you…

You need only be will­ing to open your heart and mind to the Greater Real­i­ty that is your home…

Arise, awake and lift your eyes up…behold the won­der of Creation!

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!