And the Fifth Door opens…

After secur­ing your foun­da­tions, embrac­ing the Self at your cen­ter in the time of Can­cer, Spir­it must move out now so to release, express and stretch itself in “per­for­mances” of cre­ativ­i­ty, lead­er­ship and love. Yes, that’s right… it is Leo’s time to shine in your life.

The time of Can­cer was a time for “feel­ing”; you were immersed in the “waters of life” so that you could feel your­self whole again. Your life was cen­tered upon home, fam­i­ly and the roots of your being. Now you are back in Fire; you must move out upon the stage of life with “emo­tion”. You must move out from the with­in. You must “per-form” (act through an appro­pri­ate vehi­cle or form); you must choose your stage to act upon and a role to per­form through.

What you seek…is acknowl­edge­ment, that you are what you are…“I am that, I am!”

You need to be rec­og­nized, you need to be appre­ci­at­ed and you need respect. But, of course, the strug­gle and answer is always with­in you.

You want recog­ni­tion, but you must first see yourself.

You want appre­ci­a­tion, but you must first val­ue yourself.

You want respect, but you must first respect yourself.

Wher­ev­er Leo is in your own chart, there you will always seek to shine, to project, to real­ize your­self in some­thing or some­one. Now is the time to under­stand more about this Leo side of you. Now is your time to shine!

Yes, you do need to expe­ri­ence these emo­tions for your­self, you need to release your­self in dra­mat­ic dis­plays of lead­er­ship, cre­ativ­i­ty and love…but per­haps just as impor­tant to the Spir­it that is with­in, you must hon­or these self­same truth­ways in those that are before you. Set an exam­ple for them to follow…

Under­stand that you do not lead by telling some­one what to do; you lead by help­ing them to believe that they can do it!

Under­stand that your pow­er by which you cre­ate comes through you; you are “mere­ly” a focus­ing lens for its rev­e­la­tion, so be joy­ous, grate­ful and hum­ble in your achievements.

And under­stand that the love you have for your­self is com­plet­ed only by the uncon­di­tion­al love that you bestow on those around you.

Like its ruler, the Sun, Leo is about the release of your true self. It is time to cre­ate authentically…it is time to lead respectfully…it is time to love with all your heart.

Shine on you shin­ning ones!

The Full Moon of Can­cer, (Sun in Can­cer and Moon in Capri­corn), illu­mi­nates the rela­tion­ship between your ori­gin and your des­tiny, between your roots and your respon­si­bil­i­ties. This Full Moon will appear to you as a con­test, chal­lenge or strife between your pri­vate per­son­al life and your out­ward respon­si­bil­i­ties, between your home and career. Each is demand­ing atten­tion; one is caus­ing “prob­lems” for the oth­er. But, of course, the Full Moon is here to illus­trate the impor­tance and neces­si­ty of both of these realms to one another…The chal­lenge, as always, is to main­tain or restore the bal­ance between them.

The Sun has been mov­ing through Can­cer since June 21^st, pulling your focus inward towards feel­ings, fam­i­ly and car­ing. It has been all about your home, about how secure or inse­cure you feel, about how nur­tured or nur­tur­ing you are. Now the Moon reflects back to the Sun the under­stand­ing that the nec­es­sary coun­ter­point of your inward dri­ve for inte­gra­tion is the ful­fill­ment to be found in your capac­i­ty for, and out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tion of, your social, pro­fes­sion­al and spir­i­tu­al responsibilities.

Capri­corn rep­re­sents the sum­mit of achieve­ment, the cli­max of devel­op­ment in your expres­sion of your pur­pose. The per­son­al expres­sion of inte­gra­tion with­in the fam­i­ly fold is now spread through­out, expressed with­in and so pre­served by the insti­tu­tions of the cul­ture, in gov­ern­ment, in busi­ness and oth­er social organ­isms. The per­son­al inte­gra­tion of Can­cer, the cre­ation of a steady, secure and mean­ing­ful foun­da­tion upon which you are cen­tered (and can move out from) is absolute­ly nec­es­sary. But to what end, where do you go, what is your purpose?

The Full Moon in Capri­corn shows you that your per­son­al seed and root­ed self will and must lead to the flow­er­ing of your poten­tials, pow­ers and duties as a respon­si­ble mem­ber of your soci­ety. Yes, you must first stand upon some­thing but that is in order to pur­pose­ful­ly, mas­ter­ful­ly cre­ate some­thing that lasts; you must ful­fill your destiny.

The dynam­ic ten­sion between respon­sive­ness in Can­cer and respon­si­bil­i­ty in Capri­corn nev­er ceas­es. It will lead to con­flicts, to the hard­est choic­es as to whether to serve one­self and one’s fam­i­ly or the larg­er soci­ety, whether to fol­low feel­ing or duty.

These dilem­mas con­stant­ly tug at one’s heart and spir­it as they also dri­ve for­ward your sto­ry of becom­ing the becom­ing, of self-ful­fill­ment. Both Truth­ways must be hon­ored as each depends upon the oth­er for its exis­tence (and mean­ing). For just as much as the per­son­al devel­op­ment of a secure self leads to the cre­ation of a greater soci­ety, where­in you pre­serve and so can pass on all that has been achieved in your cul­ture, it is also true that even­tu­al­ly the over­ar­ch­ing insti­tu­tion­al ways of that order will crys­tal­lize and so fail to hon­or the liv­ing spir­it which gave birth to it.

It is at such times that the “Song of Spir­it” with­in your soul will move you and oth­ers to per­son­al­ly chal­lenge those out­worn struc­tures; so that the liv­ing spir­it may be freed again to cre­ate new forms for the sub­stan­ti­a­tion of Spir­it. And, as you might have noticed by now, the “Winds of the Spir­it” are blow­ing stronger each and every day. You are reach­ing the fork in the road; the deci­sions of des­tiny await you now…the whole world will hold its breath as we reach our moment of des­tiny together.

You must pre­serve what you can, pro­tect what you must, and pre­pare for the chal­lenges that lie ahead…There is a new world stir­ring and from the depths of your soul you can and must feel out the ancient truth­ways that will keep you on that noble path of hon­or and hope.

You will be car­ing and respon­si­ble, nur­tur­ing and courageous…This is your jour­ney; it is your des­tiny as you become the becoming.

Shine on!  

No doubt about it, this one is going to hurt. It’s the “beau­ty meets the beast” time again. When­ev­er Venus has a “hard” encounter with Sat­urn, you def­i­nite­ly feel less val­ued; you feel the lack of love. There is prob­a­bly some prob­lem that has come to a head in a rela­tion­ship; there is a choice to be made that will change it (or end it). But, of course, the real chal­lenge lies with­in you; with your val­ues and self-worth. It real­ly is all about your love of self.

Venus has been in Can­cer since July 4; bathing in the waters of fam­i­ly, nur­tur­ing and doing what feels right. Sat­urn throws down the chal­lenge from Libra; you just can­not do what feels right to you with­out (equal­ly) tak­ing the oth­er into con­sid­er­a­tion. Yes, you should fol­low your feel­ings, but you have to be guid­ed by prin­ci­ples of fair­ness and reci­procity too.

So the prob­lem will appear as if some­one is being too self­ish; they are clam­or­ing for and get­ting their needs met while not acknowl­edg­ing the legit­i­mate needs of the oth­er. Or some­one is just being too rigid about main­tain­ing “the bal­ance” in the rela­tion­ship; they are not being respon­sive enough (spon­ta­neous) when the sit­u­a­tion requires that.

It comes down to a seem­ing strug­gle between emo­tion and rea­son, feel­ings and prin­ci­ples, and nei­ther side is going to be hap­py, and, of course, both are right! So what do you do? The strug­gle and answer, of course, is with­in you. You must strike the right bal­ance, a dynam­ic ever-adjust­ing bal­ance, between your caring/cared for self and your principled/reasoning self. The prob­lem appears “out there” (and it is there in them, most cer­tain­ly), but it is out there so you can face it with­in yourself.

The les­son comes from Sat­urn, he is the shaper here, and so Venus must let go of that less­er, pos­ses­sive, demand­ing and need­ing way of lov­ing so that it can evolve into its truer, high­er expres­sion. If you stay too attached to your famil­iar ways you will not be able to love your­self or anoth­er as you must…uncon­di­tion­al­ly. For that is the only way you can cre­ate the con­di­tions for true love; because then you will con­sid­er and treat your­self equal­ly as you do the oth­er, (because you under­stand “the mys­tery”, that in the oth­er I meet myself). And you will like­wise cre­ate the con­di­tions for the oth­er to return the same uncon­di­tion­al love to you. 

The answer, as always, is to look with­in, to your soul and heart and see the won­der there…It is your shin­ing, star­born self, who is love, and is the guar­an­tor of your ever­last­ing, unfold­ing val­ue in this universe.

And, you are nev­er alone. You are accom­pa­nied on this jour­ney of self-real­iza­tion through rela­tion­ship by a great host of shin­ing ones who seek as do you the answer to that ques­tion, “Do you love me?”

In your heart you will find your answer, and so speak the words of under­stand­ing: “I am that, I am.” (I and thou, we are one).

Love your­self, love anoth­er. Shine on!

Her­mes, who was just graced by Sat­urn’s Libran tran­sit, is now quick­ened by Mars who is danc­ing in Mer­cury’s own sign of Gem­i­ni. Your men­tal acu­ity, man­u­al dex­ter­i­ty and over­all “buzz” are very evi­dent now. Your mind and actions are so per­fect­ly aligned that you evince grace, style and pur­pose­ful determination.

Ideas more effort­less­ly form/inform your actions; you are freer to think and become. Prax­is rules the day. Prax­is is the process/means by which your ideas become real­i­ties. Your high­er mind or Rea­son guides actions; the results of which go back to inform your Reason…and now repeat.

Some­times there is too much talk, too lit­tle action; some­times it’s the reverse. Today you find that per­fect blend of right thinking/right action. Today your words and deeds cre­ate the sub­lime feel­ing that you real­ly are becom­ing the becoming…

Shine on!

Okay…well this is bet­ter now. The two “benefics”, Venus and Jupiter, align today to offer you phys­i­cal, social and spir­i­tu­al joys. Venus is what you val­ue or want; Jupiter is how you relate to your world. Their com­bi­na­tion lit­er­al­ly means that today you will relate to what you want with sub­lime satisfaction!

Venus, danc­ing through the nur­tur­ing feel­ing-roots of Can­cer is gen­tly touched now by Jupiter whose Tau­rus song imparts the appre­ci­a­tion of earth­ly delights. Enjoy the sun ris­ing, take a walk in the woods, mar­vel at the great beau­ty that sur­rounds you. Or, go to a muse­um and won­der at beau­ty-past, or attend a per­for­mance and share in beau­ty-present. Then turn to those you love and cel­e­brate the glo­ri­ous beau­ty that is life before you.

Live the teaching:

“Beau­ty before me, beau­ty behind, beau­ty below, beau­ty above, and beau­ty within…surrounded by beau­ty, it is done in beauty.” 

So be it.

Today is also a day for the stead­ied and dis­ci­plined mind to shine. Mer­cury is stretch­ing itself now to per-form through Leo. Sat­urn in Libra pro­vides that steady form, that cen­tered space, to extend your­self from.

The puz­zles and prob­lems that stymied you are pierced by your lucid mind as it reach­es across the cross­ing point to the light of under­stand­ing. You com­bine in equal mea­sure the self-con­fi­dence of Leo with the con­sid­er­a­tion of Libra.

Today you will understand…and you will be understood.

Last­ly, one of the great ones, Uranus, turns ret­ro­grade today till Decem­ber 10. The ret­ro­grade of the out­er plan­ets is a func­tion of Earth “catch­ing up” and pass­ing the out­er plan­ets (sort of like being on the inside track in a race); we come to our clos­est approach to them at these times. Many would argue that means their influ­ence is stronger as a result.

The expe­ri­ence for you of this ret­ro­grade, as in any ret­ro­grade, is that it turns the ener­gies of Uranus inward, it becomes inter­nal­ized. The gifts of Uranus will help you grow from with­in out­wards as you dis­cov­er some as yet unre­al­ized part of yourself.

Uranus is the awak­en­er and frees you from less­er forms so you may con­tin­ue your jour­ney of becom­ing the becom­ing. Wel­come the magi­cian who quick­ens your soul, the wiz­ard of won­der as he dances the dance of creation.

Free your­self, be yourself!