Venus turns toward her gre­gar­i­ous side for the next 3 weeks as she leaves the for­mal, duti­ful realms of Capri­corn for the con­trar­i­an, friend-filled play­grounds of Aquarius.

While Venus was in Capri­corn it was all about the sta­tus quo, tra­di­tion and practicalities…these were the mea­sures of wor­thi­ness, this was the way of love.

Now it is time to move upon that “path less tak­en”, to cel­e­brate your indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, inde­pen­dence and to take delight in eccen­tric­i­ties.  Why go with the ordi­nary when you can be extraordinary?!

The plan­et of love is mov­ing in Air now; your heart and mind are entwined with and enter­tained by com­pan­ion­ship and fellowship…you are moti­vat­ed by ide­al­ism and by the shar­ing of hopes and dreams…by being among your friends.

Love is focused upon rec­og­niz­ing the spe­cial­ness of the oth­er and cre­at­ing a space and style of being that encour­ages each and every to be more of that, to be more of what you essen­tial­ly are…to expe­ri­ence the free­dom to be one­self in and through your rela­tion­ship with one another.

Venus in Aquar­ius wel­comes you to the expe­ri­ence of love that asks sim­ply that you be…yourself!

Today is a spe­cial day for anoth­er, more hid­den or eso­teric rea­son. It is always around this date that the Sun, our home star, aligns with the cen­ter of our Milky Way galaxy. From that cen­ter, great flows of ener­gy come and go, like the beat­ing heart of a great being…which, of course, the Milky Way is!

The pic­ture above is a mod­el of what this looks like. Our solar sys­tem and Sun are slight­ly above the Galac­tic Plane and the white band from top left to bot­tom right is…The Milky Way, which is formed by us gaz­ing into the heart of our galaxy. Exact­ly six months from now, you will be able to look up at the night sky and see the Milky Way much like this spread across the late spring sky.

Today, Sun­day, (the Sun’s day!), the Earth, Sun and the Milky Way’s cen­ter point, our wheels wheel­ing with­in wheels, align with one anoth­er. The Milky Way is about 100,000 Light years across, and we on Earth are about 27,000 Light Years from that cen­ter point. The Sun and our solar sys­tem make one com­plete rev­o­lu­tion around the Milky Way in  about 235 mil­lion years…which is our Galac­tic “Year”.

So turn towards the Sun today and know that you are turn­ing towards the first “laya cen­ter” of your galaxy; you are look­ing towards the mys­tery, to the heart of your cosmos…

From that cen­ter, long, long ago, a pil­grim­age began…an invo­lu­tion of Spir­it, which moved across the “Waters” and so there was “Light”. That jour­ney, this unfold­ment of Spir­it-Mat­ter is the pil­grim­age of all the ones of the One…and it is your jour­ney in Life-Consciousness-Spirit…

And it is beautiful!

Venus is climb­ing through Sat­urn’s sign of Capri­corn; Sat­urn is still look­ing for his part­ner in Venus’ sign of Libra. Today, today they meet up again in a square aspect…ouch! This is going to hurt, yes it is; but you only pay atten­tion, learn and grow when the ener­gies of the uni­verse bring about these con­fronta­tions. These encoun­ters pose the ques­tions and chal­lenges that serve to quick­en your jour­ney, so you can find and fol­low the path­way of spir­it, the Mid­dle Way…For, after all, you are here on Earth to unfold, learn and grow, and so become so much more… so let’s see what this mes­sage of the stars is ask­ing of you today…

Yes, it is time again, time for anoth­er encounter between “Beau­ty and the Beast”, between Val­ue and Real­i­ty, between Love and Respon­si­bil­i­ty. When­ev­er Venus encoun­ters Sat­urn in a “hard” aspect, you are usu­al­ly at a low point in self-worth or self-love. It brings about a re-assess­ment of your­self, of your val­ues and pos­ses­sions, of your love and relationships…and not all will pass the test.

Of course, it is just a “phase” you are going through, but it is true for that time…You have reached an inflec­tion point or deci­sion time as to how to rec­on­cile or bal­ance the two plan­ets and the ener­gies they are work­ing with.

Venus is in Capri­corn now, so the expres­sion of val­ue, beau­ty and love is cen­tered upon clas­si­cal ideals and forms, tra­di­tion­al last­ing qual­i­ties that have proven them­selves by their ancient lin­eage. Yet often­times a hier­ar­chy of val­ues will become crys­tal­lized, ossi­fied, devoid of spir­it, and so end up serv­ing to main­tain rigid and priv­i­leged struc­tures at the expense of spir­i­tu­al growth and truth.

So you should be thank­ful that Sat­urn in Libra is here to chal­lenge, reaf­firm and remind Venus that Order (Sat­urn) must be Just (Libra); that any claim of priv­i­lege and posi­tion with­in a hier­ar­chy must be matched through the ful­fill­ment of your respon­si­bil­i­ties to one anoth­er. There are many types of social orders and hier­ar­chies in your world, but the foun­tain-source, the root cause and deter­min­ing fac­tor in all is the one true Hier­ar­chy of Spir­it.

You turn your gaze for­ward, upwards and see the Great Souls who have gone ahead, who offer you hope by extend­ing their good thoughts, uncon­di­tion­al love and will­ing sup­port as you strive to become more like them. You turn your gaze back­ward, down­wards and see all the oth­er souls who trail behind you, and you extend your hand and thoughts, your love and will to them…because, because you know and you feel that it is right…because one and all are ones of the One.

Sat­urn lays down the chal­lenge to Venus, to your val­ues, to your love and asks, “Are you wor­thy?” For if you wish to enjoy your val­ues, to claim your rights and your priv­i­leges, you must be able to affirm that you have equal­ly met your responsibilities…for that is what the word Respon­si­bil­i­ty sim­ply means, it means “your abil­i­ty to respond”…and what are you respond­ing to? Why, to the needs of any and all in your cir­cle of life.

Because each and every, one and all are part of this spi­ral jour­ney; each and every unfold, grow and devel­op their capac­i­ty to respond to one anoth­er through this won­drous, hier­ar­chy, this spi­ral of being, of giv­ing and receiv­ing that is Life-Consciousness-Spirit.

Let us give thanks, thanks be to Saturn…the Teacher, who keeps your feet upon the path­way of Light!

Ready? (You know you are, real­ly you are ready)…Then Pivot!

That’s right, Her­mes has fin­ished his inner pere­gri­na­tions, his pil­grim­age with­in your mind…exploring…questioning…reexamining…your beliefs, prin­ci­ples and truths has run its course and you are mov­ing for­ward now…You are clear­er, wiser…and more hum­ble, that’s for sure. All those activ­i­ties and projects, all those miss­ing mes­sages (and pack­ages), all those func­tions or activ­i­ties that seemed to stall or slow down, well now it is time to forge ahead!

The last 3 weeks have pro­vid­ed numer­ous upsets, annoy­ances and exas­per­a­tions along the lines of “who let the grem­lins out, again?!”; and that’s what we usu­al­ly notice about Mer­cury’s retro-motion…but it is only the out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tion of a change of ener­gies that you are sup­posed to take note of and then use. You need times like these with its re-direc­tion­al­i­ty to go inside, to pon­der, to reflect and re-con­sid­er the themes and chal­lenges of the sign Mer­cury is mov­ing through. But, of course, life goes on and so those minor (and some­times major) annoy­ances accom­pa­ny his back­ward gambol.

But now, now you go for­ward with Mer­cury in Sagit­tar­ius till Jan­u­ary 8. He’s been in Sagit­tar­ius as I not­ed since Novem­ber 2, and that is a very long time for Mer­cury to be in one sign! It is a won­der­ful, extend­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty, now deep­ened and revised by Mer­cury’s cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion, to seek to under­stand your­self and one anoth­er bet­ter by expand­ing, explor­ing and shar­ing your dis­cov­er­ies, your beliefs and your points of view. You have become wis­er and so more hum­ble as you root­ed out some of your out­worn assump­tions, out­looks and beliefs. Your truth became refined and hope­ful­ly more nuanced as you move to that greater under­stand­ing that the process of rev­e­la­tion is and will always be nev­er-end­ing as you jour­ney in Life-Consciousness-Spirit.

Remem­ber now, with Mer­cury in Sagit­tar­ius you are posi­tioned to be bold and direct, to speak with enthu­si­asm and con­fi­dence, because you are ener­gized with the notion that you’ve got “truth” on your side…and so you do, you always do…relatively speak­ing. But so does that oth­er per­son you are try­ing to per­suade. And, of course, both of you are inca­pable of being all-know­ing and with­out error so you had bet­ter wrap that truth in a lit­tle humil­i­ty. For if your inner jour­ney the last 3 weeks has taught you any­thing it is that truth is relative…relative to your devel­op­ment and capac­i­ty for under­stand­ing your­self and your world…and what you hold to be true today is just a step­ping stone to a greater aware­ness that awaits you.

So yes, speak your truth…but look and lis­ten too! For you do not know what you do not know…

Your true and lov­ing mid­dle path is to be found in that bal­anced blend­ing of mutu­al­ly increas­ing self-con­fi­dence and humility.

Be wise as a ser­pent, and gen­tle as a dove!

This is the “oth­er half” of the Eclipse cycle. You expe­ri­enced the Sagit­tar­i­an New Moon which was a Solar Eclipse two weeks ago and now at the Full Moon Eclipse you should “get” your answer. Or do you? Here is what I wrote about this Lunar Eclipse in my Overview for 2011:

Lunar (Dec. 10)
The Lunar Eclipse on Decem­ber 10 is in Gem­i­ni. The illu­mi­na­tion pro­vid­ed at the Full Moon is inter­rupt­ed by our present cir­cum­stances. Though we wish to think more clear­ly (Gem­i­ni), old pat­terns and assump­tions need to be con­front­ed. The issue is “how intel­li­gent are you?”

The “nor­mal” rev­e­la­tion deliv­ered by a Full Moon is being “shad­owed” by the Earth (which is your present exis­tence or real­i­ty) as the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon. The mes­sage is there but some­thing in your cur­rent point of view is block­ing or shad­ow­ing the mean­ing for you. You need to under­stand the nature of the shad­ow and step beyond it to receive the mes­sage of the stars now.

Usu­al­ly the Full Moon in Gem­i­ni is there to illu­mi­nate the rela­tion­ship between the now dom­i­nant Sagit­tar­i­an approach and the Gem­i­ni expe­ri­ence of con­scious­ness. The Sagit­tar­i­an Sun’s light should help to reveal that those seem­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed, com­plex and mul­ti­fac­eted Gem­in­ian points of view, “of being all things to all peo­ple”, as being not so sophis­ti­cat­ed and wit­ty but, in the end, as some­what duplic­i­tous or unprincipled. 

It should pro­vide insight into how the Sun in Sagit­tar­ius avers the impor­tance of one mind­ed­ness, of the One Truth; while the Moon in Gem­i­ni declares the impor­tance of mul­ti-mind­ed­ness, of the many truths. Both approach­es are “true” for they depend upon one anoth­er as the devel­op­ment of your con­scious­ness pro­ceeds in its spi­ral dance between Ide­al­ism and Mate­ri­al­ism, between The­o­ry and Practice.

The Gem­i­ni gift, the capac­i­ty to hold more than one thought, often­times con­tra­dic­to­ry ones at that, is need­ed in order to move beyond what might have become rigid bound­aries in con­cepts, prin­ci­ples and points of view…but in the end it is there to serve Spir­it, to pro­vide you with your adap­tive capac­i­ty to come ever clos­er to The Truth that is Spirit.

But the shad­ow, Earth­’s shad­ow which is your present, gets in the way of the mes­sage today. What can you do? You need to open your mind even more, shift your view even fur­ther so that you can see this shad­owed, dim lit cov­er­ing of your per­cep­tu­al assumptions.

Step back from the imme­di­a­cy of the issue or prob­lem at hand; place the mat­ter or con­cern into a larg­er, wider and deep­er con­text. Imag­ine your­self as if you are from anoth­er land, anoth­er cul­ture and through those eyes see what is assumed to be truer and less true.

It was 6 months ago on June 15 that you gazed with won­der at a Full Moon Eclipse; tonight you look out in the oppo­site direc­tion, into the vast­ness of Space itself. You are look­ing away from your galaxy’s cen­ter, out into the beyond…into the spaces of Space.

And at such times, as before, you should bow your head, be hum­bled and inspired by the majesty that is Creation.