People often seek out an astrologer when they are experiencing significant transits. Usually they don't know they are experiencing a lot of transits, they just have the feeling of things being hard. They feel like they're being reminded of just how much is out of their control. Meaning nature, in the form of planets, is nudging (or pushing) them to see where their expectations and assumptions are hidden, about how life "should" be.
I don't look what's going on with my own chart that often when things are going well. I get much more curious when life feels hard. This is a design of nature - suffering wakes us up! It gets our attention! I mean, if Femme-Jesus-Universe had asked me, I probably wouldn't have designed earth school this way - it seems very strange and usually confusing and unnecessarily painful so much of the time. But here we are in it. I notice that when we are in pain, we ask why more. This position of asking the question at all opens us to SO MANY THINGS we aren't open to when things are 'working out'. The point being, maybe things not working out is better than we think. We don't have to like it when things are shitty, but we can take note that when things don't work out, it changes our orientation to life, and so we have a chance to learn. (It's not a given that we do learn, we can become brittle instead.) Nature doesn't choose if we open our hearts to life. It just gives us opportunities to choose how we're going to respond.
Seeing people through these challenging times as an astrologer is a huge gift. Usually when we are together they think something is wrong. And it really feels like things are wrong, things suck, plenty. But what I get to see in these moments is someone in the midst of growing, another expression of humanness, right in front of me. Suffering can bring The Present onto the center stage of our awareness. This is incredible to witness, and it's changed how I see my own suffering. Instead of viewing it as something to get through (I do that plenty), I can remember that it is a phenomenon of nature, like bees pollinating plants, or baby giraffes learning to walk. I'm sharing this with you now in the hopes that it can help you bring in a bit more space between you and suffering as it arises.
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Saturn and Mars are conjunct in Capricorn this week, (square the Sun in Aries for a few days). So there's a surfacing of potential tension between identity, will and work. Saturn is in its home place of Capricorn - rule following, being responsible, on top of Mars, which is how we express our will. Any latent conflicts that might exist between our sense of responsibility to fulfill our commitments, and our need to express our will, come into view.
Mercury is in retrograde too. But, we don't have to be afraid of this, or dread this, or wait for it to be over. We can practice accepting any season that comes our way, and approach it with curiosity - Oh! Wow! Holy Shit! Life is expressing itself like this now!
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What stories does your mind tell you about "not enough"?
Meditation - Being enough!
Assignment - Nature doesn't make extra. Nature makes just enough. Reflect on what is just enough for you to do this week, and this month of your Solar Return (birthday). Let the simplest option be the one.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - How is the food you eat helping or hurting your body?
Meditation - Food as nourishment.
Assignment - Tap into your earthly knowing, your sense pleasure orientation, to connect to food this week. What is sustaining your life that you consume? What are you consuming that is making things harder for you, unnecessarily? Use your intuition to pay attention to this aspect of life, with great tenderness.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - What's happening with your pelvis?
Meditation - Pelvic bowl as container for life force.
Assignment - Just be with your pelvis this week. Take note of what is happening in it. What does it tell you that might be quieter than the other voices of influence in your sphere? What would happen if you listened to what it tells you more? Get in touch with that wisdom, you know?
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - When do you let yourself lead in life?
Meditation - Intuitive leadership.
Assignment - I bring up this thing about leadership because Cancer can tend to want to hide, to stay or get emotionally safe, retreat, protect, especially when there are dynamic influences at play in your life (which is usually the case). What does leadership look like for you? How might it feel to try on leading, not as a different person, but exactly as you are? How might our world be different if leadership happened in very quiet, emotionally aware ways? How might that include you?
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - When do you let your body and mind be very quiet?
Meditation - Quiet as power.
Assignment - Lie down more this week. During the day. Even if it's for a minute or two each day. Let yourself lie down. To let the body and mind be quiet. Let them just be, more of the time. It doesn't take a lot, it just takes a little. See what is there, in the quiet.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - Where is your head in relationship to your shoulders right now?
Meditation - body posture as a reminder.
Assignment - Is your head straining forward right now? Or even just slightly pushed forward? Are you being pulled by effort that's straining your neck? Or are you resting with your head on top of your shoulders, not straining your neck? Pull your attention back from problem solving, into noticing your body position. It's wonderful if you are problem solving! That's something you do very well! But while you are doing it, pull your awareness back from the future where the problem is solved, and let yourself love, or at least accept, the unsolved problem itself, in the present. There will always be more problems to solve. So practicing acceptance of the unsolved problem - while you're solving it - is a good idea.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - When are you connecting to and with others?
Meditation - Plants connecting you to air.
Assignment - Connect to your own air qualities, contemplating air. Physical air, how it is the ultimate connector between us because we breathe it, are dependent on it. And psychic air, the element air in astrology - this kind of air is how we connect ideas and people. Breathe air and contemplate your own connection capacities. Are you using them? Take note of your vitality and how it relates to using your skills as a connector. Whatever being a connector means to you, do it.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What are the gaps in your intuition or knowing?
Meditation - Loving the gaps.
Assignment - Scorpio wants to penetrate to the depths of everything. What about the gaps between the things you know? The gaps in your intuition? What if your practice this week was to notice those, and love them, or at least accept them? What is a gap in knowing anyway? It's asking you to ask it questions.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - When do you turn your body toward what is hard?
Meditation - Standing on the shore, facing the ocean.
Assignment - I'm envisioning you standing at the shore of the ocean, which symbolizes the vulnerability of our relationship with nature. We have so little control! Let the bigness of your life be small next to the ocean. You don't have to be next to a physical ocean. You can turn your torso, (your heart!) directly toward what is challenging. How does an honest appraisal of vulnerability change the vulnerability? What does turning toward hardness look like? Be brave. It feels better no matter the outcome. You understand this deeply, even though sometimes you forget.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - How do you treat your inner skeptic?
Meditation - Love for your inner skeptic.
Assignment - What if you just loved the part of you that doubted? This is the assignment: love the part that doubts. What does love do? What if the doubt could just be allowed all the room it needs? What would it do if it had nothing to push against?
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - When are you using your gift for seeing from afar?
Meditation - Seeing outside of the habitual.
Assignment - Walk or wheel to the top of a hill. If no hills exist, find a place to lie on the ground outside and look up. Find perspective. You know how to do this, you just have to remember to give yourself permission to. You have to remember how to create the space for this. You know this is life giving.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - Where is your mind right now in relation to your body?
Meditation - Being in the place you are in.
Assignment - Your body is a place for you to locate. It continually asks you to incarnate! Pisces dreams, moves formlessly, fluidly. Try not moving for a bit. By that I mean, keeping the mind with the body. Pema Chodron calls it "staying". She says she tells herself to STAY. Try this. How does Pisces understand location? And how can being intimate with location help you feel more grounded?