the weather inside me

a merry retro christmas to you all

Here's the country club set, circa 1957, kickin' back with their Ethan Allen Colonial Revival furniture and a couple of cold Schlitz beers in front of the toasty fire. Of course, the Christmas packages came from Halls, or Swanson's on the Plaza. (I'm channeling Mr/Mrs. Bridge now.) Hey? Wanna play a game? I bet Ms. Yellow is with Mr. Blue Vestie and the Pink Thing is honeyed up with The Suit. (I always wonder who's who in these pictures.) 

Anyway, you can't beat their attitude of conviviality.

This Christmas is doesn't offer much in the way of spontaneous conviviality, but there's plenty of push-power in the air. You know, keep a stiff upper lip and hold your integrity kind of power. A retro dignity, for sure.

Here are the players.

Mr."Reality Check" Saturn hovers in the background over Libra, the relationship/balance sign. And he's still in negotiating with Sir Pluto. This means hard-nosed talks about how we relate to one another --how fair are we to others --or ourselves? Capricorn Sun arrives to throw a little light on Sir Pluto, and you might actually see into the dark corners of your issues with authority --Mom, Dad, or the Bank of America-- the back room deals that led to some of your relationship expectations. Indebtedness is a habit of relating we share with our family and the good folks who underwrite our credit cards. ("I'm into you because I'm into you...for about 20 grand.") Gotta get past the panic and obsession though. This one can be a hard call.

The day after Christmas, Mercury goes retrograde. Time again to rethink, redo, reboot, review. If this is going to be a "retro" Christmas, I'd look back to '94/'95 and '82/'83 for similar themes in the background. This definitely fits my personal history. But these are Pluto cycles, too, so you might not immediately recognize the link --it's shadow-y stuff. Maybe secrets you didn't know about the family until y-e-a-r-s later.

On Christmas day Mercury, the Sun, the North Node, Pluto and Ms. Venus will all join together in Capricorn. Tra-la-la-la-LA!

This would NOT be a good day to tick off a Capricorn, let me tell ya. That Sun/Pluto/Venus combo square Saturn in Libra is a hot number. So if you dis' your rich Aunty Bernice the Cappy this season, don't expect to be fondly remembered in her will. Pluto is doing a number on Caps these days, particularly those in the first few degrees of the sign. And Mercury retrograde often prompts folks to rewrite things like wills...so tread carefully. Besides, Caps generally abhor bad manners. Breach a boundary this season and Cap won't forget it.

Mercury's about to go retrograde and conjunct the North Node, too. The North Node is the point of progress, and with Mercury going retrograde with the North Node, some folks will be inclined to think about rewriting a part of their futures. Christmas, for instance. How would you like to celebrate your holiday fun in the future, maybe so that "fun" actually shows up? Or what new rituals would you like to create?

Not surprisingly, Congress is trying to push the Health Care Bill through before Christmas --an attempt at health care parity in this country-- but with Mercury already in it's shadow phase, it's not a done deal --either that or something will emerge we didn't count on. But this is a perfect illustration of the Sun/Pluto/Mercury/North Node all in Capricorn (the sign of government and big business) negotiating (square) radical restructuring of a significant relationship imbalance (Saturn/Libra). Only Venus is missing, and she'll arrive on Christmas day --when Congress has already gone home for Christmas. Hm.

A word about those post-holiday sales in a retrograde: keep your receipts and be sure to read the fine print about returns at least twice before buying anything expensive, especially electronic goods. I always regret any serious discretionary spending during a Mercury retrograde, mostly because I've re-evaluated my needs by the end of the retrograde period --and it turns out I didn't need what I bought. If you can, hold off on bigger purchases until January 15th, or better yet, February 3rd, when Mercury passes the last degrees of it's echo phase.

Have a rockin' retro Christmas everyone! 

a christmas tune for a pisces moon

All I ever get for Christmas is blue...

winter solstice 2009

Winter Solstice needs a little revival these days. Perhaps with Pluto in Capricorn these next fifteen years, Winter Solstice will get more respect. I hope so.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a little in love with the holly jolly jingle of Christmas merry making, particularly now that I’ve got a little one around to share the fun. But Winter Solstice is the real deal, particularly here in the Northern Hemisphere. The darkness doesn’t get any deeper than this.

One thing some folks do get right is the tradition of advent. I got a little advent calendar I made myself, but it’s hardly made in the spiritual tradition of preparation for the Christ child. It’s all Ho-ho-ho Santa Christmas. The advent candle tradition passed my house by. If you’ve unfamiliar with advent candles, they function like this: each week for five weeks a new candle is lit in anticipation of the birth of Christ. The candles often have different colors, symbolic of the week’s theme --hope, joy, faith.

Light a candle against the winter light. It’s something many faiths share this time of year, a universally accepted symbol of hope for new beginnings. Wait for the light --the light of spring-- and until then we will share this little flame of hope.

This solstice shares some interesting astrological signatures, and together I see them as conjoined flames of hope. First Mars has just begun its interior journey, rehabbing some part of your ego structure. The Sun will ingress the sign of Capricorn, the symbol of hard work and determination, Venus will sextile Jupiter and Neptune, and finally Jupiter and Neptune will share a single degree in the sign of Aquarius --hope and vision for the people.

This amazingly rich winter stew. Hearty, warm, nourishing. Watching the pictures of snow across Washington D.C. and the east coast, I feel the energy of this astrological stew of goodness. Time to rest awhile. Time to breathe. Time to remember the sweet silence of a single candle lit against the harsh world. Time to our impotence against the unpredictability and power of Nature. Time to recognize our striving and agendas are pointless against 18 inches of snow up against your doorframe. You ain’t goin’ nowhere today, bub. Maybe relax a little.

While you’re relaxing, try this little Winter Solstice ritual: make a list (and check it twice) of what you want to release from your life this year. You’re not making guilt-inducing New Year’s resolutions! This is stuff you’re letting out the door --if you can open the door today. Think of every bad habit, negative mental tape, false “life story” you keep telling yourself. Think of every piece of junk, or pointless tchotchke you’ve hauled from apartment to apartment. Think of the people who drain you more than they support you. Think of the debts and obligations that hinder whatever new purposes and plans are emerging in your life.

List them all. Make a copy of that list. Put one copy of the list in a safe place for next year’s review. Burn the other copy. If you can’t burn anything where you’re at, come up with your own ritual destruction ceremony. Have a good time with this.
Last year I decided I wanted to eliminate half my credit card debt. Today it’s all gone. Didn’t happen the way I wished it would, but it’s gone. That was last year’s list. Gonna work on this year’s list today.

Happy winter solstice.

Photo: "Blackbirds," Erin Wilson.

backstage with mars in leo, part 2: libra, scorpio, saggitarius, capricorn, aquarius, and pisces

Note: Please read the previous entry about this transit, posted here. Lots of good stuff there.

(As always, read your Sun and Rising signs to get a better picture of the transit for you. You can discover your rising sign at this site: astrodienst.com, or if you already know (or want to look up) the latitude and longitude of your birth place, use tracy's excellent serennu site.)

And now, backstage--

Libra: If you worked in theater, you'd be happiest working in a repertory company or perhaps identifying as a loyal IATSE union member. Contributing to the greater good is your raison d'etre. But lately your contributions have been less about about "us" than "me" --and that's been a little jarring. Aren't we all a merry band of troubadours, bringing the people visions of a better tomorrow? So why won't anyone recognize your unique heart for the venture? Maybe there's a reason for that. "Tall poppies" is the Aussie term for what you've been sighted as: the flower that stands above the rest is the first one to feel the scythe. Standing up for something or standing out is likely to make you a marked man (or woman). And yet you cannot let the status quo be. Spend the next two months reformulating your new path away from the group norm. Maybe you need to find another troupe, a different union. Until you find the outlet, stay far away from fights, Poppy. The focus is on your own evolution, not a reformation of the department. Others may resent your ideas and go looking for their lawnmowers.

Scorpio: Of course you deserved that starring role. Of course you have more talent in your pinkie finger than most have in their whole nuclear family --grandparents included. Not that you need to advertise this truth; most people sense this without knowing why. It's part of your appeal. And lately you've been really showing your stuff --or have been making plans to go public with that stuff. The trouble is, you've got all this trouble on your home front holding you back from your big close-up. Something needs a big adjustment there. How can you move forward with this new public face and still answer to the ensemble? How can you be the star and still have a home to go home to? Playing understudy is not your style. And yet, that's the role you may have to take for the time being. If you don't self-destruct with frustration and bitterness that it's not you in the follow-spot, you can find a new outlet that better suits your conflicting (and legitimate) needs. Use this time to redefine your notions of stardom.

Sagittarius: Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And that's the trouble. You know the song all about blue skies and rainbows and it's still just a song, a siren call that beckons you on to the next town, the next show, with the hope that you'll experience the perfect performance. What you don't know is how to turn all that blue sky into a practical money-making venture. You were making some progress on that score this fall and connecting with folks who were showing you the money. But the money (and your connections) are still far away, and for the moment they're about as ephemeral as a rainbow after a thunderstorm. Keep singing, Sag --the musical score isn't done yet. Keep jotting those notes and replaying your fondest refrains. The work right now isn't out there, it's right in your neighborhood, right beside your elbow. In fact, elbow grease is your best friend now. Stay cool with the folks far away, whether there's money or love involved. Channel Johnny Mercer --the artist and the businessman-- and acc-cen-tu-ate the positive (easy enough) while you're building your new empire.

Capricorn: Oh, dear lord, you've landed the role of a lifetime! It has guts, it has grit, it's challenging and tender all at once. And you know it, deep in your gut you know this is the shot at your dreams. The dilemma is it's almost too rich, this role. You've wanted this for years but you've been such a duty-bound trooper in the background. Now you can finally to show the world what you learned back there, but this...this is almost too much. It's a role that calls for the ultimate of authenticity, the calling forth of all your darkest demons and dearest desires: you must orgasm onstage. Yes, you've got to surrender to desire --not in your head where that's a daily drama you may hide from even yourself. No, this role demands you pull it all to the surface. Lusty lions roar. Inhibition is your enemy. Until the last couple of years you've been too comfortable watching others interpret life for you. Not anymore. Now you are the interpreter, the conduit of love and passion. The key to your character work these next two months is this: get honest about what you honestly want from intimacy and what you'll do to get it. Don't cheat and fake the orgasm. Giving is the key, and now's the time to give the real deal. Authenticity --nothing less.

Aquarius: You're the improv veteran who's been cast in a long-term contract as the BFF or the lover these days. It's a great deal, this new partnership, and in this role you've been exploring new ideas about friendship and love. It's so cool, this expansion. And you've been looking for a new creative partnership who likes the talents you've got to offer. What you've got going on with your plans is so innovative! But if you're honest with yourself, it's been all a little cerebral. You're an excellent interpreter, and your notes during rehearsal are second to none. But the director keeps telling you you're missing feeling. You don't get this. Or do you? Reconsider what's at stake here: no one's challenging your unique vision of this relationship; what they need to see more of is your willingness to let others shine. Improv is a tough game and the guy who gets the biggest laughs, wins. Now you've got to work out a way for your partner to get the laugh. With an eight month contract that will put you in a new league, professionally and personally, you've got to make this one work. Feeling? Empathy? You'll find it inside if you if you study your beliefs about love and don't expect the other guy to serve up the tenderness every time.

Pisces: What role wouldn't you play? What job wouldn't you take? Chief cook and bottle-washer, if it needed to be done, you offered yourself for the job. Anything for your art. Anything for the one you love. What's missing in this picture? You. The problem is, you don't want to the girl-friday anymore and you're not going to accept whatever is handed your way. Recent battles may have set something straight in your heart, leaving you to finally focus on the true work that calls you. That new you is a picture of the Burning Man offering to the creative inner fire, not the self-immolation of mourning Buddists. Bid farewell to martyrdom. This past year got you in touch with a piece of your self-worth, which allowed you to develop a little more healthy selfishness. Now what're you gonna do with that new self? Work it, and then rework it. If your day job is less than creatively or artistically satisfying, don't hassle yourself or your co-workers. Give it time. You are creating a new world for them, too. It's a world that going to get bigger and bigger for you very soon.

going backstage: mars in leo retrograde until march 2010 with aries, taurus, gemini, cancer, leo and virgo

Today Mars is officially stationed on the degree it will go retrograde tomorrow --19+ degrees Leo. From December 20th through March 10th Mars will appear to be losing degrees of progression --going retrograde-- until it stops at 0+ degrees Leo and heads forward again.

And this retrograde says "backstage" to me.

I have almost always been more interested in the process of making art than art itself, and from an early age I can remember being fascinated with rough drafts and mock-ups of animation, particularly. The final cartoons? Meh. One of my best childhood memories was spending a day on the set of the TV show, Little House on the Prairie, where I got bored watching the actors and instead chatted up the continuity and props guys. They were cool. Later I got into theater, and after a couple of years in high school on stage, I found my home behind the scenes in production work. I no longer make a living in professional theatre, but whenever I do get near a stage I feel I've come home again.

I hope you get fascinated with backstage business, too, because the next three months are going to take you there.

Leo is the Sun --in it's highest expression Leo is noble, generous, kind, loving, tolerant and playful. Leo is the life of the party. Leo is sex before you were told it was naughty. Leo is the Ego unencumbered by the cravings of the Id or the limitations of the Super Ego. Whereas Aries just IS, Leo is there to serve and love. Leo needs an country, a kingdom, a people or an audience.

So what happens when Leo retreats from the audience? For Leo, there never really isn't an audience, in retrograde that audience becomes himself. Mars HAS to do something, but in retrograde he can't go anywhere. No audience? Can't go anywhere? Ah, well. 'Spect I'll just sit here at my make-up table and stare at m'self...

In terms of personal development, going backstage will mean not just staring at oneself, but reworking the person you see in the mirror. Something about your performance needs another dress rehearsal. Time to revisit your lines, lower the hem on that skirt, or refocus that light. Leo hates a bad performance and loves authentic self-expression. Now's a good time to work out the difference between the two in the Leonic parts of your life.

Backstage we focus on the process of what we want to share with others. Backstage we get to rehearse the role of the person we want to be. If our life "show" is measured by the quality of preparation we put in before we go public with our new selves, then this backstage process brings us closer to a quality life.

Here's a short run-down of where Mars is giving you a backstage pass. Read your Sun and Rising signs for a more complete picture:

Aries: Think you're the uber-creative PR dude? You're next sexy/fun/extreme whatever? Or selling your latest scheme as such? Maybe you're taking off on a dream of free-agent status. I wouldn't dream of impugning your motives, but I do have a question: Are you listening to the people you work with or have you turned this into another blitzkrieg? Is that you fighting --or them? Gambling with anything --including hearts-- means you accept what others are risking, too. Consider rethinking your pitch with this in mind.

Taurus: Your home base may look --or feel-- like a DMZ, but that's just you learning what your castle's really worth. Peace in your palace doesn't equal lying low or bugging out; you need to be rooted in a safe play zone. This means more than buying baby bumpers for your coffee table or wrapping gaff tape around the kitchen plumbing, you know. Home is where the heart is, so don't suffer another flimsy band-aid fix for what ails you these days. Really being yourself in the battlefield begins with a king at peace on his throne.

Gemini: You've been reading from a new script with your family and the folks you usually see, but does it feel totally right? Maybe not. This is a new script, after all. Likely you're experimenting with a new role, one that you're really wanted for ever so long to play. And yet here you are, unsure how you're gonna come across. And gosh, you don't like that feeling. Put your mighty brain to work and see if you can go back and discover some subtext you missed in the first read-through. There's a bigger picture to find. You don't 'get' this character yet, but with work, you will.

Cancer: Consider yourself a producer these days. Your job is go for the money, but all your good connections haven't panned out as you hoped this fall. At least not yet. Something about this project (you) hasn't yet connected with the audience it needs. Spend the next couple of months thinking about the public connection. One of your gifts is tapping into the resources of other people. In other words, you know where the "sweet spot" is in anyone you know. Revise your thinking about "sweet spots" and get your own resources together. Think like a Santa: make a list of who's naughty and nice; check it twice and come March you might find a couple of belated Christmas gifts.

Leo: Are you exhausted yet? No? Then good for you! Some Leos I know, though, have been battling folks on three fronts. Note our latest Leo president, Barak Obama, if you're wondering what Leos have been facing. Of course, Leo is a good performer and some are charming and playing their paws through the confusion. Have you ever seen Obama sweat? Or stutter? Whichever Leo you are, now would be an excellent time to brush up your resume, or simply decide how you might like to better face your audience. You could be a bottle brush salesman, it doesn't matter --at the very least get a new tie. Come this spring you could be playing to --or working with-- a [re]new[ed] audience.

Virgo: Yours might be the most surprising transformation of the lot: your work is quintessentially the backstage of the zodiac's backstage. Whatever's happening here is not likely to emerge until summer. In the meantime, please take a look at what drives you to serve the people and ideas that you think are non-negotiable in your life. You are, in fact, doing a lot of arguing for things you may not yet understand for many months. One of them is an idea of how you want to be remembered. Don't forget that saints actually led complicated lives. Control dramas don't qualify as official miracles. That stigmata might actually be a self-induced wound. Let go and let, er...God?

Libra-Pisces tomorrow!

yer ego lookin' for a good fight? help for the holidays.

The thing is, who really knows how to fight well?

With that Leonine Mars screeching to a halt this week as he prepares to go retrograde, our Lion is pawing the ground and churning up a ton of dust in an already tense season.  So I'm interested (but not surprised) about the number of articles popping up now on astro sites about verbal and physical abuse, bullies, back family relationships, etc.

Leo tells us a lot about our ego's instincts, and Mars tells us what we want to fight for and how we go after it. In Leo, there's gonna be a lot of self-expression and Mars gives us motivation. So we're motivated to express ourselves. Both are fiery, so expect anything from the "once more into the breech" call to charge at the enemy --to death-by-the-pricks-of-a-thousand-fire-ants. So you might experience big blow ups or a stream of constant snarky stabs --ouch ouch ouch. There's nothing cerebral about this vibe right now. Enthusiasm, not strategy rules the day.

Now pair that fire with someone who doesn't understand boundaries. Fire blazes right through boundaries.

If you're like me and have spent a lifetime with a verbal bully, you'll immediately understand what's offered in these articles. You will recognize the fear, the sense of displacement, the questioning of your own sanity, the anger you try to deny. "If I can only make this better for them," you say as they demand more and more 'help', "I can get on with my life." But it never works that way. Trust me.

IF and that's IF you're dealing with someone who's got a poorly developed concept of self/ego you'll find yourself facing the ugly side of all this. And don't fall into some sanctimonious assumption you're not one of these poor souls. We all have soft spots and sore, battered parts who want attention. If you were reared by a verbal bully, you have probably fallen into their pattern at some point: to protect yourself you became the bully instead of the victim. The script is so ingrained that you know both parts all too well. I learned this hard way, and the lesson stunned me into some pretty serious self-examination.

The holidays are notorious for hauling all our unspoken needs out of the closet for an airing. We hear "Get me this!" "Spend time with me!" "Why haven't you called Auntie So-and-So since last New Year's?" Guilt-trips GALORE. You, me, everybody. Secretly we're trying to make our little lives Hallmark-card-perfect.

Leo, being a fixed sign, has no interest in playing along or accommodating anyone's script but his own. This could be a good thing for you, if you're trying to break off abusive patterns. But remember the other party is digging in their paws, too. Grrrr...

So.

Here are a couple of favorite articles for your holiday adventures, with very practical and kind help for recognizing and managing the control dramas. I hope you found them as helpful as I did. Please read the comments, too; you may just hear your own story in another person's words.

Tactics and Strategies of Batterers and Other Abusive People --Aquarius Papers

[excerpt] There is no way anyone can please a batterer. They will always find reasons why you're wrong, or don't get it, or why you must address their concerns. As I demonstrated yesterday, even when you logically deconstruct their reasoning and refute their supposed "proofs" that you are wrong, to blame, etc., they will consistently refuse to address what you've said, and will throw more accusations and demands that they expect you to answer to their satisfaction. And of course they're never satisfied.

'OM' For The Holidays --Planet Waves

[except] Sometime in my late twenties, a suspicion began sneaking up on me that the difficulties recurring in my relationships with women might have something to do with my connection to the woman I’ve always had the most difficulty with. (Take a guess!) My mother is one of the most passionately headstrong and expressive women I have ever met. She really voices her opinions and lets her feelings fly. Throughout childhood and on into young adulthood, I often felt swallowed up and overpowered by her emotional energy. It felt to me as if there was no room in our relationship for my own feelings, and even for my emerging (or submerging!) identity. My coping mechanism was to play the game of see-saw. When she raised her voice, I lowered mine. When she emoted, I suppressed. When she expressed caring, I danced at a distance.

It was a painful dance. My mother felt hurt, and she let me know it. I felt both guilty and resentful, and let nobody know it. I became an expert in emotional camouflage.

Art: Gene Flores.

eve of the new moon and where's my hobby horse?

As I type this, the Moon is exactly, and I mean exactly to the arc minute in full lip lock with Venus. Just a degree away from my Ascendant. How charming. Venus rising for me. No wonder I'm feeling the need to reach out from my self-imposed break from the world and touch someone. [wink] And no --I did not plan this. Synchronicity just kills me.

Ah, there she goes now, the Moon is separating...Adieu, sweet Moon! We'll meet again.

Really, if you've got a Mac, go get yourself an Io Sprite. It's a whole lot of fun watching this stuff in the sky do its thing, real time. Even on a cloudy night. Seeing how quickly the Moon moves, for instance, deeply impresses upon me the sensitivity and importance of the Moon's placement in any chart. With a toy like the Sprite you can finally see what astrologers mean when they call La Luna the second hand of the celestial clock.

Right now the Moon is at 17+ degrees Sagittarius, but by the time I have finished this paragraph it will have reached 18 degrees. Does that matter? For most, not really. What's one degree over another? But esoteric symbol systems like the Sabian images do count each degree has a distinct theme, so one degree's difference matters to them.

And because you asked, I'll tell you that this moon's Sabian symbol is about hobby horses. 

I like New Moons in Sagittarius because the sign implies new vistas, new horizons, new ideas. Fresh starts and newness everywhere! Sagittarius is not a backward looking sign at all. What happened in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas. In fact, by the time Sagittarius has made it to the plane, he's only thinking about his next adventure not the last one.

The hobby horse has multiple meanings. Some bawdy, some benign. Here, I think the Sabian interpretation emphasizes idealism and the practice that comes from working out your hopes and dreams with enthusiasm and joy. It's not nose-to-the-grindstone practice, but nose-almost-to-the-horizon practice. You know, practicing your galloping before someone hands you a real horse and saddle.

I've been thinking about this image all week. It's been a good week for me here at my friend's home in Chicago. We've had some good 'horizon' conversations about our futures, and the practical realities we're negotiating as parents.

The Venus trine Mars stuff all week has been brilliant for me, too. I'm not redefining the novel, but the words are coming quickly and my work has been very productive. And we've played theater a little, too. Not everything has happened as we'd planned, but I expected that. My host is a Fish --a Pisces girl. So she comes and she goes, we make plans and then everything goes sort of wonky and we rearrange them. But Fish are fabulous for letting you swim off for the day and not getting hung up about it. Loners like me do appreciate that; Fish folk do too.

This past day I've been particularly tired, something I've noticed at the end of dark moon phases. So it helps to have a friend who appreciates my need for alone time.

Mars is slowing down (which could account for some of my foot-dragging, too) all this week. So while New Moons imply new beginnings, Mars is about to turn retrograde. A Sun, New Moon and Mars all in fire signs is a recipe for hot enthusiasm, but your flame probably isn't so bright right now. So if you're feeling a bit low on fuel, it's not because you're already exhausted with the holidays. We'll see, but I think tomorrow you'll feel brighter. Enjoy the perk.

And about that perk: the New Moon is sextile the Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron connection in Aquarius. Lots of perkiness there. Or rather sparky thoughts. Insights, sudden vistas open when you thought some door was closed.

Think about the people you spend the most time with --or wish you spent the most time with. This is an Aquarius theme, and it's been running pretty hot since last January. Something's been shifting since then, and that something is your place in your crowd, your culture, your peeps, your milieu. Whatever it is, your relationship to the people who help you do "your thing" is shifting, and has been for a long time now. Part of this is because you are shifting. (This is Pluto work, which deserves a different entry.)

December's New Moon gives you potential to shift a lot more. It's likely a mental shift, but as I've come to learn, mental adjustments precede practical implementations, often by months and years. But it's important that you see the door that's open to you now. Likely some very different people are on the other side of that door. Note the opportunity and the people. Note what you think they mean to you now. Most of all, honor the far-sighted enthusiasm of Sagittarius in your personality. (It's in there somewhere.) You don't and can't have all the information you think you need now. There's a bit of "you've got to believe" in this moment, so keep an open hand and an open heart.

In the next couple of weeks we have some hot astrological action, and my chart is loaded with contact points this month. I'm wondering a lot about it myself, but for now I'm content to observe this new moon on it's own merits and think about my shifting future. 

Happy New Moon.

silence = typing away

Hear that quiet tapping on the keyboard? That's me doing due diligence with Mercury in Capricorn and the fantastic Venus/Mars fire trine happening this week. I've booked myself a writer's retreat before the churnings of the retrogrades/squares/eclipse/Full Moon shift my attention away to personal matters.

Actually, if you're in the middle of a creative project (like me), the Mars retrograde will be a great time to revise your work, so get a move on with your word counts, sketches, layouts, floorplans -- whatever.

Most likely I'll drop in with thoughts on the Saggitarius New Moon for the 16th and the Mars retrograde station on the 20th.

Until then...

astrology and the "ensouled" universe: richard tarnas weighs in at PW

Apropos of the Sun in Saggitarius and Mercury in Capricorn, Eric over at Planet Waves initiated a discussion about astrology's place in the fate vs. free will debate. Okay, so I've heard this debate a thousand times before, (usually in the context of Christian theology) but LO AND BEHOLD, Richard Tarnas, The Man, showed up and that got my interest.

If you're not familiar with Tarnas and you're fascinated with astrology, I highly highly recommend Tarnas' book Cosmos and Psyche. This is NOT an astrology "cookbook" where you learn what his sun on my whatever might mean. If you're interested in that, go get yourself some Linda Goodman or something. Tarnas is in different territory altogether.

Richard Tarnas is an historian and philosopher, so you'll enjoy his work better if you've got a solid liberal arts background --by that I mean, you've got a smattering of philosophers, art history, cultural history, and literature tucked into your brain. Not specialized knowledge, just a decent grip on Western Civ. (In fact, Tarnas is best known for his work The Passion of the Western Mind.)

Yesterday Tarnas showed up in the discussion thread, responding to Eric's assertion that astrology uniquely addresses the paradox of fate v. free will, Tarnas disagrees, saying many disciplines wrestles with this dilemma. However, astrology does admit a difference from the modern materialist/scientific dominated mind:

But I believe the most fundamental factor is astrology’s cosmological assertion that the Earth is a center of cosmic meanings and purposes as determined by positions of the planets and apparent constellations of stars, in a universe that is understood by modern science to be fundamentally centerless and void of intrinsic meanings and purposes. Astrology depends on, and affirms, an ensouled, purposeful cosmos, but modern cosmology is disenchanted.

He then quotes a passage from the epilogue of Cosmos and Psyche:

“There are many possible worlds, many possible meanings, living within us in potentia, moving through us, awaiting enactment. We are not just solitary separate subjects in a meaningless universe of objects upon which we can and must impose our egocentric will. Nor are we blank slates, empty vessels, condemned to playing out passively the implacable processes of the universe—or of God—or of our environment, our genes, our race, our class, our gender, our social-linguistic community, our unconscious, our stage in evolution. Rather, we are miraculously self-reflective and autonomous yet embedded participants in a larger cosmic drama, each of us a creative nexus of action and imagination. Each is a self-responsible microcosm of the creative macrocosm enacting a richly, complexly coevolutionary unfolding of reality.”

mercury into capricorn

Mercury moves into Capricorn today, squaring the Aries Point, and will pair up with Pluto on the same degree (2+ Capricorn) December 7th. Thus beginneth the Capricorn season.

We'll have about ten weeks of Capricorn thinking this year: Mercury goes retrograde the day after Christmas (aka Boxing Day) and then resumes its forward path January 15th where it will remain in Capricorn until February 10th. Ten weeks. Whew.

Soon each of the personal planets (Mercury, Venus, the Sun and the Moon) will pass by Sir Pluto, pushing all our dear Cappy friends into new realms of selfhood. We Cappys are such Nervous Nellies and Pluto sitting in our sign for the next fourteen years will no doubt make us or break us, so be kind to our neuroses this holiday season. 

On the other hand, if you get rebuffed by a Cap, don't take it too hard. If they feel anything like me, they are so not into your games these days. Whatever games they are. Doesn't matter. Was having a laugh at myself after I realized Mercury had already moved into Capricorn because today I've noticed the shift in my approach to others right now: if you've got a serious offer or a legitimate/thoughtful plan, we'll talk; otherwise, I've got better things to do --and one of 'em is not you.

I know, hard core.

Still, there's that fishy/mystic interior life that Caps work so hard to hide. But with Mars still in Leo and Mercury now in your own house, any opportunity for self-expression won't go unnoticed these days. In fact, if you're a creative Cappy, I imagine these would be pretty fertile times for you.

So welcome, Mercury.

Sculpture: Max Ernst, "Capricorn" (1964).