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!

Well, this is nice indeed, very nice! When the plan­et of benev­o­lence, good will and gen­eros­i­ty (and good luck) graces the Sun you are def­i­nite­ly feel­ing that things are going in the right direction.

Real­ly the key for expe­ri­enc­ing that last trait (Good Luck) is con­tained in the pre­vi­ous qual­i­ty of being (Gen­eros­i­ty). Through­out your jour­ney you cre­ate your real­i­ty; you reap what you sow…Whatever you “put out there” is what will even­tu­al­ly return to you…This is the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple that gov­erns this uni­verse, the law of “cause and effects” bet­ter known as Karma. 

“Good luck” is the con­se­quence of your gen­eros­i­ty bestowed at some oth­er time and place return­ing to you now, (Bad luck, well that bad luck is the result of hav­ing failed to meet an ear­li­er chal­lenge as one ought to have, so now you have to reap the con­se­quence of that).

The good news is that you are in con­trol; you are the author, you are the cre­ator, you make your reality…it just takes time, and some­times a long time to turn things around.

But the good news, the real mes­sage you should take from today’s align­ment is that it starts with you. So, you should do what you will to make a bet­ter future…Show con­sid­er­a­tion, be kind­ly and gen­er­ous to oth­ers… for know this, you will cer­tain­ly find this good will com­ing back to you someday…

And, if you can learn to prac­tice this day in and day out, well even­tu­al­ly you will live a very blessed life indeed.

Today is a day for bless­ings to be received…

Today is the day to cre­ate the bless­ings of your future…

Today you walk in good­ness, con­sid­er­a­tion and generosity…

Today is a good day!

Hold that thought! (And while you are at…Hold your tongue!) When Mer­cury gets a hard knock from Mars your mind and mouth are rac­ing ahead, “excit­ed” and wild­ly enthusiastic…but your dis­cre­tion and dis­cern­ment, well they have prob­a­bly left the build­ing. Your thoughts and actions are at cross-pur­pos­es; you may be think­ing one way but your actions are “speak­ing” anoth­er language…so you bet­ter step back and recon­sid­er what the uni­verse is try­ing to show you here. For if you don’t…well you are prob­a­bly going to regret some­thing you said or did…

Mer­cury has been dream-danc­ing in Pisces, stir­ring your visions of brighter tomor­rows, those shin­ing white knights and damsels, with their cas­tles in the air. Mars in Vir­go comes along with a “real­i­ty check”…those big dreams, those castles…Do you know how to make them come true, do you know how to make your dream a real­i­ty? Do you know all the parts and pieces that make up your vision? Mer­cury wants to paint with a broad brush now, but Mars keeps on needling, ques­tion­ing and crit­i­ciz­ing this fluffy dream because, well it just does not “make sense”.

So what do you do? Do you stay in the dream and ignore your own or (more like­ly) oth­er peo­ple’s doubts. Or do you pull your head out of the clouds and set­tle for the ordi­nary? Or do you turn around and poke holes into some­one else’s dream world? Well any of these could (and prob­a­bly will happen).

But you know the teachings…when faced with a chal­lenge like this the uni­verse is try­ing to get you to find the mid­dle way, that path of syn­the­sis where you can bring both of these ways together…for both are tru­ly true…but only when worked together.

What that means is that Mer­cury in Pisces, your won­drous vision, prob­a­bly does need to be brought into greater focus…so a lit­tle analy­sis and dis­crim­i­na­tion can help to fine-tune your plans…And, equal­ly, Mars in Vir­go, your dis­cern­ing, prac­ti­cal method­olo­gies are all well and good, all fine­ly tuned up, but to what end? You need some inspi­ra­tion to lift your eyes from the imme­di­a­cy of your dai­ly chores and espy the big­ger pic­ture; you need to bet­ter under­stand what your ser­vice is for and what it will lead to.

When you are pulled one way and anoth­er there is only one true way you can go…

And you will find your way along that cen­tered, bal­anced and nuanced path of integration.

You are here to learn…

You are here to become…

You are here to walk the path to that greater understanding.