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.

Have things been sort of going awry late­ly? Missed oppor­tu­ni­ties (or just things miss­ing), upsets, sur­pris­es, con­fu­sion, doubts, frus­tra­tion? …Uh oh…

Yes, that’s right, you know what that means…Hermes has been slow­ing down and now has reached his piv­ot point, he’s turn­ing ’round for the next 3 weeks and you bet­ter go along for the ride…Of course you have no choice, but the oppor­tu­ni­ty is there if you piv­ot with him!

Remem­ber, this is just a func­tion of Mer­cury catch­ing up to Earth and pass­ing us by on the “inside”, com­ing between us and the Sun. He is actu­al­ly at his clos­est to us so you could say those Mer­cu­r­ial Ener­gies are stronger than ever!…And, he is not going “back­wards”, he just looks like that from our perspective…which is real­ly what this is all about or for anyways…Mercury ret­ro­grade is an expe­ri­ence and les­son for you about your ori­en­ta­tion or perspective…you are being offered a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to “think about how you think”!

So piv­ot, piv­ot now with Mer­cury and turn your mind’s eye back on your­self and reflect on how you think. Question…everything! Seek to root out the less func­tion­al or dys­func­tion­al ways you approach the under­stand­ing of your life. Ques­tion what under­lies your point of view, what do you “stand upon”, what are your assump­tions? Do they lead you to answers…do they take you to a good place?

After all, Mer­cury is doing his con­trary cadence in the sign of Sagit­tar­ius, danc­ing through the realms of Sci­ence, Phi­los­o­phy and Religion…exploring the Halls of Truth, the Tem­ple of Under­stand­ing. There is rarely offered a more oppor­tune moment than this!

Turn and open your mind to a greater, more inclu­sive under­stand­ing of how your very approach to real­i­ty cre­ates that reality…and you only need shift your focus just a lit­tle bit to see the way beyond these dim lit lands, to move beyond your shad­ows of doubt and fear…and move clos­er, into the Light.

…and the only offer­ing you need make is your attach­ment to dog­ma, to the ordi­nary, accept­ed assump­tions and answers which can no longer sat­is­fy your need to know, your ever grow­ing need to “Stand Under” and expe­ri­ence the greater truth of your journey.

Open your mind, be hum­ble and self-for­giv­ing (laugh too) and know that this is what it means to move towards Wisdom…that the clos­er you come to Truth, the more you come to realise that it is even more pro­found than you could ever have imagined…

Pivot…and open your mind to Wisdom!

Quin­tes­sence…

There is only one…only one of you…growing, unfold­ing, releasing…ever becom­ing more true and per­fect­ed through self-real­iza­tion, through self-unfoldment…

Today the Sun (The Self) aligns beau­ti­ful­ly with Uranus (The Awak­en­er) to help you dis­cov­er and release just a lit­tle bit more of that spe­cial­ness that is you. Today is a day to let your “self” shine just that much brighter and so light the way for those around you too!

You have moved through many stages in your jour­ney, and in each stage moved through many forms of self-ful­fill­ment. Each stage and each form was, for a while, per­fect­ly true to what­ev­er was pos­si­ble for you at that time…

Yet the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple, the core of your Spir­it, is to become…to move…to Grow. And so your present form, hav­ing served its pur­pose, must be laid aside so that your spir­it may be free again to find a more fit­ting form to con­tin­ue its journey.

You may delay, you may resist and so hold to an out­worn form out of fear, out of uncertainty…But there is no pow­er on Earth or in the Heav­ens above that will pre­vent your even­tu­al growth…And today the Uni­verse offers a help­ing hand, a gen­tle reminder that there is noth­ing to fear for it is in your nature to grow beyond the beyond…You are made of Star­ry Stuff and your home is beckoning…always.

Uranus comes to aid you now, to remind you that there is a greater you to be found with­in and expe­ri­enced with­out. Uranus shines his light of under­stand­ing, bend­ing round the cor­ners of your real­i­ty so that you may find an undis­cov­ered facet…you see in these refract­ed rays of your high­er mind an illu­mi­na­tion, you see what had been mere­ly dreamt of, a whis­pered hint, and so what was unre­al­ized is seen to be true and nec­es­sary because you must…you must con­tin­ue your jour­ney of self-unfoldment.

You can grow again beyond what had been into what you will become…Uranus quick­ens your growth by free­ing you from forms which can no longer sup­port or con­tain you.

Uranus, the Avatar of Free­dom, is light­ing the way…

All you need do is to let go of the lesser…

And move into the greater spaces of Freedom!

Remem­ber, those beat­en paths are for the beaten…

Arise, be an exam­ple, be true to your self…and be a Soul Blazer!