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!

Not only may you “not always get what you want”, you may have to strug­gle to hold onto what you have today!

Venus rules val­ue, beau­ty and love. Plu­to, rul­ing willpow­er, stands oppo­site now and lays down a chal­lenge to what you hold dear. Will you be forced to sur­ren­der your val­ues to anoth­er, or will you turn the tables and force yours upon them? That seems to be the choice/challenge here; it’s win or lose, give in or fight back…or…

Or will you take the noble path as befits your ori­gins? Know that you are a shin­ing one, who trav­els with a mighty, shin­ing host of seek­ers. Will you under­stand and move even clos­er to the sacred spaces of your soul, to your cen­ter and truth? For if you do you will know that this is always the real chal­lenge, the chal­lenge is a test of your integri­ty, of your under­stand­ing of who and what you are, of why you here, of where you came from, and how you are to move towards your destiny.

You will know that in your heart of hearts you are des­tined to secure, pre­serve and express as your truth the val­ues you have come to under­stand into the worlds around you. But you also will know that this is true for every being who jour­neys with you. You must live out your truth, but always with­in and cir­cum­scribed by the Greater Truth…that every soul’s space is Sacred Space. You may not force your ways upon anoth­er, nor may they…that is Tres­pass­ing. It vio­lates the Spir­i­tu­al Integri­ty that is the core of every spark of the Divine; it dimin­ish­es you and them and only delays the greater good that you seek.

So, if anoth­er is seek­ing to force some­thing upon you, you must resist and pro­tect your sacred space. Try and help them to see the error of their ways; that they will only delay not advance their cause by such con­duct. If they will not, then move away; let them exhaust them­selves in the empti­ness that they have made between the sacred spaces.

Like­wise, if you seek too enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly to pro­mote your truth to anoth­er know that you will only fail. Truth can­not be real­ized in the vio­la­tion of anoth­er’s sacred space. The only con­trol you must exer­cise is…self-control, all else is illusion.

The les­son of Plu­to is of bound­aries, of the sacred spaces and the knowl­edge that your pow­er, your will is for you…as you become the becoming.

Shine On!