As men­tioned in my overview for 2012, today begins the ret­ro­grade of Mars until mid-April. Here is what I said then:

Mars Ret­ro­grade (Jan­u­ary 23 till April 13–14)

Where­as Mer­cury moves ret­ro­grade 3 times a year for about 23 days each time, and Venus ret­ro­grades about every 1.5 years for about 40 days, Mars will move ret­ro­grade about every 2 years and 2 months for about 80 days or so…it is the plan­et that goes ret­ro­grade the least so you should take advan­tage of this opportunity.…what opportunity?

Mars rules your actions and desires, it serves your “self” (the Sun) by pro­vid­ing the dri­ve to secure your needs and wants. But when it turns ret­ro­grade it sig­nals a time for you to turn inward, and offers you the oppor­tu­ni­ty (neces­si­ty) to re-exam­ine what exact­ly you do desire, and, just as impor­tant­ly, re-con­sid­er how you should secure it. This time Mars is ret­ro­grad­ing through Vir­go, so the review of your desires and aims will be upon your need for greater clar­i­ty, order and peace of mind…

I would add that when­ev­er a plan­et is mov­ing ret­ro­grade it is actu­al­ly mov­ing clos­er to the Earth; Mars and Earth will make their clos­est approach to one anoth­er at such a time. The influ­ence and effects of Mars will not dimin­ish while ret­ro­grade but actu­al­ly grow until ear­ly March. That is when Mars is exact­ly oppo­site to the Sun and its bright red light will be like a shin­ing bea­con in heavens.

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.

You have passed beyond that peren­ni­al sum­mit; your year-long jour­ney is wind­ing down. Ten Moons have bestowed their gifts upon you; these sacred ways, those eter­nal truths.…here to guide you while you walk the jour­ney of light.

Now near­ing the final chap­ter, you lift your eyes once more; you lift your gaze from the path of des­tiny as you behold the stars above…And, you’ll find anoth­er watch­er watch­ing, the one who is wait­ing there; a com­pan­ion for the journey…someone who is ever ready, who lends a help­ing hand…

Here at the 11th Moon of the Astro­log­i­cal Year you find your­self beyond those sto­ried hier­ar­chies of ful­fill­ment and duty, beyond the con­cerns of suc­cess and acclaim. You may pause and ask, “What comes after the grand per­for­mance, what else could be at hand?”

And then you see it, the sim­ple smile and the laugh­ter in the eye…And, you remem­ber, and you smile to yourself…You look around and see, of course, it is so sim­ple, so true…It is the greater life you have lived with this one, and anoth­er and another…To be with your com­pan­ions, to find belong­ing in community…to call to one anoth­er and say “I see you, I see you my friends!” And it is good, it very good indeed…

For in the 11th hour, you come to appre­ci­ate that each and every oth­er who jour­ney on this path, that all of these sparks of the divine are your com­pa­ny, your com­pan­ions in this won­drous path­way to per­fec­tion that is Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it. And, it is togeth­er that you enjoy, that you make this won­der of co-cre­at­ing the world that is to be…

Cel­e­brate this spir­it of Aquar­ius dawning…

Live the Truth that “We are all related”.…

And smile, and laugh and lend a help­ing hand…

For you are among friends…and it is good.

Here in the final of four, in the sea­son known as win­ter, you enter the mid­dle pas­sage and you must hold…you must not waver. Through every sea­son there is a time for begin­ning, and a time for an end…but here, at the sacred cen­ter, you must stand with­out waver­ing for your dreams of bet­ter days.

For the next 30 days the Sun will move through Aquar­ius, the last of the Air Signs and the final of the Fixed. All the Air signs take their delight in the realm of ideas and ideals, of thoughts, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and con­nec­tions. Focused now through the fixed nature of Aquar­ius these ideas become sub­ject to the clear­est of think­ing, the coolest of rea­son­ing and the most orig­i­nal of form.

Where­as the point and pur­pose of Capri­corn is to bring you to your moment of great­est real­iza­tion with­in a present real­i­ty, (to be ful­filled), Aquar­ius comes in with a sim­ple ques­tion, “Per­haps we can make it bet­ter, per­haps we should do it differently…maybe we can grow freer?” And so you must, you must stretch your­self and your mind’s eye and dream of a bet­ter world… a more just and beau­ti­ful world for you and yours…

It is said of Aquar­i­ans that they are nev­er “in” their time, that they dream and wan­der in a land from a thou­sand years ago, or in a thou­sand years to come, that they are in the world but not of it…

But remem­ber this, each and every one of you has Aquar­ius some­where in your chart, some­where in you there is that laugh­ter in the eye and song in your heart that says that you, me and we, that all of us togeth­er can and will make the world a bet­ter place…we just have to believe and then join together…as con­scious­ly aware com­pan­ions in the great work of being the cre­ators of a new world…

This is the month for join­ing together…

This is the time for dream­ing together…

This is your way to make a bet­ter world…together.

Four times a year, you meet four turns in the wheel of life. Four moments of deci­sion, you find four ways to make it “real”.

The Sun is your pure poten­tial wait­ing to unfold, wait­ing to be brought forth into real­i­ty. Sat­urn rules Real­i­ty; it is what you and every­one else have so far made into the “real”.

When­ev­er the Sun aligns with Sat­urn in one of the quar­ter turns of their cycle, (Con­junc­tion, Wax­ing Square, Oppo­si­tion and Wan­ing Square), you will find your­self at some impor­tant moment of decision. 

You will look at what you have so far made of yourself.…and you will com­pare this to your potential…and then you will have to decide…what is to be your next step. To turn left or right, go up or down, in or out…you must decide and so con­tin­ue to become.

Today you are at the next turn­ing of your wheel. Most like­ly, what­ev­er you may have start­ed, released or unfold­ed 3 months ago has now reached a piv­ot point. You have to choose what to cleave to and what to let go of.

With the Sun in Capri­corn and Sat­urn in Libra, the deci­sion and action to be tak­en will con­cern and com­bine Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Rela­tion­ship. You will need to decide how to inte­grate your need to ful­fill your pur­pose (self-ful­fill­ment) while hon­or­ing your rela­tion­ships (which make your ful­fill­ment pos­si­ble and mean­ing­ful). It may appear as if there is a con­test or choice between duty and love, but it is a false choice.

The only way for­ward, the only path pos­si­ble is the path of integration…you need to be both respon­si­ble and respon­sive, to be ful­filled and considerate…you need to be a whole person…

You need to choose.…Duty and Devo­tion, together.

Venus enters Pisces and for the next 3 weeks you will enjoy the mag­i­cal, inspi­ra­tional and spir­i­tu­al aspects of beau­ty and love. 

Venus is said to be exalt­ed in Pisces because here she finds her high­est under­stand­ing of the nature of val­ue and the expe­ri­ence of love; this under­stand­ing is found­ed upon the spir­i­tu­al truth that you are the dream­er who is dream­ing this real­i­ty. You need only abide in that spir­i­tu­al aware­ness, to be “Faith-Full”, in order to unfold your poten­tial and so change your­self and your world too.

Venus rules val­ue, beau­ty and love. Here in the final sign of the zodi­ac she dances with delight to the song of cre­ation, the song of spir­it ever-becom­ing. You appre­ci­ate your­self more tru­ly for what you are; that you are not some “thing”…you are a spe­cial spark of the Divine and your ever-unfold­ing poten­tial “to be” has no lim­its. You need only look with­in and dis­cov­er a won­drous world of the won­der­ful; it is you and the yet to be real­ized cre­ative essence wait­ing to be released through you.

Your val­ue is immea­sur­able because it is ever-unfolding…you are the creator.

Your true form is lumi­nous, sparkling and radiant…you are sur­round­ed in beauty.

Your Love is eter­nal as is the spir­it with­in you…you are one of the ones of the One.

Dance the dance of Venus in Pisces…

You are the dream­er danc­ing your dance of Creation.

Dream…Dance…Create…