“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” -James Baldwin
I love the days surrounding Mercury stationing direct (happening this Friday, February 28). Not for their ease but for their intrigue. I find them full of mystery, clues, revelations and moody encounters with my subconscious. Plot lines thicken, government scandals are revealed. There’s usually a cliff hanger of an ending to the episodes that key players find themselves in. This Mercurial movement isn’t alone however. 14 hours later the sun will trine Jupiter right before it conjoins the moon marking our monthly new moon (on March 1 at 12:02 am, in Pisces). 10 hours later Mars stations retrograde and 24 hours later Saturn does as well (Sunday March 2). I didn’t even mention Venus’s sextile to Pluto, Pluto’s sextile to Chiron (both on Tuesday February 25) or Jupiter’s Square to Uranus (Wednesday, February 26). However, too many details can sidetrack our attention from the meaning of the overall picture. Or so this very Pisces new moon would have us think; the details are for Virgo. The fact remains that new moons are a monthly big deal. Mercury stations are a tri-annual big deal. Mars stationing retrograde happens about once every 2 years and Saturn stations retrograde every 378 days. When planets station retrograde we know that the issues that they deal with will start to show themselves internally through our need. Or perhaps what we think we need, or all of a sudden the desire to come into contact with what we need. Retrograde periods (like any major or significant personal transit) are times when we are magnetically drawn to the issues that the planet represents. How does this energy operate within me? Mercury rules information, communication and sales. With Mercury stationing direct these domains of life should start to smooth out and confusions will start to clear. New moons speak to new beginnings and wiping the slate clean. New moons can be terrifying as we are forced to enter the darkest nights before a new light is born. Mars rules sex, sexuality, aggression, protection and cutting. You can bet that as this planet does its thing in your chart whichever of these issue that you have been hiding from will surface (why am I all of a sudden attracted to someone I wouldn’t normally even register?). Saturn rules boundaries, mastery, career, authority and commitments. I don’t know about you but I’ve got those issues completely under control. Not.
So how do we rank the importance of these events? As they arise in our lives. Notice, watch, listen and learn. Don’t let the retrogrades fool you into thinking that this internal change in direction is one that is meant to last. Everything will shift again when the planet does.
Mercury stations direct February 28 at 6 a.m. PST
The new moon occurs on March 1 at 12:02 a.m. PST
Mars retrogrades from March 1-May 19
Saturn retrograde from March 2 -July 20 2014
Aries & Aries Rising
The time has come, Aries, and the teacher isn’t handing out any more extensions for late assignments. Your ruling planet, Mars is stationing retrograde on Saturday, March 1, just hours after the new moon in Pisces arrives. I’m going to be as blunt as a ram about how this may affect you: who you sleep with and why you want to sleep with them may be suddenly turned on its head. You may start to desire seductions formerly far beyond your range of reason. It’s as if a piece of your sexuality has dislodged itself and gone wandering out beyond the limits of your conscious mind. At the same time you are also being charged with the impossible task of learning how to respectfully disagree with others you are close with or work closely with. Once you have done so, your next step is to learn how to cut your losses and let it go. No resentment and no ties that bind you to resisting reality. Honestly accepting and believing what people tell you about who they are will save you more time than a GPS. There may be issues around joint ventures that start to frustrate your perfect plots for world domination with a business partner. Don’t worry it’s temporary in an “oh my god this is taking forever” kind of way. It’s all par for the course of learning how to deal with yourself in relationships. Saturday’s new moon is occurring in your Twelfth House of Space Odyssey 2014 so take some time this coming weekend to let yourself be diffused and soft. Take time to meander, ponder and putter through the transitions that are at hand. Any and all downtime should be coveted right now. Having had the South Node arrive in your sign (with Mars sharing company with the North Node in Libra) means that there are eclipses coming in your sign this year and that is no small deal, yo. You’ve got a little time, like a month and a half before it arrives but we know how sensitive you can be (yes, you). We also know how life changing eclipses in our sign can be, so chill when the chilling is good.
Taurus & Taurus Rising
Just when you thought that you were getting somewhere with significant others in your life, something throws a wrench into the whole deal. Situations change on a dime or your feelings do. But feelings aren’t facts are they? Also, aren’t facts just something that we can hang our experiences inside of? Where does that leave us? More questions can help us to unearth the mysterious structures that we are built on. However unearthing isn’t always about outward progress, good thing that isn’t what we are after right now. The other place that you may start to do an about face is in your day to day and health routines. Although I wouldn’t suggest buying a new set of weights or a home gym, I do suggest that you do what you can when you can. Routines will get disturbed, feel useless, bother you, seem irrelevant or fall apart completely. The day to day grind may leave you feeling smashed to smithereens and have you wondering what all the work is for anyway. These times are not to be taken too seriously; just because you feel like something isn’t working doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Just keep doing the next indicated action and leave the results up to the powers that be. Saturday’s new moon is occurring in your Eleventh House of friends, groups and associations. If there are seeds that you want to water there do so. At the very least get together with your favorite peeps and leave your worries at the door, if only for the evening.
Gemini & Gemini Rising
This week unclogs the brain drain, Gemini. It’s befitting that your ruling planet, Mercury, would change directions as often as you are one to do the same. This makes you very watchable, interesting, diverse and contagiously charming but also undeniably unstable. That isn’t a problem as long as you and those you share life with know this and accept it. The problem arises when you attach yourself too firmly to an absolute truth, because you will eventually change your mind, thankfully. When studying the Torah it becomes very apparent, very quickly that the text itself is laden with problematic statements, vilifying views, toxic tales and testaments of brutality. The interesting thing about engaging with Judaism if one chooses to do so is that the issue isn’t whether the text is worthy of our attention or not. The issue becomes how we choose to approach it, how we choose to struggle with it and how we choose to see it. There is a saying about the Torah, “Turn it, turn it, everything is in it,” which is so like life. It doesn’t really matter what we are given in life, what story or circumstance. I mean of course it matters, but we have no choice for the most part. What matters is how we turn the story on its head, how we shift our gaze, imagine other endings or see our own unique version of the tale. No part of this world is fair. That just isn’t part of the deal. What makes life worth the attempt of living it is existing so that god (or whatever you want to call it) can act through us and do for us what we could not do by ourselves. It’s just a big old experiment in trust, or rather in faith. Saturday’s new moon occurs in your Tenth House of Life Paths and What Makes You Want To Get Out Of Bed in the Morning. I am going to bet that something out of the blue happens in this domain of your life this week. If I am right about that I want you to use the energy in whatever visionary ways you can. If nothing unpredictable happens I still want you to give you career and everything that you do for it some love.
Cancer & Cancer Rising
Remember when you were little and you got so mad at your mom/dad/sister/brother/uncle/grandma/dog/cousin so you packed up your bags and stormed down the street decidedly leaving home for good? Well, these next few months have that kind of feeling. However the story is a little more focused on what happened when you got to the corner and realized you didn’t actually have anywhere to go. Questions about why you live where you live, how to sufficiently detach with love from family members and what in creations name safety is anyways could be surfacing this week. Merge that with issues around what creative commitments you’ve made. Weight that with whether you are actually living up to them and you have your work cut out for you for the next few months. Boundaries with your children are other issues that will arise if you have those kinds of folks in your life. Remember our creative endeavors are our children as well. They need to be fed, watered, housed and clothed for sure. More than anything they need to be loved, protected and nurtured into maturity. If you haven’t been working with your progeny in some way you may be feeling a little lost at sea. Cancers especially need something to take care of, something to be responsible for. You need something to watch as it grows to reflect your capacity to care for something other than yourself. Your ruling planet, the moon, is going through its monthly renewal and will be born anew on Saturday in Pisces in your Ninth House of Wide Open Spaces. If you are hankering for an adventure you now know why. If you can venture beyond trying to figure out what to “do” and remember that it’s instead about living life as it is now, you may have a shot at experiencing something beyond your normal scope. It doesn’t matter where you end up. It could be at the highest high or the lowest low. All that matters is how you feel about yourself when you are there.
Leo & Leo Rising
Listen, Leo, listen. Listen with your whole being to everyone that ends up in front of you. Seek to hear rather than to be heard. Be open to understand rather than to be understood and to offer rather than to demand. Mercury stations direct in your Seventh House of Oh god, you again? Even though you may be far less cynical than that, there are times when everyone else seems to be trying to get on our last nerve. I don’t know about you, but when other people become excruciatingly obnoxious it’s the perfect time for me to investigate what exactly I am doing to take care of myself in the situation. Even though I would love to go around telling everyone exactly what they are doing wrong (and how to do it right), it’s none of my f*cking business most of the time. Not only that but when I can check my self-aggrandizing, it offers up space for me to be able to say something in a way that might actually be helpful to another. It’s not about me being right. You are going to have ample opportunity to work on how to tackle tentative material with a tremendous amount of tact in the coming months. This week is the beginning of months of practice, so get comfy. The other component on your list of cosmic “to-do’s” is to lay down another layer of your psychological foundation. This isn’t a new endeavor but it is a more direct action that you are taking. You’ve been cruising this block for the past year and a half. What is it that you know you need to do, learn, get under your belt and have time in the saddle with? Get out your long range vision specs on so that you can take note of what you are missing and make plans to put it in place. The new moon is occurring in your Eighth House of All Things That Go Bump in the Night. This is quite a mystical new moon, which doesn’t mean sweet or pleasurable but does mean it will be unordinary, unusual, possibly uneasy and most likely a little emotionally overwhelming; not in an overblown full moon kind of way but in an unseen and unsettlingly slippery and elusive kind of way. What I suggest is that you be clear on a psychic and psychological level in whatever ways you know how to do so.
Virgo & Virgo Rising
There’s a lot going on this week astrologically. Many chess moves are being made by the big dude’s and dudettes in the sky. Not all the plays are in view to us mere mortals, making it difficult to know what our best strategy should be. I suggest doing a minimal amount of planning, and the maximum amount of showing up. Important structural to-do’s we of course follow through with but the rest of our planning is just comedy of errors at this point. For you, the opportunity to show up arrives via another as Neptune, the sun, a new moon and Chiron all conspire about your next monthly trip, together in your Seventh House of Cinderella and Her Ugly Step-Sisters. This mingling of energies calls to mind great journey’s of healing, fated meetings and overpowering pairings. However some of the most intense matchings aren’t meant to last. Try not to jump to conclusions about what a sensation may mean. Instead allow the experience to move through you and do not cling to any result with any one person. I suggest using the energy as a muse as well. What are you pairing with that offers up some material for the creative process? Let’s cut out all fancy babbling and get right to the heart of the matter, Virgo. I want you to meditate on what it is that you are running from when it comes to heartfelt matters of connecting, bonding, merging and coupling. Where do you disassociate and leave yourself alone to fend off the hungry wolves of fear? What old, old, old wounds of self-undoing, self-denial and self-rejection still lurk about waiting to take over when you sleep? Can you refuse to feed those tales with your attention this month? Instead investigate ways to circumvent the energy towards a whole-hearted and vigorous self-acceptance. Your ruling planet Mercury is finally stationing direct. Hopefully this will clear up any confusion that you’ve had about what to do in your daily life. Or it’ll just help you to get your daily grind on in more outwardly productive ways.
Libra & Libra Rising
With Mars stationing retrograde on Saturday it now gets interesting, Libra. There is this really funny thing (as in not funny at all but totally ironic) about patience; we need it most when it appears to make the least sense to apply it. The very things that we feel we must rush we actually need to back off of, or I would say you do. I encourage you to make a list of all things that seem the most urgent, dire and imperative to fix. Read it aloud to your therapist, healer or trusted mentor. Please tell me you have one in your life; someone who models excellent boundaries, self-respect and is unafraid to speak their truth without ever being spiteful or mean while doing so? If not I would say that that should be at the top of your little (or long) list. You can’t put out a fire with a gallon of gasoline and a fan on full blast. I mean you can try to until you and everything around you have burned to the ground. I’m here to remind you that there is another way. I know it’s uncomfortable to be uncomfortable, I know it’s unnerving to feel like you are on a never ending roller coaster ride of discord. I know that feeling unable to control the darker elements of our personality is humiliating to the part of us that just wants everything to look pretty and sound sweet. But nice just doesn’t cut it when it comes to growth. It’s high time for you to integrate all the socially unacceptable bits and blobs that float around in the back rooms of your psyche. And it’s fun to be “ugly.” There’s nothing to lose once we have given up trying to fit in. Meanwhile there is so much to gain when we arrive on the scene armed with the willingness to forge ahead no matter what we look like while doing so. Saturday’s new moon renews herself in your Sixth House of Getting Done What Needs To Get Done, so do some.
Scorpio & Scorpio Rising
I know that I like to wax poetic about your strength. What can I say? I go weak in the knees for butch. I like grit, I want to know that my homies and my hunnies have walked through the fire and have lived to tell the tale. I feel safer in spaces where folks tell their tales of humiliation and healing. I’m weary of anything too sweet, too pretty and too perfect. It’s never been the entirety of my experience. I don’t think that it has much to do with explaining the whole of life. We go to funerals and weddings, inaugurations and impeachments. We believe our own lies and call out others on theirs. We are slippery, pretty, little liars when our ego has us in its grips. For most of us this is the majority of the time if we are going to be honest. So this is the astrological deal this week; your ruling planet, Mars, and the Task Master of Formidable Tests, Saturn, that has been in your sign for the last year and a half, are both going retrograde this weekend. Wham, Bam, Thank you ma’am. So I’m going to keep playing up your ability to deal and I suggest that you do too. Saturn pushes us to the limits of reason in regards to getting our work done, dealing with isolation, loneliness and despair. Saturn wants to move us towards mastery; it is the energy of contraction during the birthing process. It is the property we need if we are to bring anything into manifestation; however creating comes at a great cost to the structure doing the birthing. Saturn teaches us about consequences, the consequences of time, age, opportunities lost and ones taken. She stands at the threshold of the known world and the transpersonal one seductively smiling with a Cheshire grin, whip in hand and asks us if we have what it takes to cross into adulthood. It’s not as sadistic as it may sound though. We need to understand that the energy knows that we have to have enough ballast in our boots if we are to tread beyond the boundary safely. Saturn will stop us in our tracks if we aren’t ready to roll with the Big Bitches. We are stopped lovingly whether we know it or not. Meanwhile Mars is rummaging around in the back rooms of your psychological makeup and spiritual break downs. Mars cuts definitively but in the domain of delusions and self-undoing it’s tricky to get a clean break. These next few months are more about learning how to come to terms with the parts of yourself that may want to do you harm; the places where we think that it’s fun to ruin the terra firma we’ve spend years solidifying. It’s not fun to wake up and realize that we’ve sold the farm for a few magic beans, however. Keep solid with Saturn and a keen eye on the mischief and madness that Mars may drive you to want to indulge in. Saturday’s new moon occurs in your Fifth House of Pleasure, Play and Please Give Me More. It’s a sweet and swell new moon, but it’s saddled with the demands of Saturn and Mars. Make sure you do something enjoyable just for the sake of being in joy.
Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising
In some ways a new moon is about making a conscious decision to take action in a specific domain of our lives; planting seeds, making wishes and all that jazz. In another way it’s a time that brings us deep into our unconscious because there is no light to see by. How is it that we are meant to take action in the dark? I don’t necessarily take a concrete action. Instead I feel into the domain of my life where the new moon is taking place and listen for what needs my attention the most. Once I have an idea about what is surfacing I see what the most appropriate action would be. For me this whole process has to be a co-creative one. Otherwise it’s just me following around my belligerent ego and all its insane demands in the forms of wish lists and manifestation mantras. Saturday’s Pisces new moon is occurring in your Fourth House of The Family I Was Born Into But Didn’t Choose Of My Own Free Will. This area of the chart also speaks to the family that we create as adults of course, but is very tied to who we are related to through DNA. It’s also about our home, where we live and how we get homey, safe and sound. I suggest that if you are already working on these issues consciously to use the later part of this weekend and the next few weeks to help it take flight. There comes a point in life where we either have to love what’s ours to love or suffer the consequences of disowning ourselves. The other big news for you this week is that your ruling planet, Jupiter, will make a Square to Uranus. This will be an exciting, enlivening little kick in the pants. For you this is about whom you share your resources with, joint ventures in business and possibly home as well as how you choose to express yourself. The base line of this combination is always going to be about deconstructing laws, philosophies and religions. It’s a good week to learn a new twist on an old belief and let your world view be shaken, not just stirred.
Capricorn & Capricorn Rising
My assignment for you is to go see at least one art/music/poetry/performance event this weekend that you wouldn’t normally go see. The new moon is occurring in your Third House of What’s The 411? Apparently it’s all about having a heightened experience, a creative connection. Or it will be an inspired conversation with anything besides your normal modes of communication. I mean you don’t have to go out to an event (but why not??). However, I do want you to think about or watch out for new or old muses for they should abound now. If you are planning on writing a book this is a good time to do some work on it. It may be work that ends up just being preliminary and unusable in the end, no matter! The creative process is meant to meander and unfold on its own time. Timing may be a bit of an issue for you in your career if you’re still clinging to the idea that it’s up to you to make everything happen. It isn’t, never was, never will be. With Mars retrograding through your Tenth House of Hi-ho Hi-ho it’s Off To Work I Go, you may meet a few days with faulty tools and mislaid plans. Not only that but your ruling planet, Saturn, is turning retrograde in your Eleventh House of That’s What Friends Are For, that’s a lot of re-evaluating and reconfiguring your place out in the world. When people ask you what you’re up to, don’t offer your standard answer or laundry list of all your accomplishments. Tell them that you are just trying to live this day with as much integrity as you can. That attitude will get you farther than anything else right now.
Aquarius & Aquarius Rising
Goodness, when it rains it pours. However, this week’s wet is a little on the freezing rain side of the forecast. It’s not bad; it’s just that it isn’t straightforward. This tends to frustrate us every which way to Sunday. Your ruling planet, Saturn, is retrograding in your Tenth House of Everyone’s Expectation of You and Your Expectations of You Too. Saturn being here (as it has been for the past year+) is a kind of full circle moment that is not felt equally by all Water Bearers. You see, it depends on a few key factors: are you on the right track? Have you gotten past doubting your career choices? Are you trying to win everyone else’s approval or just trying to win your own? If you are being false or insincere in your choice of how you spend your life energy (which can have zero to do with making $$) then this next few months will be about you retracing your steps to find out where you went astray. If you feel on track then this next little slice of life will be more about going back to make sure that you have dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s as well as where you could have a little more integrity and a less hesitation. Mercury stations direct in your First House of It’s Just Me Myself and I . This should feel like a knot or two in you is being untied within you. Mars is also stationing retrograde in your Ninth House of My Latest Existential Crisis. You need a new experience, a new lesson or a new ride through life. Hang in there and try not to sell everything and jump on the next plane to Mongolia just yet. Do find ways to explore the unsolved mysteries of your life. Saturday’s new moon will occur in your Second House of Why Do I Own SEVEN Pairs of Black Boots? Due to its extremely sacrificial nature it may have you wanting to give everything away and walk off into the woods with a loin cloth and Gandhi’s autobiography. Also hold that thought. Or maybe don’t, what do I know?
Pisces & Pisces Rising
Perhaps you could help us out Pisces. While the rest of us are running around like our wigs are on fire, you seem to be sitting in the lotus position calm as the cucumber slices on the eyes of a lady at the spa. Perhaps I am assuming that Saturday’s Pisces new moon will be a breeze for you because it couldn’t be more up your alley. Sometimes too much of a good thing, well, is. If this moon is after anything, it’s after dismantling our resistance to healing. You know what I’m talking about, all those convenient excuses that prevent us from doing the little things we know we need to do in order to continue on a path of growth and transformation. Your sign is a slippery little fish that’s really good at swimming off with alluring and distracting derailments. Pisces is the faded movie star who weaves impossible tales of the good old days that you know are lies but you just can’t help but believe. Pisces is also Dobri Dobrev of Bulgaria. He begs on the street for change and then donates every last penny the restoration of decaying Bulgarian monasteries and churches and for the utility bills of orphanages. Aquarius may ask “why does this job fall upon one citizen? Shouldn’t we as a collective ban together and demand that our systems take care of things like electric bills at orphanages and create equality for all?” Well, a radical Aquarian that is. But Pisces does not, Pisces just flows into the crevices that cut deep into the hearts of us all. Pisces moves toward suffering. That’s what it knows to do; without care for itself, without attachment to self-image or status. Pisces says, bring me your wounded, your lost and your weary and I will love them back to themselves. This new moon is hugged by Neptune (the cosmic tuning fork and Captain Confuser) and Chiron (the wounded healer). That is a triple healing threat if there ever was one. This is your jam Pisces, it’s your moon, it’s your birthday and you can cry if you want to. You can also demonstrate to us the power of empathy, compassion, universal love and the beauty of putting healing first.