Today is the first week of the 15-day celebration of the Lunar and Chinese New Year, the Year of the Water Dragon.  We had a new moon (the new moon signals the beginning of the new year in many cultures, though the time of the year a year begins and ends differs according to  culture and spiritual traditions). What is lighting up the night sky tonight? What are some of the prevailing aspects that could be stirring things up in your life?  Here is just some of what is going on.

Mars turned retrograde just a day after the New Moon, lengthening the time the warrior planet spends in Virgo, an earth sign this last year, from 2 months to 8. Mars will turn direct in early April, and the motion coinciding with the new moon signals the need to use the time ahead to reflect on choices you have made or are considering making. Energy and thrust slows down a bit, allowing us to feel less urgency about choices. Using the time to become more grounded in the daily, pragmatic aspects of life, can help us become clearer about what our priorities are.  I moved my work station into my office this morning, settling into a more disciplined and focused approach to life and my work.  For months, maybe years, I have been on the road much of the time, and my office has been “in transit.”  I’ve carried it with me, on my shoulder, in the trunk of my car, packed in suitcases and brief cases, and on thumb drives and hard drives from one city to another.  Now I am centering my life and my work at home, and working from one place. My traveling is not over, but the idea of carrying everything with me is.  Moving from a decentralized life to a centralized life (to use organizational structure terms), allows me to take time to heal, nourish, and establish a sense of groundedness.

I have stopped by the oasis of home to rest and take my repose in my journey.   You may find me sorting through papers, boxes, and files, creating order, space, and a lightness of being.  The in-between times, the times of reflection and rest, are times when we can lighten our loads, clear up the details of life that have gone unattended, and live life with greater intention, focus, balance, grace, and joy.    


Visible in the night sky tonight are the Moon and Venus in Pisces. You will also be able to see the moonshine if you have clear skies. And some of you may see the Northern Lights. 

Tonight, Venus, the Moon, and Chiron all transiting Pisces; Venus at 15/26 and the Moon at 20/47, will be visible given clear skies.  Venus and the Moon in Pisces reflect the archetypes of the feminine and our  emotional lives in the sensitive, creative, and fluid water sign of Pisces, the last sign of the Zodiac. We are completing a cycle of some type in both areas of our lives~our development of the divine feminine within and our emotional nature and balance.  We may personally and collectively feel more at peace and serene as we view our world and our lives. We may develop or express greater gentleness and understanding, provided we are not acting out of purely self-centered motivation or manipulative behavior. 

Each sign, each archetypal aspect has polar qualities/traits that exhibit either  its redeemed or  unhealed characteristics. We have the opportunity right now to pay attention to our intentions, motivations, reasoning, and feelings~all of which are stirred and rising to the surface now. Being honest with ourselves is the first step in living and walking a harmonious and honest path of life.  “I want to be fit for myself to know; I want to be able, as days go by, always to look myself in the eye...” ~words from a creed that have stayed with me since I was a young girl. There is no better time than now to live the life you are meant to live.

A waxing crescent moon, may give us a glimpse of the Moon shine.  I recall years ago during a beach party at the Huntington Cliffs, being sure we could catch a Moon tan because of the light of the Moon being so bright.  My naivite long gone, I am pleased to learn that the outline of the whole orb of the moon that is visible on some crescent moons, is actually due to the reflection of light from the Earth.  You may be able to see it tonight.

This week the solar storms have brightened up the night skies in the Northern Hemisphere, creating the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. Along the Columbia River Valley, much of the night show has not been visible due to the storms that have been passing through. Tonight, however, the skies are fairly clear, so look to the north to see if you can catch some of the beautiful Northern Lights. Look to the west for a view of the Moon with Venus the bright star a bit below the Moon clearly visible in a starlit sky.

The Sun in Aquarius and Mercury, in Capricorn, are in  a waning trine with Mars in Virgo.  Again, we have the Sun in the sign of innovation, long-range and altruistic vision, electricity and higher levels of communication and energy in aspect with the planet of communications and the planet of movement and action in earth signs. Our higher ideals, our visions for a better world, for the next best idea, and the solutions to problems affecting all people everywhere, must be tempered in the grounding of the world that we are capable of acting on where we are.  We cannot be everywhere, all things to all people. We are reminded that we each have a life we are living. We have unfolded before us, the life we have chosen and the life that has unfolded due to our choices, our direction, our fate, our divine Creator, and the relationships we have been a part of.  Life is what it is, and not what it will be.  This simple platitude reminds us what these aspects suggest: we have a life happening where we are now, and that is what we can have an impact on.  What is calling you to take care of where you are? What do you say is important to you? How are you responding, (body, mind, spirit, emotions, finances, health) to the call of your being?

Jupiter (the archetype of benevolence, abundance, plenty) in 2 degrees of Taurus (earth) is within a 5 degree trine of Pluto (remember the archetype of transition) in 8 degrees of Virgo. Saturn (the Great Teacher, your inner guru and outer way shower) is at 29/23 degrees of Libra, an anaretic degree...bringing lessons, teachers, and decisions to their logical conclusion. Relationships that need to end, end now by choice or by the natural course of events.  Neptune, the planet of the subconscious, the Collective Consciousness, the mystical, and the world of fantasy, illusion, imagination, and dreams, is ending its cycle through Aquarius (where dreams, visions, ideas, and illusions have risen to the surface of out of our subconscious, into the light of awareness.  Neptune is moving into Pisces on February 4, near the end of the 15-day celebration of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Water Dragon.

At the 29 degree (the final degree, critical anaretic degree), we are arriving at a time when the veils of illusion and the blocks to unlocking the power and knowledge of the subconscious, our intuition, and the insight of dreams and imagination, are about ready to shift.  On February 8, Saturn in Libra will make a retrograde turn until Oct. 3, 2012. During this time, the lessons and struggles with relationships, achieving balance, releasing whatever is blocking your growth, or affecting your health and well being, will again remind you of the areas of your life that require your attention.  
Notice, between now and Feb. 8, what decisions, challenges, relationships, areas of imbalance, and shadow-type struggles you are engaged in making/changing/releasing/altering/paying attention to. From February until October, use the time for reflection, completion, healing, and preparing to move forward while leaving behind what no longer serves to aid in your spiritual, personal, and emotional health, well being, and development. 

The movement of both Neptune (entering a water sign on Feb.4) and Saturn turning retrograde from Feb. 8 until early October, 2012, lends itself to providing new understanding, a more spiritual and deeply subconscious array of insight, intuition, and information that will be coming into personal and collective awareness. The down side of this, is delusion, illusion, and false conceptions fed by unhealed ego, dependence on false hopes, delusion, denial, and all the mental games we play to keep from dealing with issues that are vital to our development, well being and growth. The up side, is, if we pay attention to our intuition, study our dreams, seek to face our shadow side, listen to the soul callings, and deal with the issues in daily life that keep us from living more fully, we can find answers, heal wounds, face the truth of who we are, and begin to develop wings to fly, vision to understand possibilities, and determination and acceptance of what we are meant to do and be in this life we have been given as a gift. We can begin to appreciate the gifts we have been given, the abundance we already have, the accomplishments and treasures we have amassed.

The gift of this moment is available right now, in the understanding of how fortunate we already are. Living in fuller awareness of the treasures that lie beneath our feet, within our soul and mind, and the beauty and love we can share in creating, is the gift for all who open their hearts and minds and lives to accept.

There is no there there. Be happy, grateful, and appreciative of what is right now. Find something beautiful within you. Find something to be grateful for right outside your window. Receive the gifts that come to your door. And share the talents, energy, service, joy, love, or knowledge that you have with those who seek it. Share yourself where you find your joy; release yourself from where you no longer find life or where you no longer are nourished).

As you gaze into the sky tonight, or walk in the sunshine or rain or snow tomorrow, revel in the bounty and do something to show your appreciation for someone, something, or the simple acknowledgement of gratitude to the Creator Spirit that infuses all with the Life that animates all that is.