2011 September : Moonkissd by Jessica

Sep

28

Filed Under Libra, Venus the Love Goddess | Leave a Comment

Grace Kelly, Venus in Libra

“I think marriage licenses should be like driver’s licenses. They expire after a number of years, and in order to keep going you have to renew. What a way to keep it fresh!”

“You don’t need a pickup line. Just glance at a woman from across the room. Glance– don’t stare.” -Jenny McCarthy, Venus in Libra

“Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick ass red lipstick.”-Gwyneth Paltrow, Sun in Libra

“I’m basically a good, gentle person but I’m attracted to mean personalities.” -Rita Hayworth, Venus in Libra

If you were born when Venus was in the constellation of Libra, the Scales…

You were born under the Venus-ruled sign of Libra, allying you with gifts of negotiation and an innate understanding of how to keep peace under times of stress and differences. A consummate politician, pleasing others also pleases you – for you take pleasure in others’ happiness (while knowing that when they’re happy, they’re also more likely to give you what you want!). This doesn’t mean everything is smooth sailing: you’ll be given plenty of opportunities to work out the difference between what’s best for others versus what’s best for you. But the Venus archetype, present at peace treaties, contract negotiations and important negotiations is so central to keeping everyone happy in a relationship, & you excel here. Smoothing feathers & looking great while doing it, while making everyone around you feel great, is such a forte for you, you’re admired, sought out for your diplomacy & people-skills and often financially rewarded for them. As you see other people’s points of view, honorably and fairly seek middle ground, you dignify others with your respect and good graces– an invaluable gift. Read more

Sep

26

Filed Under Illuminated Lunations, Libra | Leave a Comment

Marriage is the essence of human relationships. It challenges us to be of one accord without abandoning the truth of our individuality. It challenges us to not lose ourselves in one another, but rather to walk side by side heading in the same direction.

As with all relationships, marriage is an endless presentation of choices about how we want to be with one another. Each choice results in either more unity or more separation. Chose into that unity every chance you get.

Sacrifice your judgments, expectations, and any other ways that you have learned to separate yourselves from each other.

Share the gifts of your friendship, humor, vulnerability, sensitivity, and kindness. Be sure to find ways each day to protect, affirm, and support each other, and to treasure the balance and shared values that you have found with each other. Read more

Sep

23

Filed Under Real Time Astrology, Solstice & Equinox | Leave a Comment

Walking the streets, the air feels different; people’s expressions are growing starker, more reserved. The Autumn Equinox signals the time when our psyches prepare to go inward. Whereas the dance of summer is an outward & external play of expression, like Matisse’s celebratory painting Dance, autumn’s portrait is the bittersweet mortality of life.

Steven Forrest links Last Quarter Moon phase people to Autumn Equinox’s Mabon. Mabon is the pagan ritual of thanksgiving; the last quarter is that pivotal point when the moon, once full, lets go of an old cycle but it hasn’t yet begun anew. Last Quarter Moon people have an acute awareness of change, the ephemeral nature of life. They are oriented towards release, endings, and this bittersweet poignancy of harvest in the face of decay certainly matches the primacy of the feelings that arise in autumn.

I was born during the moon’s last quarter. The dramatic changes that have happened in my life have created continual crisis in consciousness (which is in fact, what I think Demetra George calls this Moon phase). These crisis, were never outwardly visible, experienced only in the privacy of my soul. When I was younger, the many events that required an epic leap in consciousness terrified me, cracked me open, then eventually writing, art, archetypes and ritual became ways of facilitating ongoing catharsis. As a result, the stuff of life that bothers many – petty grievances and annoyances, the small stuff – don’t often get to me. As I grow older, I appreciate this grace.

At this Equinox, let go of the small stuff. Take time to reflect on your harvest. Include the spiritual and soul gifts that endings have given you, endings of relationships, eras, jobs, homes. These gifts are invisible to the naked eye– the fruits of laborious work that you accomplished in your soul. After acknowledging what you have, offer something of your self. Give a few coins to a street person, pay it forward. The reason for a harvest feast was dual: thanks -and- to acknowledge the role of Gods/Goddesses in that harvest.

Tonight, I am in Vienna giving a talk. One of the exercises asks people to look at the relationships that left them with bitterness, grief, or pain from a spiritual perspective. Here there is no bruised ego & hurt feelings, it is about lessons we are here to help each other learn. Here’s a few questions I will ask the crowd, which you can take with you into the upcoming Libra New Moon (square Pluto-a moon made for letting go with grace). Go into the darkness, dance with your difficult feelings about the edgy transitions we all must make. At Equinox, we’re at a time of endings. Only in allowing that ending to fully occur can it yield a new beginning.

Think about the short-term relationships, both male and female, you’ve had in your life that still cause you difficult feelings – or – because it didn’t last or go the way you wanted it to, you haven’t forgiven them, or judged yourself as a failure.

Did they overtly or serendipitously influence a major life decision you might not have made without them?
Did they influence a big or small choice- to go back to school, start a business, move to another state, pick up a book, take a trip -that influenced another decision that absolutely changed your life?
Did this person serve as a catalyst in your life, offering you their influential, dynamic or disruptive energy so that something else could take place?
If you felt you shouldered an unfair burden in the relationship, what personal strength did you develop as a result of carrying that burden?

Sep

15

Filed Under Pluto the Transformer | 5 Comments

I just made a pilgrimage the scene of my own personal nightmare– a place where I was once taken by the darkness, stripped of illusions, lost my personal power (& almost died). I attended my 20 year High school reunion. Eventually I realized, many years later, that I had been under the slow burning influence of Pluto. In Santa Fe, my natal Twelfth House Pluto relocated to my Ascendant. Since then, every time I had gone back to Santa Fe, it was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire — the last time I had tried to make a home there was 2001. I got a job waiting tables. Then 9.11 happened. The economy shut down, and after wracking up a huge debt, being re-wounded by old family trauma, I left again. I was sure I’d never be back. After that (as one of my high school girlfriend soul mates reminded me this weekend), I declared I will never come back again…at least not without a sage smudge stick. How appropriate is it then that I return right as Pluto is stationary-direct. How Pluto.

Once, Steven Forrest, eyeing my heinous then upcoming Third House Pluto transit, suggested that a trip to revisit the literal place of a prior wounding. Then, I shuddered to think. But life has put me through many strengthening Plutonic initiations since: loss, hardship, and illness. Twenty years after that initial descent, I returned; this time with soul-support of friends and wisdom. Read more

Sep

11

Filed Under Illuminated Lunations, Pisces | 1 Comment

At the end of each summer, like clockwork, I anticipate surviving the fall. Thinking about back-to- school, carpooling kids, back-to-school events, weekend social calendars and travel plans…like most people, when life spins like a top – one perilously close to the edge of the table- I believe I can alleviate this feeling of over-extension by getting everything in order. I “to-do”, plan and as a well-meaning hyper-vigilant attempt to organize the chaos, I clean, organize (the dreaded tupperware drawer), and as a result I usually end up more tightly wound and doing even more. So one day, with one more birthday party to throw and dinner to make, I realized the honest truth was that I wanted to do nothing. I would as soon leave the birthday to fate, frisbee’d the family a frozen pizza, and head out to the beach. Which is, happily, what I did.