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Happy 2017: Now Let's Feed Fear a Suck It Sandwich!

12/31/2016

Ten astrological reasons to be excited for 2017, even if 2016 was challenging (and make sure you listen to the attached sound track!).

1. Every planet teaches us how to feed fear a suck it sandwich if we pay attention to them carefully.

2. All death is dazzling beauty and faith to the soul eternal. Say yes like Jupiter.

3. All death and even murder is made into light for those who see the limits of darkness and ignorance, who see their impermanence. Say yes like Saturn.

4. Every ounce of pain is the work of red hot creation. Say Amen like Mars.

5. Every lost or broken relationship is also the never ending romance of every living thing. Say "I do" to your life like Venus.

6. Every lost word, every blocked friend, every misconception or miscommunication, or harsh word...a silent reminder that right and wrong don't make sense. Say I understand like Mercury.

7. Every heart beats because it beats. We see and live by means of life. Say I see it...like the Sun.

8. Every glowing moment of every glowing day, woven together by silver strands, creates the impressions of a life. Good years ahead and behind, bad years ahead and behind, life is living memory. Say I remember, like the Moon.

9. Repeat: I will not be afraid. I feed fear a suck it sandwich. Because the planets are my friends. The force is with me and I am with the force.

10. 2016 is a made up number. Astrology doesn't teach me to bless and curse years, it teaches me to see beyond time while swimming right through it. Friends and enemies, victims and innocent, I will see God in everything because God sees everything in me.

Mars/Neptune and the Drive to Oblivion

12/30/2016

Happy Belated New Moon Everyone!

Today Mars is moving closer to a conjunction with Neptune. Here are a few things to watch for:

* The drive to oblivion (reckless, indulgent, or driven to dissolve ourselves in our desires).
* The passion, drive, and intensity of an other-worldly vision or feeling
* The desire to transcend overwhelms, consumes, inspires
* The subjects of violence and water, or disaster and water
* Competition and fluidity
* Martyrs, victims, saviors, and the causes we would die or sacrifice something for
* The impossible and its heroics
* Passivity wins or dominates
* Anger vanishing into something bigger
* Feeling that an effort is being overwhelmed or that your efforts are futile...perhaps needing to give up for the moment
* Effortlessness as a strategy for obtaining something
* Drowning
* The charisma of the fiery prophet or seer
* Blame, victimizing, scapegoating or manipulating appearances
* Senseless or irrational aggression, perhaps from people who are unwell or not stable
* The yearning for something unobtainable, and the complaints, anger, and irritation that accompany

Prayer: Fill our cups with simple kindness and patient loving. Do not let us be distracted by the zeal of our desires or our despair.

Mercury Cazimi: An Astrological Tribute to Tricia McCauley

12/28/2016

Today Mercury is Cazimi...

A meditation on the meaning of cazimi, dedicated to my fallen astrological and herbal colleague Tricia McCauley, who was brutally murdered on Christmas this past weekend.

My favorite writer and thinker, James Hillman loved to say that "we are lived by powers we pretend to understand." Hillman, an archetypal psychologist like Jung before him, recognized the life of the soul or psyche as a kind of middle ground between the everyday stuff of human life and the realm of gods and myths, daemons and archetypal energies. Hillman believed that in order to live soulful lives we have to stop trying to redeem, save, or correct all the confusion and instead live with a kind of transparent awareness of the archetypal within the mundane elements of human life: the boredom, the betrayal, the drudgery, the violence, and confusion, the broken childhood stories, etc. In other words, it's our work to look for the god in the sicknesses of the world and to find its romantic, archetypal, and aesthetic value for the soul, rather than trying to simply root out, purge, or banish the difficulties of life. To Hillman, trying to banish or root out the complexities of human life was the equivalent of an unhealthy spiritual bi-passing...something that rejected rather than embraced the real depth, mystery, and complexity of the soul of our world.

Tricia was an astrologer and actress, a yogi and herbalist who embraced the same kind of romantic love for the complexities of life that Hillman prescribed over and over again throughout his prolific career. In my last conversation with her, Tricia was discussing with me the challenge of a difficult Neptune transit in her birth chart after I wrote a post about James Hillman's often repeated line: "We are live by powers we pretend to understand." The planet Neptune was conjoining her natal Sun and she told me that she was feeling a sense of confusion about her life's purpose, meaning, and direction. As the Sun in astrology (among other things) pertains to our sense of direction, purpose, and calling, it wasn't surprising for me to hear that she was struggling in this particular way, as this is a common Neptune/Sun experience. But then she wrote this as a qualifier to her challenges with the transit..."[But] I always find that (no matter how challenging the actual experience is), my life is easier and more clear while doing theatre -- like there's an outlet for the archetypal energies that otherwise would fester. All the "challenging planetary transits" become more manageable as an artist than as a civilian!"

What Tricia clearly knew was that she was in the midst of being seized by an archetypal power. Rather than trying to compete with it, purge it, or heal it, and rather than living in fear of it, Tricia simply recognized it for what it was and chose to let the power of the transit come through her, creatively, by returning to her love for theater (which she told me she had been away from for a little while). She could have easily chosen to feel as though she was sick, lost, or in trouble, but instead she shared with me that what she saw was Neptune. Like, "Oh that's just Neptune, and he wants to act in and through me. I think I'll return to the stage."

When Tricia was brutally murdered on Christmas, her natal Moon/Mars opposition was being exactly conjoined/activated by the current Jupiter/Uranus opposition (a very powerful/sudden/shocking and potentially violent theme). Meanwhile, the ruler of her 8th house (a house whose topics include death), Venus, was being eclipsed right on her ascendant by Neptune.

I am sure that Tricia did not want to die, and I cannot imagine passing from this world in the way that she did. But I can also tell you based on the profoundness of her soul, her dazzling intelligence, and her love for the archetypal powers of astrology, that she would be the first to say that we are all actors upon a stage far bigger and stranger than we are capable of understanding most days. In fact, I could almost feel her presence this morning, with me at my desk, looking at the transits in her birth chart, saying things like, "Oh look at my Mars/Moon opposition getting activated by Jupiter/Uranus. Wow!!"

Tricia was the caretaker of an urban garden. She understood that we have to grow things right in the thick of everyday life and all its chaos. She lived that way and she died that way, and as far as I knew her, she had no illusions about the fact that our lives are the expressions of mythic forces, and that the best we can do is let them flow through us with thoughtfulness and care. In fact, I think this is what made her such a profound human being, someone who lived each facet of her being from the standpoint of a participation mystique.

So what does this have to do with Mercury being cazimi with the Sun today? Well, when Mercury conjoins by zodiacal degree with the very heart of the Sun it is as though the power of the King/Queen (the Sun), is temporarily granted to the messenger (Mercury). When this happens it can signify many different things (lest we forget that astrology is a contextual/divinatory art form), but most generally it symbolizes the importance of cultivating the exact kind of mindset that Tricia lived by each day.

Let me explain...

C.S. Lewis, another favorite thinker of mine, loved to use an analogy to describe the meaning of a spiritual symbol. Imagine that you are walking into a gardening shed tucked under some trees in the shade. You walk inside the shed and it is dark save one long beam of light coming in from a hole in the ceiling. At first, you are staring at the beam of light, and that's what it is...a beam of light. But then, you walk into its ray of light, and you look along the beam, through the beam, up into the world and by its light you see the tree branches and blue sky and white clouds outside and above. Lewis said that a real spiritual symbol is one that at some point moves from being a beam of light that we're looking AT, to one that we see by means of into the world.

Mercury at the heart of the Sun is just this kind of move. It's the move from seeing a symbol to seeing by means of a symbol, so natural that we no longer say "I'm doing symbolic thinking" and instead start to see, perceive, understand, and live by means of the symbol itself.

If there is anything I believe I am here to cultivate, in myself, in my readers and clients, in my friendships, and my community, it is the same understanding Tricia embodied as a symbolic thinker....not someone who liked symbols or had them memorized in some kind of rote spiritual science, but someone who lived, saw, and breathed life by means of their rays of light. In the living fibers of planets and plants, in the wild animals of yoga postures and the faces of the many characters and voices she inhabited as an actress.

So, as Mercury is at the heart of the Sun, I see by means of Tricia's life and am trying to say something as a messenger on behalf of my soul sister...her life was itself a beautiful and timeless symbol that we can all see by means of if we take the time to let HOW she lived illuminate how we live today.

I know she would tell us the same. Because as she said, "I always find that (no matter how challenging the actual experience is), my life is easier and more clear while doing theatre."

In your loving memory my friend!!! Travel well, be with the stars, you are a star whose light we will see by means of...whose rays will still be reaching us long after your death.

Prayer: Bless us to see by means of each other's light.

Jupiter/Uranus and Cosmic Popcorn

12/26/2016

Jupiter and Uranus are exactly opposed this afternoon.

* Remember that over the past few months we've seen this opposition building and it has reflected the unexpected changes, rebelliousness, and polarization within the political establishment in the USA.

* Our political turmoil is intimately linked to cultural polarizations, between the rich and the poor, the establishment and those who are frequently marginalized, etc. These polarizations will continue to build and will continue to be in the spotlight in the year ahead.

* So far many of the astrologers following the election have been surprised by Trump's rise to power. We suspected he would lose, we wondered if the electoral college would go rogue, and many of us are wondering if he'll actually be inaugurated. It seems worth mentioning that Trump is in the mix of a very intense Saturn conjunction to his Moon and opposition to his Sun in the next year, and at the end of 2017 he enters a period known in Hellenistic astrology as a "loosing of the bond" period, which often points to a major change of direction or focus. It is very possible that right now the seeds of his eventual removal from office are somehow being planted and that this change at the end of 2017 would indicate that he doesn't last long in office (which could be good or bad depending on who took his place!). Regardless, all of what is likely to occur in the next year on both the national (US) and global stage is reflective of the divisive, accelerated, breakthrough and turnover style of the Jupiter/Uranus opposition. I think so many of us who study astrology sense all of this, but even we forget that Uranus is so eccentric and explosive that it will remain difficult for us to predict exactly "how" the promised revolutions of this transit will play out. I've seen not just a few astrologers say "get out your popcorn," and this isn't just a joke...Uranus is theatrical in its predictably amazing but unexpected ways.

* Remember that the opposition between these two planets will perfect again in September of 2017 and will be very much "in effect" for the year-ahead.

Prayer: Give us some cosmic popcorn, dusted with just enough salty patience.

The Simplest Astrology of Christmas Eve

12/24/2016

Christmas eve astrological thought...

People have spent far too much time pontificating as to whether or not the Star of Bethlehem was an "astrological" event and whether or not the Magi were natal astrologers or just a group of wise dudes who received an other worldly vision. Just step back from all of these arguments and consider the simplest elements of this particular Gospel account (whether we consider it as something literal or mythological):

* A great teacher/prophet/messiah was heralded to be born and there was a star involved marking/guiding wise men from another country to honor his birth.

* The word magi is associated both with wisdom and/or magic.

* There were wise men/magicians who followed a star to the birth of a great spiritual teacher.

That's all you really need to remember that God talks to all people, from all parts of the world, through great teachers and the stars alike. At least that's how this astrologer has always understood the simplest facts of this rendering of the Christmas story. :-)

Prayer: Show us the truth of light and love in the simplest images... of animals and children, shepherds, friends and wise men and women, parents, communion and community. Let us hold a light tonight for all those who have been cast out or left behind. Bring us together in hope and unity, regardless of race, creed, or religion, and lead us by the light of your stars.

The Temple of Capricorn

12/23/2016

We think we know Capricorn, but do we really understand the most enigmatic sign of the zodiac?

* Capricorn was referred to by ancient Hellenistic astrologers as "the goat horned one," but Robert Schmidt has pointed out that the title included the notion of being enigmatic. The goat horned "??" might be another way of putting it. This should give us reason to pause. The constellation image of Capricorn is a strange looking goat with the tail of a fish. Let's just leave that puzzling image there, and imagine now that we're entering a zodiacal temple, somewhere in the stars, above whose doorway there is a shadowy question mark and the dim image of the mysterious goat-horned one...

* Along the walls of the ground floor of the temple are moving images of winter: old men and women, crumbling skyscrapers, frozen branches, the burning flames of a funeral pyre sent down a frosty river, and all faces of death. However, as the bleak images shift and change, they crack and flame at the edges with an iridescent glow, revealing glimpses of rainbow light.

* A young child approaches you with blue lips and frosty white skin. "To walk up or down?" he asks you. And suddenly before you are two staircases, one spiraling upward into dark clouds marked by bursts of color streaked lightning and the other downward into utter blackness.

* If you climb the stairs upward, you find cities rising out of the sea, and the wheels and fires of industry turning over the top of old bones and fresh saplings. You see men and women in suits, chained to one another on the deck of a ship, groping after a bouquet of beautiful bodies that rises and falls, naked and fertile, inviting them in from the waves. Not evil but the decadence of opportunity all around you. As you climb higher you also notice long libraries, the doors of temples, and the arched hallways of Universities. Along the stairs climbing higher, singers, painters, angels spiraling ever upward, and those lost in the timelessness of meditation. Finally you reach a round ceiling porthole with starry runes written in the dark clouds. The strange letters flash with fire and color, and you ask out loud, "What does it mean?" The child with blue lips and frosty white skin appears again and says, "All aspiration ends here." Then the runes disappear and the same question mark over the door to the temple appears.

* If you walk down the stairs, you find the deepest wells of suffering and all images of human horror and discord, loss and abandonment. Level after level of unspeakable brutality. The poet loses his quill. The speaker his voice. The watcher her eyes. The singer his instrument. The captain her compass. The contemplative his mind. And yet finally, because the feet do carry to completion, there is at the very bottom a round porthole, a bottom hole in a bottomless floor, and it too flashes with color and fire, covered in runes. You ask the same question, "What does it mean?" and the child guide with blue lips and frosty white skin appears again, saying the same, "All aspiration ends here." Then the fiery runes disappear and the same enigmatic question mark appears again, dark but flashing with alluring colors.

Suddenly you find yourself once more at the entryway to the temple, but now you are being shown out of the frosty maze. Your guide hands you a single, leaden coin engraved with the image of the question mark on one side, and the glyph of Saturn on the other. "Hold winter in your heart, and it will hold you in the highest heavens and the deepest hells," the child tells you.

Prayer: Teach us the wisdom of the goat horned one. The grave and glorious question mark.

Jupiter/Uranus Perfecting

12/22/2016

The Moon and Jupiter are coming together today in opposition to Uranus in Aries. BAM. That could be the interpretation.

But here is what to watch for:

* We're closing in on the exact opposition from Jupiter to Uranus and so far we've seen a few decisive expressions of the Jupiter/Uranus opposition: the assassination of a Russian diplomat in Turkey, the terrorist attack in Berlin, the continued political drama and polarization in US politics, and a fireworks factory explosion in Mexico (among others).

* Each of these recent news stories bears the signature of explosive, sudden, hard hitting, and potentially revolutionary events, but the point isn't that these somehow represent the transit as a whole. Rather, these stories are some of the most popular images in the media that are symbolically expressive of the Jupiter/Uranus dynamic. Collective images tell the stories of millions of personal, private experiences, and so we can study them to get an understanding of what's happening in our own lives.

* Because the Moon and Jupiter are together today, we may see more Jupiter/Uranus dynamics in the headlines or in our personal lives. Look for rapid accelerations, sudden and unexpected changes of circumstance, revolutionary or rebellious or groundbreaking ideas or experiences, and fast moving changes or surges of creative passion.

* Remember that Pluto is also in the mix of this opposition, which means these changes have the power to strip things down, reveal and expose what's below the surface, purge, purify, and rebirth us...but the darkness and intensity of Pluto is right in the mix of things, and it can definitely touch on our fears, our sicknesses, the truth of our deepest desires, and so forth.

As we are now passing through the solstice gateway, the end of this lunar cycle, especially the perfecting of Jupiter's opposition to Uranus in the next few weeks, will set the stage for the year ahead.

Prayer: Show us the way forward. Protect us. Guide us. Take away what is no longer necessary. Open the door.

The Astrology of the Winter Solstice

12/21/2016

Happy Winter Solstice Everyone!

Some solstice notes...

* Imagine yourself inside of a completely trashed house. You're having one of those moments where you come to grips with the amount of work it will take to get this house back in shape. Before you start in, you sit down on some random piece of the rubble, maybe a box full of old books whose time is up. As you sit, you crack open a beer, or maybe pour yourself a glass of wine, and you toast to the humor of the situation...the despair and hopelessness have reached their limit, and so you raise your glass to them. "Nice show, 2016," you say, "you salty bastard." And before you get to work, you spend time with the ghosts in the mess. You honor them and like Ebeneezer Scrooge growing more pliable through the night, you listen to their cryptic messages...you see their omens and signs strewn through the clutter before you. What began with laughing and resignation may slowly turn the corner into some reluctant tears. And though you're not going to get to work on this problem just yet, though you'll have to come back to this scene and get to work again soon enough, for tonight you're going to celebrate and honor what's happened, even though it was difficult. So for now you pick up one particular box of trash, something manageable, and you bring it with you on your way out...a promise to yourself that you will return, with good spirits, with renewed faith and dedication, to begin again and get your house in order.

* Or, imagine that you are at the ground level of something beautiful, something inspiring, something that you know will require all of your dedication, persistence, and hard work in the year ahead. "I'm not going to screw this up," you say to yourself. "I can do this." But before you get going on building on this foundation, you spend time toasting the stars and imagining and visualizing all that you are promising to yourself. And deep down inside a voice says to you, "Even if you fail, you have to try. If you fail, you'll do so with love in your heart." An excitement is growing like a bright fire at the foot of a cold winter mountain.

* As Mercury is retrograde at this solstice moment, in conjunction with Pluto, you may be feeling like you can see something rather ominous coming down the road that others cannot. You may feel alone in this wisdom or predictive insight, and because you have love in your heart, and because you walk the path of humbleness, you know it's not your place to try to correct, condemn, or point out the error of someone's ways. It's not your place to play prophet, and it's not your place to withhold anything, or say "I told you so," even when what you see coming will in fact happen. This place of lonely wisdom amidst friends, family, and ancestors is often a place of secret sadness. But it's also something else, something far more special and important. In the darkness of the ignorance around you, your lonely wisdom, your humble insight into the future, is a candle. And the great joy that we look forward to in times like these is not that someday people will recognize that it has been us holding the candle all along, but rather that the light itself has been there all along, and will always be there. So don't let your wisdom be the source of your sadness or your loneliness this holiday season. Instead, let it be the source of your joy, your trust, your generosity, your happiness, your peacefulness, your forgiveness, your patience and modesty, and your good cheer. So long as we are ever holding this little light of wisdom, we are blessed with all we could possibly ask for.

Prayer: Teach us the joy of the secret light and wisdom we hold in the midst of any surrounding darkness.

10 Signs Mercury is in Your Midst Today

12/20/2016

Ten signs Mercury is in your midst today:

1. You are dealing with technical issues, misunderstandings, blockages, or delays.
2. You at some point this morning have said, "this is so totally Mercury retrograde."
3. Your words have been misunderstood...maybe the fact that they've been misunderstood creates another kind of misunderstanding.
4. Your environment feels messy, dirty, unorganized, or generally all over the place.
5. You are tempted to undo, redo, or totally change course.
6. You are trying against all odds to avoid some kind of challenge or block that has crossed your path today...you realize you may waste most of your day if you keep trying to avoid it, yet you persist.
7. You are dealing with an old issue that keeps coming up.
8. You forgot your charger, keys, wallet, that important piece of information, or somehow missed someone or something.
9. You are tempted to try to pull something off that will probably take up a good portion of your day and not succeed.
10. You are having a totally normal day, with nothing big to report on, and you're making sure to tell everyone who is cursing Mercury retrograde.

Prayer: Retrograde me until I'm silly in love with it all. :-)

The Messenger, the Underworld, and the Revolution

12/19/2016

The Moon is in Virgo today, applying to Mercury (who is stationing) in Capricorn. Mercury is nearly conjunct to Pluto. From here, the Moon applies to a square with Saturn and then enters into the last quarter Moon just as we move into the solstice.

Keep your eyes peeled for...

* Delays, setbacks, and all manner of Mercury matters reaching a halt, standstill, or temporary shutdown.

* However, the Moon making a trine to this stationing Mercury could also represent the return on something you've been waiting to hear back about, something from the past turning up and perhaps paying you back or returning a favor. It's also possible that delays could be somewhat meaningful or helpful right now, so keep your eye out for the benevolent breakdown or a return from the past.

* The conjunction of this stationing Mercury to Pluto leads us into the underworld, the unconscious, the secretive, that which is hidden, that which is perhaps toxic and in need of coming up to the light, or anything related to Mercury (messages or messengers, information, communication, technology, etc) that undergoes a powerful and complete transformation.

* As new information comes to light, how does it change the way we think or perceive? Are we taking the time to reflect, or are we immediately judging the new facts or information and running with it? Discernment is key in the next few days!

* We may be about to revisit, rehas, or begin a longer period of changing or negotiating the terms of something or the structure of something we use very regularly in the day to day. The most important thing to consider is not just "how does this get me to where I want to go even quicker," but "how does this help me sustain things in the long run?"

* Remember that today's astrology also includes a slow, applying square to Saturn. It's normal to feel some weightness, to see larger or more serious structural challenges or clashes with authority figures or having to cope or deal with the burden or difficulty of something. Negotiating our way through is likely since Mercury's station with Pluto augurs a powerful transformation and Jupiter and Uranus' upcoming opposition also points toward a rapid and powerful series of transformative events.

Prayer: Send us the messenger. Let his words speak truth. May it spark a revolution wherever one is needed.