The Cosmic Story: Virgo New Moon 2022

 

Letting Go of the Past to Embrace the Future

The last weeks of August are always bittersweet.

Summer is coming to an end, school is about to begin and the days are getting shorter and cooler. But Summer lingers – the Sun is still hot and burning, the nights still need fans. Today when I went to the beach it was almost empty of people compared to how it’s been this past month. But the water and sky and wind were still playing in the heat. The water was nicely cool and its clear green waves rolled lazily into shore.

A perfect August day. A day to enjoy Nature’s beauty and benevolence. Especially the sweet breezes that cool the Sun’s heat. A day to savor life. 

 

 

Now the Sun has moved into one of the seasons of change, as all mutable signs end the four seasons. The Sun’s month in Leo is now past, with the Sun slipping further south into the sign of Virgo last Monday. We have another month until the Sun sits on the equator before slipping into the southern hemisphere, bringing them Spring and Summer, leaving us here in the northern hemisphere Fall and Winter.

When the Sun resides in the sign of the Virgin, we’re energized to look at what we’ve accomplished this past year and what we still have to do in the growing dark of the year.

Like the winnowing that goes on at harvest time, Virgo asks us to discern what we have really given birth to this year. Because Virgo is not just the Virgin—She is the Virgin Mother with her Child. The seed that was conceived at Winter Solstice, when the Divine Virgin/Mother gave birth to the Light and to Her Divine Child, is now ready to be harvested and taken into the world as nourishment for ourselves and others. 

 

 

Leo asked us to use our creativity to ground in our vision. In Virgo, our task is to hone what the soul gave birth to this year. That’s why Virgo celebrates both Mother Matrix/Soul and Child/Life.

What we harvest is particular to ourselves. We each have our own journey and our own quest. The quest is always the same and the journey never ends, but our stories are our own. So each harvest will be different.

My harvest this year is a house that will be a home. In my spiritual youth, I thought this wasn’t a worthy enough goal. Oh, I made a good home for my kids – but the house and home never satisfied me. There was always something beyond. But chasing that beyond never fully engaged my heart and soul.

So one day, I just decided to stop. To let it all go. I finally let go of my need to achieve, to do, to act and settled back to just Be. I re-learned how to go with the flow of my childhood and let myself see what showed up. In the quiet of BEING, I realized I also needed to know what I wanted, what my heart’s hope was. What did I desire most?

When I finally recognized what I longed for and asked for it, it came to me so easily, it was a blessing.

It took me a while to finally get that I had to be whole-hearted, all of me had to want it, which is a quality that Virgo also exemplifies – integrating what the body needs, the heart hopes for and the mind finally acknowledges.

We have to be totally honest with ourselves to be whole-hearted. This task is reflected in the Gene Key for the New Moon at 5* Virgo. The 59^th Gene Key is about our innate dishonesty – embedded in our DNA. It is what attracts us to others, while at the same time making us fear and distrust them. So it seems we’re hardwired to be afraid to reveal ourselves to others – and to ourselves!

But there’s a deep planetary transformation going on that requires us to overcome our old operating systems and learn to be honest with ourselves and with each other. Once we release the programmed fears, we engage in a higher consciousness and can develop intimacy with ourselves and with each other.

(This is why so many of my clients are doing Shadow-work now. Our Shadows are behaviors that we all develop as children to hide our truest Selves from rules and judgments that try to shape us to society’s plans. Once you work with your Shadow, you release the authentic parts of yourself to grow and thrive. And once you’re living authentically, blessings flow.)

The Goddess energy for Virgo is the Great Mother with her Divine Child. We can look to the Egyptian Goddess Isis and her son Horus as our Virgo guide.

 

 

Isis was one of four children born to the sky goddess Nut and her husband Geb, the Earth. She married her brother Osiris, who became King. Together they taught humanity all the arts of civilization. But Osiris’ brother Set was jealous of him and killed him, scattering parts of his body all over Egypt. Isis and her sister Nephthys found those parts and Isis, through her magic, restored Osiris to life long enough to be impregnated. She gave birth to Horus and Osiris became the King of the Dead.

Horus fought Set for the kingship and eventually won it. And thereafter, Horus was believed to incarnate in each Pharaoh, while the deceased Pharaoh became Osiris.

Isis and Horus represent the source of rulership for the Egyptians. For us, this Mother and Divine Child can become a source of our own sovereignty, our own self-rulership. They symbolize not only what we harvest in our lives, but also good rulership of who we are and what we have.

For this New Moon, you can invoke the Great Mother Isis and her Son Horus as both the source of your Being and the Doing that comes from our authentic Selves.

The Virgo New Moon 2022

The Virgo New Moon occurs on Saturday, August 27^th at 1:17am PDT/ 4:17am EDT/ 9:17 am GMT.

 

 

The Sabian symbol for the Sun and Moon at 5* Virgo is: A person becoming aware of nature spirits and normally unseen spiritual agencies. This image is a call to use our creative imagination to give us insight into the spiritual powers that are available to us in these changing times. We are entering a new age where we will value the unseen realities not as moral forces which condemn us, but rather as spiritual energies available to us to use to make a better world.

This New Moon makes one major aspect – a very tight square to Mars in Gemini. Mars entered Gemini on August 20^th, where it will remain for over 6 months as it retrogrades on October 30^th at 26* Gemini until January 12, 2023 at 9* Gemini, and finally enter Cancer on March 25, 2023. So we have a long time to work with this energy. It’s time to use our Minds as they were meant to be used – as a support and aid to what our Hearts know and desire.

The Sabian symbol for Mars at 5* Gemini is: A revolutionary magazine asking for action. This image speaks to our need to re-create something – our lives, our beliefs, our perspectives, our society, our government. But it is not a call for violence! We need a peaceful revolution going forward. (The right -wing has made use of these revolutionary times – the US Pluto return – to manipulate people and try to turn the clock back and repress us. Steve Bannon has studied the ‘occult’ and knows all about the astrological energies of our times.)

Mars is the planet of action, of assertion, of anger – of doing. It is the sacred masculine energy within all of us. While patriarchy has honed it into a killing, dominating energy, it is essentially the energy of movement and action. When we allow Mars to embody the Green Man energy of life, it turns against its patriarchal modeling and protects and defends the rising Feminine energy of life. That is its true function.

With Mars in Gemini, the sign of the Mind, we can become scattered with all the things we want to do and learn – our over-use of technology has scattered our minds. That is why meditation is so important right now if we want to ‘own’ our own minds. This tight square to the New Moon challenges us relate to and integrate those higher spiritual energies into our harvest. Like Horus, Mars here can help us organize and focus our new gifts for the greater good by disciplining our minds. Or if our Mars is still entrenched in the old Mars model, we will cause disruption with our communications and aggressive opinions.

The other big aspect of this New Moon chart is a fixed T-square between Venus in Leo, Uranus retrograde & the North Node in Taurus and Saturn retrograde in Aquarius. Venus is being resonated by the lingering Uranus/Saturn square of 2021 – will we energize a hopeful future or will we succumb to the ancient fears in our DNA and continue to foster hate and fear with others.

Venus here is challenged to get creative and find ways to leave behind what no longer serves life while integrating us into Mother Earth’s biosphere.

After the big Uranus/North Node/Mars conjunction in Taurus around July 31 – August 1, Uranus turned retrograde on August 24^th at 19* Taurus. The Sabian symbol for 19* Taurus is: A new continent rising out of the ocean.

We are in for major changes for sure. It’s sad that our leaders are not asking us to change our behaviors to make life more sustainable. We did it for war – WWII – and we can do it for life. Uranus retrograde can help us find our inner freedom from old behaviors (shadow work) and from old societal beliefs. 

 

 

Mercury, the planet that ‘rules’ Virgo and Gemini, just moved into the sign of Libra, the scales of justice, on August 25^th. It will turn retrograde on September 9^th at 9* Libra.

The Sabian symbol for Mercury retrograde at 9* Libra is: Three ‘old Masters’ hanging on the wall of a special room in an art gallery. This image speaks to the ‘need to return to ‘source’ during a confused search for new value in a chaotic society.’(Dane Rudhyar) It calls us to meditate on the values we hold dear and to re-establish our lives based on them. While we need to leave the past behind us, it is important to save and bring forward those values that are most truly the source of life – Power, Love/Wisdom and Intelligence-in-action.

Mercury in Libra opposite Jupiter retrograde in Aries can open us to new ideas about how we can relate to each other – if we can face our inherited fears, learn from them and then let them go.

It’s time to wake up and change our habits. It’s time to take responsibility for our behavior. What do we value? Are we living by our values or do we only pay lip-service to them?

At this harvest time, count your blessings and work to be worthy of them.

Blessings on your harvest!

Cathy

The Cosmic Story: June is the month of Nurture: Gemini New Moon 2022

 

The Cosmic Story: Gemini’s June Story

June is Juno’s Month

 

Juno

June breezes in on the fragrances of May, as the blossoms blow away and the buds and leaves begin to appear. Much more secure and comfortable than in early Spring, we feel summer on the way. June is the month of Nurture, for it is the goddess Juno – Queen Mother of the Roman pantheon – who holds rulership over this month.

As the Sun approaches Summer Solstice, its gifts of life and warmth promote growth and ripening in nature and in our human lives. June’s warm comfort is like the contentment and feelings a mother has nursing her newborn baby – or any parent with a bottle and a rocking chair. If any of you have experienced that calm and peace of feeding your precious child, you know how the Romans experienced the month of June. (Remember, they didn’t have heat or electricity!)

During June, we begin to feel contentment; we know life holds promise. The month of June was dedicated to the Goddess as Mother nurturing her young, the Queen of Heaven and her Child. It was also a time when Heaven and Earth join together to produce Life, this Sacred Marriage celebrated at the Summer Solstice.

Both these acts are her Blessings. Juno, Mother of the Gods and Queen over Rome, was both nurturing mother and equal partner with Jupiter. (Italians and their mothers!:) She represents a vital energy of life; the energy of youth, of possibilities. That’s what mothers do while they nurse their babies – they dream a life for them. 

 

Juno, Queen of the Gods 

She was like her Greek counterpart, Hera, who was called ‘the perfect one’ and who was celebrated as the Full Moon. Juno was the Goddess of Love and Marriage, and we all know about the ‘June bride’. Yet, Romans considered it dangerous and unlucky for a woman to marry until June’s Full Moon. Romans believed that the Moon brought good fortune to women – perhaps in memory of that earlier Goddess, who could be perfected at the Full Moon.

While the Romans honored their Divine Mother and Queen during June, the Goddess Vesta was also honored. Vesta was the goddess-energy of Fire – the village/city/home fires. Vesta was the life-force of the village, and later for Rome, the state. For Romans, the Vestal Virgins had to stay virgins. But their real purpose was to be a light to their community. We remember them whenever we do rituals, for all ritual begins with the lighting of the sacred fire. That is Vesta, the sacred fire of life, used for life. And that’s what was – and still is – celebrated in June.

June’s Astrology

June begins with an end-of-May Gemini New Moon on May 30^th. There are a few astrological energies that occur in this last week of May that are connected to June’s astrological signature. 

The Sun entered Gemini on May 20^th and on May 21^st met up with Mercury retrograde in the first degree of Gemini, initiating a new 4-month mindset that will (hopefully) make us look within ourselves and at our shadows (both collectively and personally). The Sabian symbol for 1* Gemini is: A glass-bottomed boat reveals undersea wonders. Will we see monsters or mermaids, horrors or exquisite beauty? Will we see the Other and know that it is really ourselves we are seeing?

 

 

First though, our collective task is to deal with the planetary energy that is already creating waves in the U.S. and around the world. Mars left his deep dive into the undersea wonders/horrors of Pisces and entered his own sign of Aries on Tuesday May 24^th, just hours after the horrific elementary school massacre in Texas. Mars is associated with anger, violence and battle. But it is also the energy of engagement, of stepping up, of protection. It’s time to force our leaders to do something or vote them out!  Integrate your Mars and become the protector of life!

 

 

Mars was in the last few hours of his stay in Pisces (where he met up with Neptune) as the tragedy occurred, creating a tsunami of cries for a better world. Our collective unconscious wants to get it through our thick collective heads that our leaders are complicit in all these deaths by not doing anything to stop the violence. In fact, they are creating the violence with their hypocrisy and vitriol.

Hopefully, the death of these children will finally open people’s eyes to the state of our decaying political system – our Pluto return can show us the swamp and also how to drain it. Hopefully, we will rise up and have a peaceful revolution this year and let this tsunami of sorrow and anguish over unnecessary deaths and twisted psyches wash away the ‘old white boy system’ here in the U.S. and around the world. These ‘dominators’ keep allowing our precious babies to die to defend the ‘freedom’ to buy a gun, yet want to force women to have unwanted babies. Their so called prayers are worthless, for their connection to the god-force is lost. They are not leaders. They are dominators.

While the Earth changes intensify, patriarchy goes on a killing spree – it would rather kill everybody and everything rather than die. Instead of turning our energies to healing ourselves and the Earth, we are being led to turn our energies to fear and hatred. It’s time to break out of our old paradigm of power, domination and death, for it is killing us and killing the Earth.

With Mars, Jupiter, Chiron and Eris in Aries as May ends, it’s time to discover who we really are and what we really want. Mars and Jupiter will meet up on Sunday, May 29^th. Jupiter will lend its expansive energy to whatever Mars actions we choose to take. Will we choose more death and destruction, or will we stand up for a better world? Find Aries in your natal chart and see if you have any Aries planets – they will help you channel Mars and Jupiter’s energies, as will planets in any of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn).

 

Mercury

Mercury has backed up into Taurus, grounding our Minds in our bodies again. How do we feel now? The world is in total chaos, the hypocrisy is overt, the climate is extreme, and people are devastated by the inflation caused by corporate greed and monopolies. What keeps us as complacent as cows in a field? What stops us from participating in creating a new, better world?

Mercury’s initial energy this retrograde calls for us to re-align ourselves with the cosmic OM, the vibration of creation. Mercury is slowing down at this New Moon so it has a more powerful effect on us. What are we going to do about our world, our life?

When Mercury, the divine messenger, turns direct on June 3^rd at 27* Taurus, it squares Saturn at 25* Aquarius, as Saturn stops to turn retrograde on June 4^th. This aspect touches on the idea that we have to focus on what benefits the whole. But we also have to stay open to new ideas, not letting old, rigid beliefs hold us back from opening to the future. Watch your language and see if you go to extremes – always, never etc. It’s a time to stay balanced and hold the tension of opposites.

The Sabain symbol for Mercury turning direct at 27* Taurus: An old Indian woman selling the artifacts of her tribe to passers-by. This is a symbol of bringing our gifts back into the collective in a wiser way. 

 

 

The Sabian symbol for Saturn turning retrograde at 25* Aquarius is: A butterfly with the right wing more perfectly formed. The butterfly is an ancient symbol of Psyche or Soul. This image speaks to the need to use our right-brain imagination the way it is meant to be used – as a spiritual tuning fork that aligns us with Nature’s evolutionary genius. If we open ourselves to our imagination, it will show us how to meet these multiple challenges.

Mercury will rise in the morning sky a few days after this New Moon. It will appear in the morning sky along with Mars, Jupiter and Venus. If you wake up early, go take a look at this beautiful sight.

 

 

Will our collective (Aquarius) Mind stop and focus on the real issues facing us? Will we grow up and take responsibility (Saturn) for our world and our society? Are we willing to sacrifice some of our comforts (Taurus) to make the changes necessary to create a healthy, peaceful world – a better world (Taurus). Can we play with our imagination to discover new ways to understand what is happening in our world?

Find the natal houses where your Mercury and your Saturn are, to understand how you are affected by these planets. And then find the houses where Taurus and Aquarius lie to see where these planets are moving through your chart, so you can look deeper into your soul to discover what you are being called to.

Gemini New Moon

The Gemini New Moon occurs on Monday, May 30^th at 4:30 am PDT/ 7:30 am EDT/ 12:30 pm GMT.

 

 Gemini New Moon 2022

Gemini is the first air sign of the zodiac wheel. It is the sign of the Twins, of our binary nature, of duality, of knowledge and perception. This duality can also symbolize the two sides of the brain – our rational, left brain and our imaginative, right brain. Reason, intuition, feeling and sensation help us understand our world. These are the Gemini tools that help us shape our world.

Mercury, as the ruler of Gemini, is a god who travels between realms, uniting different dimensions and different perspectives and learning how to communicate what he sees and understands. Gemini brings two opposites into a tension that can result in a new, 3^rd thing or idea through the transcendent function. This brings about the new insight, the new understanding, the new integration.

This Gemini New Moon is interesting because the Sun and the Moon only form an aspect with each other. There are only weak energetic connections between this New Moon and the other planets – meaning there are no major aspects to this New Moon. Therefore this Gemini New Moon is openly on-track with the realizations of this Mercury retrograde. Is your mind free? Is it free to let your imagination shape your thoughts? Is your mind free to look at those thoughts and choose how you want to work with them – will they control you or will you use those thoughts to understand something new about your life? And where do your values comes in (Mercury in Taurus)? Can you come to an understanding of yourself and the world based on those values you want to shape your life?

With Mercury retrograde in Taurus, values will need to shape our thinking going forward. The world, our country, our people are at a cross-roads – we really are! The only resolution to this chaos is for each of us to contribute whatever our gifts and talents are to our families, friends, communities and world.

With this free-floating Gemini New Moon, we can shape what we want to plant without other energies shifting things. What do we really intuit/feel/think about the world (Gemini Moon)? What do we want to do about the world (Gemini Sun)?

Take all those Aries planets – Mars, Jupiter, Chiron and Eris – and use their energies to figure out who you are. You can always change things at a later date when you know more about yourself. But just be who you are now.

Be Here Now!

With Venus, Pallas, Uranus, the North Node, and Mercury retrograde in Taurus, let your body lead the way. Venus conjuncts Uranus on June 11^th, so stay open for surprises. Listen to your body. What does it feel like? If you’re tired, rest. If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re nervous, go out into nature. Get back to your original nature. We’ve been so cut off from our body and its wisdom. It’s time to pay attention and begin to let go of old destructive behaviors that were generated by patriarchal advertising agencies and big corporations. Get over your negative body image and just be and love it.

Gemini/Sagittarius Full Moon

This Sagittarius Full Moon occurs on June 14^th at 4:52 am PDT/ 7:52am EDT/ 12:52pm GMT.

 

 Sagittarius Full Moon 2022

The message of this Full Moon, which squares Neptune in Pisces, is this: are we going to listen to the voices of those in need – the children, the elders, the poor, the war-torn – and re-adjust our beliefs. Can we focus on what we’ve learned since the New Moon and reflect on our lack of understanding of the forces at work in our world? Can we be curious about what is happening around us as well as to us? Can we finally understand that we depend on each other to make life worth-while?

 

The Sagittarius Moon is out-of-bonds, meaning that it can embrace and encompass more than usual.  Hopefully, we can embrace new beliefs and ideas and possibilities .

This Sagittarius Full Moon comes about a week before Summer Solstice, so I’ll end here and write something for the upcoming Cancer season.

Until then, stay grounded. Bring in peace, love and understanding to whatever you do. The world needs it.

Cathy

 

 

For a Parent on the Death of a Child

No one knows the wonder
Your child awoke in you,
Your heart a perfect cradle
To hold its presence.
Inside and outside became one
As new waves of love
Kept surprising your soul.

Now you sit bereft
Inside a nightmare,
Your eyes numbed
By the sight of a grave
No parent should ever see.

You will wear this absence
Like a secret locket,
Always wondering why
Such a new soul
Was taken home so soon.

Let the silent tears flow
And when your eyes clear
Perhaps you will glimpse
How your eternal child
Has become the unseen angel
Who parents your heart
And persuades the moon
To send new gifts ashore.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

In memory of those lost

in Manchester, United Kingdom

The Cosmic Story: Happy New Year! Venus Offers Us A New Perspective.

 

Happy New Year 2022!

 

As we enter the 3^rd year of Covid, hopefully we’ll figure out how to reclaim our lives in a deeper, more conscious way. The Goddess always works in 3, so perhaps we’ll be able to process the changes our world needs to go through during this third year. As we see in fairy tales, there are always 3 tests, challenges, or balls to undergo to create real change.  

As we welcome in this New Year, we once again have an opportunity to do things differently.  Isn’t that what our New Year’s resolutions are always about? Unfolding the new and improved us?

But do we really need to diet and exercise ourselves into shape or do we need to deepen into ourselves and figure out who we are and what we want out of life? What if this year we recognized that we needed to change our perspective, rather than change our diet.

We need to seriously consider how our world is changing and what we want to do about those changes. What if things don’t ever go back to ‘normal’? Do we even want them to? How can we create a different, more life-sustaining cultural norm, which honors the Earth and all of her children in the face of dominator wars and technological machines?

What if we realize that it’s time to begin to live that new norm more deeply and truly? The truth is, if we don’t become the examples of how to live in a more sustainable, compassionate, creative way, how or even why should anyone else?

With this Venus retrograde conjuncting Pluto in Capricorn three times – the last will be with Mars – very close to the degree of the triple conjunction in 2020 of Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto, it seems the message to all of us is ‘to bring real connection and love, kindness and love of the Earth’ into our cultural lives.

That’s where the energies of Venus come into play as our New Year’s guide. With Venus changing from Evening Star to Morning Star rather quickly as January begins (January 3 - 15), this feminine energy will be impatient to get out there and shine. 

 

There’s a certain magic to this shift in her cycle, because she’s joining up with Pluto in his cultural demolition/revitalization project. She’s bringing the wisdom of love into the equation of what makes a good society – if only we actually listen, and then act on it when Venus and Mars and Pluto all meet in the beginning of March. The transits of Mars over these same degrees will lead to action, so try to be patient as you work out your new goals before then.

 

Evening Star Venus over Wickford, RI

 

As Venus slowly disappears from the western sky, she dances with the Sun, baths in its brilliance and, emerging in the morning sky by mid-January, shines with her own light as she becomes the herald of the Dawn.

What better energy to take as our guide at this time of cultural transition and, hopefully, transformation. To do it, we need a change of perspective. In ancient times, when you worshiped a certain god or goddess, you entered into a whole world-view that was shaped by this spiritual energy. 

So what if our New Year’s resolution is to embrace Venus as our guide and mentor?

This would mean to bathe in our self-worth – not a fake superiority over others but a true understanding and owning of who we are. And with that understanding comes our openness to our innate talents, which might not be what patriarchy would actually value in us. But what if we valued it, and it turned out to be valued by others in our community?

Of course Love would be a big part of this world-view, but not just a romantic love that chooses only one passion or person. Rather, it is a love of life, of joy, of our sexuality and our sensuality. A love of nature, of others, of seeking and learning, nurturing and helping, creating and playing. What if we choose real enjoyment – (Old French enjoir "to give joy, rejoice, take delight in," from en- "make" (see en- (1)) + joir "enjoy," from Latin gaudere "rejoice"). Venus/Aphrodite is all about taking joy in life.

Aphrodite & the 9 Muses

Another aspect of culture that Venus/Aphrodite encourages is The Arts. She hangs out with the Muses, so why not take some time and journey to see them. Perhaps there’s some artistic project that is calling for you to manifest. Art can heal our differences, just as good music can. We need our artists if we’re going to change any cultural patterns. 

 

Another value Venus in Capricorn embodies is Sovereignty, the ability to govern ourselves – to belong to ourselves. But in ancient times, the Goddess Sovereignty claimed that the needs of Mother Earth had to be the foundation of society. Something we need to incorporate in our vision of the future. I’ll be telling the story of Sovereignty at my January 8^th talk. (See below)

 

This is the spiritual energy which grows our psyche or soul. When we turn our passion and imagination to life, we create beauty and art, no matter what form. Without it, we get what we have now – a soul-less culture that panders to the profane and insipid. A flat-earth ideology that isn’t opened to the mystery of life.

Venus encourages us to think about our values. What values do we live by? Do we consciously work on those qualities we say we embody? 

 

In the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I tell this story athttps://youtu.be/aoGARXBcp1w ) he carries on his shield a pentagram/pentacle that symbolizes the virtues he lives by: generosity, kindness, chastity, chivalry and piety. 

 

What values would you put on your pentacle: Creativity, Gratitude, Love, Wisdom, Fairness, Faith, Beauty, Imagination, Compassion, Strength, Order, Discipline etc.?

 

 

The year also starts off with a Capricorn New Moon on January 2, 2022. This New Moon opens the door of the year with a great connection to Uranus in Taurus, the magic of embodiment and Earth’s creative genius. With Uranus set to be a big player in this year’s energy, we all have to get used to surprises and sudden awakenings. The Uranus/Saturn square that was 2021’s major astrological aspect – the old (Saturn) vs the new (Uranus) – will still have lingering effects, so we have to keep choosing the new, the untried, the mystery of life over the security of the old ways. Papa patriarchy is on his way out the door – he can no longer ‘protect’ us. We have to learn to find our own inner security in the face of immense change. 

 

And Jupiter moved into its own sign of Pisces on December 28th.  Along with its co-ruler Neptune, Jupiter will expand our connection to the more subtle dimensions of life.  Stay open to what your imagination has to say, whether through dreams, journeys and meditations. Then have a reality check to make sure your inner trickster isn't shaking its tail at you!  It's so important to ground in the magic now with Jupiter in Pisces and Uranus in Taurus working together.  Boundless Water and Awakened Earth.  More in the months ahead.

On Saturday January 8, 2022, Venus joins the Sun and begins her new journey as the Morning Star, appearing in the morning sky after January 14^th. 

 

 Venus 

I’m giving a free talk on Venus in Capricorn – I will be telling stories about some of the values that she brings to us. If you’re interested in listening, you can sign up at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtcu2trjIjG92nG-CfFr6mbjPtuPP_y4-P

May the peace and the love of the Goddess and the God be ever in our hearts, to guide us to ourselves so we can be a light to the world.

Blessings for this New Year,

Cathy

The Cosmic Story: Virgo New Moon 2021

 

 Virgo is the sign of the harvest.  It is the Virgin Mother, whose child is the grain that sustains life.  She is Isis and Horus, Mary and Jesus.  You and what you've created this year.

So what have you harvested?  Many years ago we had a harvest ritual and at the time, my 6 year old Virgo son (who just turned 41!) whispered to me what he had harvested.  Each year we learn something new, we create some new pattern in our lives.  This is the time to think about what we've accomplished this year and give thanks.

Virgo is the sign of discernment, of giving our attention to the details of life.  By bringing more attention to our everyday tasks, we imbue them with spirit, we make our lives sacred. 

Being more of a 'go with the flow' type of woman, I have struggled for years to have a daily routine.  But I'm working on it and this month is a great time for me -- and for you -- to finally give each part of our lives the attention they deserve.

But it's not only about paying attention to details, because Uranus in Taurus lends us his awakening powers with a beautiful trine to this New Moon.  So if your routines are stuck, this is the power you need to un-stick them by trying something new and unexpected.  It will help if you go out into nature and ask Mother Nature what's the best course of action.  You WILL get an answer.

 Mars in Virgo is exactly trine Pluto in Capricorn, ready and willing to institute new rules, big changes.  Mars also inconjuncts Jupiter in Aquarius, creating a wonky energy that takes some adjusting to.  Jupiter wants us to see unexpected possibilities but Mars might have to adjust his goals to meet them.

 Venus in Libra is opposite Eris in Aries, the warrior goddess of the heart, square Pluto in Capricorn and trine Jupiter in Aquarius. The Goddess of Love and Wisdom is conjunct Vesta -- the fire priestess.  Both of them in Libra energize us to take our relationships seriously.  We all want and need relationships, but our culture hasn't taught us how to be in them. This is a great time to learn what it takes to create strong, loving relationships, without losing yourself in the process.  Relationships are supposed to support us in being our authentic selves, rather than dimming our lights.

It's time to listen to your heart's song and trust it.  I just read Brene Brown's book, Braving the Wilderness.  It's about being virginal -- the Virgo state of belonging to yourself.  It's hard to be authentic in today's world with so much bullying and nastiness on social media.  But this month is a call to do exactly that.  Be your authentic self. And do it with kindness, courtesy and intelligence.

Also, go out just after sunset and see Venus in the West and Jupiter in the East.  If you raise your arms in both directions, you'll see the 'trine' -- a 120* angle -- in the living sky.  

Last but not least, Mercury in Libra enters the shadow period of its upcoming retrograde -- September 26-27 -- just after this New Moon.  This means that it's at the degree it will retrograde back to (Libra 26* - 11*).  Pay attention to what comes up now to understand what you'll be dealing with during the retrograde.

Mercury forms a grand air trine between Saturn rx in Aquarius and Ceres in Gemini. Make sure that your plans are nurturing for you and stay open to other options that come up. Saturn can give you the focus you need to make things happen.

Mercury in Libra seeks balance in your relationships and harmony in your life.  The problem with Libra is that so many Librans bend over backwards to create that harmony.  I tell my clients, do not jump to the other side of the scale. It creates imbalance.  You're not hear to agree with the Other -- you're hear to listen to the other and find solutions.  But you have to stay on your own side of the scale to create that balance.

 

 
Today Virgo New Moon occurs at 8:52pm EDT/ 5:52pm PDT at 15* Virgo.

The Sabian symbol for the New Moon at 15* Virgo is:   A fine lace handkerchief, heirloom from valorous ancestors.

It's time to act with strength, determination, courage and discrimination while following in the footsteps of those who have gone before us.  Pick someone who you honor and use their image to help you find your own power.