Today is a day for deep self-reex­am­i­na­tion. With the Sun rul­ing the self and Plu­to rul­ing the deep­er process­es of our psy­cho-spir­i­tu­al nature, you can use this day to probe more deeply into the roots of your being. Most impor­tant­ly, you will be able to estab­lish a new under­stand­ing about the nature of your most pre­cious gift, your free will.

Back in Sep­tem­ber you faced a choice about the prop­er exer­cise of your willpow­er. Now, at the con­junc­tion (like a new Moon), you are at the begin­ning of a new cycle in the rela­tion­ship of the self and your will. What you need to remem­ber is that one of the most won­der­ful gifts of being human is the qual­i­ty we call “free will”.

The pri­ma­ry lim­i­ta­tion to your exer­cise and expe­ri­ence of free will is knowl­edge. The more igno­rant you are about your self or the world around you, to that same degree your life will hap­pen to you, your life will be “fat­ed”. Con­verse­ly, the more you know of your­self and the world around you, the more you can under­stand and exer­cise free will in your life. This has always been one of the most mean­ing­ful ways to mea­sure spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment, that is, are you a more fatal­is­tic spir­it or free spir­it. The pow­er to choose, and to choose wise­ly, is our most pre­cious spir­i­tu­al accomplishment.

This re-align­ment of the self with the will requires that you explore the deep­est recess­es of your nature; what is at the core of what makes you spe­cial, dif­fer­ent, yet part of a great sto­ry of spir­i­tu­al evo­lu­tion. Your life now is mere­ly the lat­est in a series of lives. You stand upon this core of evolved spir­i­tu­al progress. Take time now to look with­in and acknowl­edge the gift of your spe­cial self to yourself.

The Pluto/Sun con­junc­tion is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to estab­lish a new rela­tion­ship of the self to the self. You should take this time to con­nect more deeply with your will, the pow­er of right choice, which is one of the three true sources of your spir­i­tu­al progress. The three aspects of Spir­it, which are Intel­li­gence, Love and Will, have com­bined togeth­er to bring about our universe.

Like­wise, with­in your own life, they con­tin­ue to help you on your jour­ney from unself-con­scious sparks of the divine towards your glo­ri­ous des­tiny as a ful­ly con­scious divine being. So, at this time, take anoth­er step along the path to ful­fill­ment, towards self-real­iza­tion, to your des­tiny which is to be a star among the stars. So be it.

The Solstice…The Sun Stands Still. What does that mean? How is that possible?

As we cir­cle around the Sun each year, we expe­ri­ence four major turn­ing points in our jour­ney. These four points mark the begin­ning of our sea­sons, and for Astrol­o­gy mark the begin­ning of the Car­di­nal Signs of Aries, Can­cer, Libra and Capricorn.

Two of those points, the equinox­es of Spring and Fall, mark the time each year that the tilt of the Earth is such that we have days and nights of equal length. The equinox­es are a time of bal­ance, with equal time between day and night.

The sol­stices mark the oppo­site “cor­ners” of our cir­cle where­in the dif­fer­ence between day and night are at their great­est. At the sum­mer sol­stice on June 21 we have the longest day and short­est night, the Sun is at its max­i­mum. Now as Win­ter begins, we are in the dark­est of times, the days are short, the nights are long, the Sun is at its min­i­mum. But why do we say the Sun is stand­ing still?

The fact is that for many months the Sun has been set­ting fur­ther and fur­ther South on the hori­zon. Today it reach­es the fur­thest point South that it will go. Now, for sev­er­al days it will set, again and again, at appar­ent­ly the same point on the hori­zon till.…on the 3rd or 4th day, on Decem­ber 25th, we will be able to see that the Sun is return­ing, mov­ing back North. The light of our home is com­ing back, the world will not go dark, our hope is renewed, our faith is restored.

But this sol­stice is spe­cial; it is coin­cid­ing with the Full Moon of Sagit­tar­ius, when the Sun is in Sagit­tar­ius and the Moon is in Gem­i­ni. And this Full Moon hap­pens to be an Eclipse. A Lunar Eclipse is when the Sun, Earth and Moon are aligned with one anoth­er so we see Earth­’s shad­ow pass across the Moon.

What this demon­strates, so vivid­ly and visu­al­ly, is how we are indeed part of a sys­tem of bod­ies that are in an intri­cate, beau­ti­ful rela­tion­ship with one anoth­er. These great orbs cycle round one anoth­er, and that they, and we, are part of a greater organ­ism we call our uni­verse. In oth­er words, what is shown to us now is that we are part of a great com­pa­ny, a mag­nif­i­cent host, wheel­ing through the cos­mos. What we should expe­ri­ence and mar­vel at now is our con­nect­ed­ness to this dance of the planets.

At each Full Moon we expe­ri­ence anoth­er rev­e­la­tion about the rela­tion­ship between the past (Moon), present (Earth) and future (Sun). At the Lunar eclipse, with the Sun rep­re­sent­ing pure poten­tial or the Future, and the Moon rep­re­sent­ing kar­ma or our Past, the Earth (our Present) is com­ing between our past and future. That means our present real­i­ty is hid­ing or obscur­ing the past.

We often feel bur­dened by our past, so we might feel relieved to be seem­ing­ly freed from it. This is cer­tain­ly true for a great many of our expe­ri­ences. But it is also true that our spir­i­tu­al progress has been most delayed by our capac­i­ty to for­get or ignore the past, so that we must learn our lessons over and over again.

We should use this eclipse to let go of those parts of our past that are a bur­den to us, to cast them out as we take out the sword of sev­er­ance and free our­selves from our doubts and fears. But we must also hon­or what has come before, what our fore­bears strug­gled to cre­ate, so that we pre­serve what is good and true in our jour­ney so far.

In ancient times, many feared eclipses because it tru­ly seemed as if “the light was going out”, and they believed ter­ri­ble events were to be expect­ed. But wis­er ones knew, as we should now, that we should cel­e­brate this align­ment as a gift from above. The shad­ow falling across the Moon tonight con­firms of our con­nect­ed­ness with the uni­verse and with one anoth­er. We are not nor will we be ever alone because we are part of some­thing mag­i­cal and won­drous. So go out tonight and expe­ri­ence the mys­tery, majesty, and beau­ty of being part of the uni­verse, your home in the stars.

Are you impa­tient today, or is it just “her”, or “him, or “them”? Well, of course, it is all of us. So, be mind­ful of what you say (and do). Do not let your mouth race ahead of your bet­ter judg­ment. Do not over-react to some­one else’s fact/opinion, nor be so quick to defend your own.

Just three weeks ago we expe­ri­enced this same aspect as Mer­cury was mov­ing for­ward. Now, while it is ret­ro­grad­ing, we are giv­en a chance to go back and make amends, to fix what was bro­ken, to grow beyond the old and famil­iar, yet lim­it­ing, habits of thinking.

Yes, we are being chal­lenged now to grow beyond our men­tal fix­a­tions. We need to take a fresh look and think “out­side the box”, to think cre­ative­ly. What we need to do now is demon­strate that we are intelligent.

When we are able to look at an issue or prob­lem from more than one per­spec­tive, to move beyond this or that, or black and white, then we will per­ceive a much more mean­ing­ful, rich and com­plex world. Before there was just one thing or the oth­er and we became stuck. We dug in our heels and refused to lis­ten; or we gave up, gave in and let the oth­er have their way.

But, when you open up your mind to anoth­er way, to an untried point of view, and you make the space for it, then spir­it enters in and shows you a way out of your dilem­ma. You can then chal­lenge and change your assump­tions, step into a new real­i­ty, and cel­e­brate the joy of a high­er con­scious­ness. This is the promise and chal­lenge of Mer­cury and Uranus. Free your mind, free yourself.

Can you hear it? There is an answer to your ques­tion being offered up now. We are at the half-way point in the Mer­cury ret­ro­grade cycle, the moment when Mer­cury is exact­ly aligned between the Earth and the Sun. It is like a “new Moon” for Mer­cury, and is the moment when this intro­spec­tive cycle yields up an answer.

For ten days, we have been direct­ed back inwards to seek for a greater under­stand­ing. Now comes a moment of truth. What should we expect, what should we do?

The ret­ro­grade cycle of Mer­cury cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty for self re-exam­i­na­tion and reflec­tion. We need to take time apart from the day to day dis­trac­tions and delve deep­er into our assump­tions, view­points and atti­tudes. We need to chal­lenge the “prism” through which we look out upon this world and see it as if with new eyes.

Take time this after­noon or evening to lis­ten to your own high­er self…wherein are found all the answers about your­self and the world around you.

You are an answer to a cos­mic ques­tion; you were born to take part in this great jour­ney of spir­it, life, con­scious­ness. Always remem­ber, the first injunc­tion in that spir­i­tu­al growth has and will always be, “to know thyself”.

Ear­ly today, your dreams come true if you apply your­self. Imag­i­na­tion is the true source of our future, but we have to make it so by work­ing it into real­i­ty. So, be inspired by your dreams today; then fol­low through on that vision with a per­for­mance that rings as tru­ly yours.

Lat­er today, we are chal­lenged by Uranus, which makes us feel as if our spe­cial­ness or free­dom is being frus­trat­ed now. The square is remind­ing us that we need to make a choice as to how we should express our indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and expe­ri­ence our free­dom. We and oth­ers will be more abrupt or irri­ta­ble now, and that is because we are all feel­ing a loss of free­dom or a lack of appreciation.

In Sep­tem­ber, as we began the fall sea­son, we were shown some­thing about the rela­tion­ship between our need to be appre­ci­at­ed and our need to be true to our self. That rev­e­la­tion showed us some­thing about how we need to find a bal­ance between our seek­ing for approval ver­sus going our own way despite what oth­ers may think.

Now we need to make a choice. Per­haps we need to let go of an old way of being “orig­i­nal” or dif­fer­ent and find one that is more appro­pri­ate for who we are now. Or, maybe we have been so con­cerned about the respect of oth­ers, that we are in dan­ger of being appre­ci­at­ed, and yet it is not tru­ly us who they appreciate!

Make a choice now to grow. Do that by cre­at­ing a greater space of free­dom that you can enjoy with one anoth­er. And in that space, show the respect to one anoth­er that demon­strates that you tru­ly under­stand, “I am that, I am”.