“I am driven. I am. I’m driven for some reason. But I don’t know where I’m going.” -Courtney Love, Venus in Gemini RX

Venus is the Goddess that rules connection, pleasure, relating and our personal responses to what and who we like, and from 5/15-6/27/12, Venus retrogrades beginning at 23’59′ and back to 7 degrees Gemini. A problem I run into when writing about the general state of Venus affairs is that Venus issues are so personal that people don’t often  share them – at least not openly. Ever ask a woman her age or how much money she earns? Venus subjects are often intriguingly hidden (perhaps why Venus traditionally “joys” in the Twelfth House?). Gossip columns claim to know why celebrity relationships falter. In reality, sometimes even those closest to a couple (and sadly, sometimes one-half of the couple) don’t know why it really ended.

Venus Retrograde

Venus is personal, intimate, and meant to only be known to our confidantes, intimates. For most of us, Venus’ inner sanctum needs protection, and that’s the way it needs to be. Many great conflicts, dissatisfactions, joys, pleasures and strides in relationship take place behind closed doors. Imagine a couple who has been together for a number of years, and between kids and demanding jobs they’ve gotten out of touch with each other’s bodies and lost the ‘spark’. This is a personal Venus matter, and it’s the type of issue that will get a lot of juice from Venus’ retrogradation, a time of slowing down to reconnect. Venus, however, is not strictly relational. She is the principle of connection, value & pleasure, so connection – how to bring two and two together; value & worth- what those truly means to us; and pleasure -how to get more of it in our lives and bodies, are ripe for re-evaluation.

From a deterministic standpoint, during Venus RX we may find pleasure or connection harder to come by and our attempts at new relationship, wonky. But from an evolutionary perspective, this cycle is an internal process, a time to re-connect to our experience of a particular arena of life. Any relationship issue can be worked on, on a deeper level during a Venus retrograde cycle. With Venus retrograde, relationship matters that have been hidden become known; it’s harder to hide issues that are stressing us from the inside. That’s one reason we witness ‘bizarre’ behaviors from our friends, partners during Venus retrograde. Astrologers also warn against externalizing Venus thru luxury purchases, changing cosmetics, hair color, style; such purchases don’t deliver, new beauty products, treatments tend to go awry. The Goddess is moving inward.

We are also simply more sensitive. Reflecting on several people I’ve known who have Venus retrograde in their birth chart, they are super sensitized to their felt responses. Like a taut violin string they are so finally tuned that they feel the uh-huh and unh-uh we all feel about people we like, more strongly. It doesn’t always mean they’re more conscious of what and who they like– but they often are. They cannot ignore their sensibilities. Similarly, as Venus retrogrades, our own sensibility about what and who we like is heightened. Think: where could you feel better about your self? What area of your life could use sprucing up? You may cover old ground, but now with heightened, fresh responses. Our internal Venus response system is on high alert so this time, we really know how we feel. The benefit of this sensitivity is we have the capacity to make choices in line with our true desires.

This is also a time to get to know our own Venus function, better, and if necessary differentiate. If we don’t honor our Venus sign’s sensual desires & preferences, if we don’t own our self-worth and value, we could become very confused about our relationships during this time. Venus individuation is the process of separating our self-worth, attractiveness, what and who we truly like and enjoy, from what culture tells us to enjoy, like, love -even how to relate. By the way, culture has done a smash-up job of externalizing the sensitive, nuanced, individualized impulses of our personal Venus onto acquisition, beauty, youth, pleasure, material security. Jodie Forrest, in her MP3, The Venus Return, suggests being too embarrassed to admit what, and who, turns us on is a sign we haven’t individuated our Venus function. I would take this a step further. Claiming what and who turns us on (and doesn’t) as central to our vital sensual, feminine side (both men and women have this), and is so deeply intertwined with our self-worth, that if we don’t honor our desire, tastes, likes, we can sell our self short in relationships that don’t honor us. How successful we are in relationship is a reflection of how well we individuate from the collective Venus soup, how well we know & honor our own personal Venus sign (and aspects)!

Venus in Gemini & Your Birth Chart

The duality of Venus transiting Gemini can be confusing: we can love someone, and not like them very much. They are showing us where we are divided so we can unify the “other half” of our self. Even our relationship desires may be contradictory: we want freedom and closeness, we yearn for commitment but we love our single life! Moving slowly, going patiently inward, examining each urge, and similar to the alchemical process of turning lead into gold, burning away the dross under the fire of truth unifies, creates wholeness. Gemini Venus retrograde is a time of patiently stripping away superficial values to find our real values, examining where we are “of two minds,” and ultimately loving the contradictions because they reflect the whole totality of our experience.

How will you experience Venus retrograde? First, think back to your experiences during the last time Venus went retrograde in Gemini, in 2004 (9-17 degrees of Gemini, 5/19-6/29). Gemini’s shadow is immaturity, running around in circles in our head, being paralyzed by our contradictions, lacking an overall vision for the future, scattered-ness, having ideas that go nowhere, and saying a lot without saying anything at all. The last time Venus went retrograde in Gemini, I think I dated a compulsive liar (I know I dated him; not sure if he compulsively lied or was deceptively opaque). On the bright side, Gemini Venus is motivated by freshness, communication, excitement, learning, discourse. Well, it was exciting and I learned a lot: he gave me a chunk of fresh material for my book.

Second, is Venus stationing on a planet, or angular to a point or planet in your chart? Third, what house is Venus transiting for you? This Venus stations on my Saturn (within 1 degree) in the Ninth House. I am starting a health coaching training during this time, whereby I’ll be combining what I already know about health and wellness with new learning (Ninth House, Gemini), receiving structure, mentorship and eventually, authority in a field (Saturn). I’m already thinking about promotion, social networking and a makeover for my astrology business (transits, to some degree, work through your natal planet: my natal Venus conjoins my MC). At the same time, the third pass of transiting Saturn square my Venus occurs now, so I’ll likely experience another generous helping (oh, yes, more Saturn please!) of opportunities to address, and finally change, relationship dynamics within my primary partnership that we’ve outgrown and are no longer working.

I would tell you more… but out of respect for the privacy of the not-so-innocent…I must politely demure. But enough about me, let’s talk about you.

Where is Venus 7-24 Gemini transiting in your chart?

Venus in the 1st House: self-image, makeovers, decisive choices, how you act and appear, your point of view.

Venus in the 2nd House: money, confidence, investing in your self, taking risks that require courage, your ability to provide for your self, security.

Venus in the 3rd House: self-expression, communication, omens and synchronicity, neighbors and siblings, social networking, learning/teaching, education.

Venus in the 4th House: home, parents, clan, security, roots and personal legacy, the past, psychological introspection, endings.

Venus in the 5th House: lovers and love affairs, art, creativity and talent, luster, getting noticed, self re-creation, playmates, karmic partnerships.

Venus in the 6th House: holistic healthcare, health routines, mentors, coaches, apprenticeship, work life balance, co-workers, doctors and health providers, self-care.

Venus in the 7th House: partners, negotiation, bridge-building, the building of trust, seeing through the eyes’ of another, marriage, making your relationships new again.

Venus in the 8th House: sexual intimacy, death and grief, shared resources, psychological material, magic & the occult, sexual and trauma healing, healing betrayal.

Venus in the 9th House: religious and spiritual teachers, long journeys, belief systems, stretching wider, publishing, marketing, getting the word out there.

Venus in the 10th House: public image or status, your calling card or career, marital status, bosses and higher-ups, recognition, awards.

Venus in the 11th House: acquaintances and groups, long-term plans and goals, people you admire, social networks, finding your place in the world.

Venus in the 12th House: consciousness and quietude, restorative activities, spiritual pursuits, enjoyable time spent alone, connection to all of life through art/beauty/music.

Venus aspecting other planets
Sun: attention, ego, getting what you want, purpose, leadership.
Moon: feelings, home, intuition, family, creativity, comfort.
Mercury: communication, listening, talking, learning, teaching.
Venus: pleasure, joy, sensuality, self-worth, style, finances, magnetism.
Mars: sex, goals, energy, honesty, endings, courage.
Saturn: authority, mentors, responsibility, limits, work, structure.
Jupiter: expansion, faith, journeys, gurus, abundance.
Uranus: excitement, newness, individuality, freedom, change.
Neptune: consciousness, imagination, Spirit, letting go, illusion.
Pluto: sexuality, psychology, death, taboo subjects, occult.
Ascendant: self-image, self-awareness, physical appearance, body.
Descendant: others, relationship, dealings with public.
MidHeaven: public image, social standing, recognition from community.
Imum Coeli: home and family, interior world, psychological self.

Ready to get to know your Venus? Your Alchemical Goddess Venus Report is about You more fully stepping into your magical gifts and aligning with what and who truly makes you happy. Click here to purchase!

The moon is full in Scorpio, a time when life’s calamaties and shadows loom larger, and emotions cut to the bone. This week I found out a client of mine was recently given an extremely difficult medical diagnosis. This isn’t her first experience with debilitating illness, but one of a lifetime of medical complications. According to the medical establishment, this gentle woman was not supposed to live to see middle age. When she turned fifty, I recall urging her to celebrate her Chiron return -a time of coming into our wisdom being in a whole new way. What I remember most about that talk is learning that the age of fifty clearly meant something very different for her than it did for most of people who dread leaping forward a whole decade. Turning fifty meant she had defied the odds that were stacked against her since birth. By living till age fifty, she had victoriously defied Death.

So here she was again, at another crisis point. What to do? First, you make a joke- if you’re in good company. I asked if she was working on a new bucket list, and joked that she was probably getting really good at bucket lists. She said, yes, every time she goes through something like this she does make a list, but she’s also getting really good at living every day as though it could be her last, which she says also means there’s less on her bucket list.

We talked about Pluto (what else are you going to talk about in life/death situations?) and it’s role in her evolution. By transit, Pluto is in her First House and trine her natal Pluto/North Node in the Eighth House. We talked about what that meant for her, again: her soul’s journey involved ongoing descents into hell realms, places no one wants to go. But to leave it at that would be cruel- and untrue. The natural house of Scorpio, the Eighth House offers those who need it, deep healing through lifelong committed intimacy. The Scorpio/Eighth House journey is not meant to be traversed in a barren landscape alone, but with able partners who can handle it. Handle what? The most heinous curve balls that life throws our way. A partner who can hold the space for our huge fear, grief, pain so it can be felt and processed; someone we trust to not abandon us when the going gets tough, heals. She told me this was true, that her husband lessens the intensity of the fear she experiences.

Maybe it’s my empathy, or perhaps the way I see him make an appearance in her birth chart (Pluto in the Eighth House, Mars in Cancer in the Seventh) but in the years since we’ve been talking, I’ve felt my client’s husband as a subtle presence surrounding her, a strong, silent presence lingering in the background of our conversational calls. I easily imagine his protective arm encircling her as she walks through medical trials-by-fire, creating boundaries, safety. Or maybe it’s that he’s a Scorpio Sun sign, and he is invisibly with her, all the time.

It was such a visceral conversation that it reminded me of another story, which I told her as I’ll share with you. My now husband and I had just started dating when less than two months into our relationship I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a crippling muscle pain syndrome that eventually prevented me from working. It was an odd mix of sensations; I was falling in love -probably the most pleasurable experience in life- and I was in tremendous physical pain. I was also scared that my new lover would jump ship for an able-bodied women who would be able to rock climb & camp, let alone financially support herself. Later, he told me that he had considered that – in a hard conversation with himself lasting only five minutes. He decided that if he’d have to push me around in a wheelchair for the rest of our lives it would be worth it, because he would get to be with me.

The Moon is Full in Scorpio. Scorpio rules everything uncomfortable – death, wounding, Shadow, grief, loss -basically all the experiences in life that makes you squirm in your seat and wonder how you will survive (you won’t, not ultimately). See, Scorpio also rules Truth. Including this one: there are those who vow to love through sickness and health, and there are those who do. The bonds we share with these soul mates are timeless, for if the bonds of love can survive disease, loss and pain, they must surely also survive death. Aren’t these the kind of conversations we’re meant to have right now? Scorpio Moon can shoulder any pain you carry but the challenge is to fully engage, and to feel, the most difficult topics and questions of your life. So do your bucket list, live like you’re dying, and lay your burden down in an honest, hearty conversation with someone you love.

My grandmother had a Taurus Moon. Taurus is the sign of the Bull. Emotionally stubborn, like Bull, she obstinately refused to face many things in life (she was an Aries, too). But she instantly put anyone at ease with her simple presence, easygoing nature, and her instinct toward material security, comfort and well-being.Born in the mid-west, like most who survived the Great Depression, she had a common sense attitude toward working for a living. Unlike those of us now who believe it’s perfectly normal to be jaded about our lowly post on any given totem pole, and have plenty to gripe about putting our ‘real talents’ to use, she took pride in a lifelong administrative role, in what was far more of a “role” than a career track profession (though with the cocktail mixers she hosted, you might’ve thought she was assistant to the president of the USA). For me, she was a stable peaceful presence, no, wait, the stable, peaceful presence in my life. She had a calming, steadying, reliable affect on me, and others; when people in my life we’re losing it, when I was losing it, I could count on her to be basically the same. Taurus Moon people, and those with a number of Taurus planets, always seem to have that soothing something on hand. If I could bottle that soothing something, it would smell like my grandmother.

As such, I deeply appreciate when someone has that Midas touch – Taurus’ attunement to the comfort level of one’s own physical body, and to that of those they’re with. And I notice when they do not. For instance, at a recent friend gathering a group of us sat on a deck watching the sun set. As the temperature dropped considerably, the chatty host was impervious to our discomfort and did not notice chattering teeth, empty drinks, and the waning light that had us sitting in total darkness. Eventually we asked for blankets. Upon leaving, my Taurus friend miserably exclaimed, ‘What was all that about? (They) could have at least offered us a cup of tea!’

At today’s Taurus New Moon, we take stock of how well we’re physically and materially doing. During this season we receive traction from caring for our body, our material things, and attending to our basic animal needs. Responding to our body’s need to feel good, by making time to sit in the Sun, listening to music, eating whole foods, can be that soothing something we’ve been missing. Do you have a soothing something on hand? What is it? Another Taurus girlfriend is soothed by laying lizard-like on a sunny rock; for her birthday, she is asking not for presents from her friends, but rocks, which she will likely integrate into her peaceful garden sanctuary. Taurus energy is fertile, stabilizing, grounding. We can affirm for abundance & wellness during this new moon – financial, material, relational and emotional. More fully inhabiting our physical body and earthly reality  ’grounds’ these wishes.

The Taurus New Moon ushers in much-needed stabilizing, calming energy. To Aries’ flight from all common sense, Taurus New Moon says, return to your senses (or, as I like to imagine, Taurus Moon firmly hugs Aries and says, calm the f*** down). Like soldiers returning from war, we are war-torn and weary from stress, ready to return to our sensory body. This morning, from our hot tub, I savored a moment of early morning listening: my neighbor’s seven year old was practicing violin. She’s getting better, too. No longer off-key & plucking at my irritation, now she’s plucking at my heart strings. As irritation gives way to appreciation, we’ll all notice this shift in our lives, too, and just like Marina on her violin, with practice, our rough edges can get some much needed soothing & smoothing. We can make the world a more blissful place by simply returning to our senses.

When Libra Full Moon opposes impetuous Aries Sun the energy can be tense. Libra is charged with the incredible task of holding the balance and remaining peaceful while Warrior Aries Sun, full of stress and adrenaline stare down the moon, challenging her to lose her composure and cool. Yes, it is the season of risk-taking, courageous stands, of recovering our confidence, enthusiasm and energy but full moons remind us that there’s a body and soul here, and right now the body-soul needs to calm down, choose peace over stress, to not make hasty decisions, snap judgements, offhand remarks that shoot our stress levels to the roof and throw our world out of balance.

Balance is a never clear, tentative and ever-adjusting thing for Libra. As a Libra Rising, I’m reminded of this all the time. In our relationships, lives, bodies, soul, we’re never just in balance, we’re constantly working on achieving that space of inner and outer harmony. As this moon holds inherent tension between harmony and courageously speaking the Self’s truth, speaking our truth, even if it causes a temporary disruption, is exactly what’s needed to restore peace, love, harmony.

Libra requires that we learn to hold ambiguity, until we locate the peaceful answer arising from deep within, but not that we wait so long that we lose the chutzpah, courage, cajones to say what needs to be said.  Going within and finding the right moment to act is appropriate. That right moment will be when our heart is at peace, for it was only at the point when I stopped searching for mental understanding, got still and decided to pray: With peace in my heart, this situation resolves peacefully and perfectly did the peace that passes all understanding, come.

Since 2009, Pluto has transited my Pluto, Mars, Sun and is currently joining my North Node. I am Pluto girl. & I still have questions. The main one being, What just happened? Trying to meaningfully interpret one’s own Pluto transit is like reading hieroglyphics -before the Rosetta Stone. With Pluto we are often in the dark.

Pluto transforms. We hear this all the time. But this word is too glamorous for the Hell realm we will enter under it’s influence. Often Pluto sends you a crisis – spiritual, existential or literal.  And if you survive it you will be changed. Pluto’s journey into the underworld is dark, relentless and psychologically demanding. Pluto strips your character to it’s bare bone essentials, your core dysfunctions and wounds, which is uncomfortable. What you discover about your self isn’t pretty. You will likely resist, and yet your resistance is futile…it prolongs the agony.

Pluto charges the Dark Night of the Soul. Times in your life when you lose your faith. Times when the world no longer gives life, but takes life away. The world turns wintry, bitter cold. Your passion and aliveness, your zest for life dulls and fades. You may feel both dulled down and acutely sensitive to your darkest emotions. You may rage at the loss, darkness, the unfairness, especially if you’re a ‘half glass full’ kind of person. You may experience Pluto as a dream stealer or thief – taking away people, your creativity, imagination, cherished dreams. The scale of a Plutonian event can be large or small, but it initiates you into the darkest aspect of the human condition. The most important advice I can offer for this time of life is to not shut down, to courageously feel it all. This is a necessary process of coming to terms with who you truly are, not who you have been or wanted to be.

Maybe I’ve painted too dark of a picture for you; I have heard some are on friendly terms with Pluto. That Pluto is juicy: all goth, sex, rock n’ roll, and richly dark. To which I say, yes, that’s true, too. But never underestimate this God of Hell. It’s wise to be wary & respectful of the Plutonian process– if you have been stripped down to the core, been utterly destroyed and been re-made in life, you may understand how this process is necessary for your spiritual evolution as a human being. You still may be angry about it. This God who gives tremendous power -and- takes it away. That’s my Pluto.

We all have different journeys, and thus, different relationships to Pluto’s torch-wielding powers. However, there are general tips we can learn from. Although they will be a mere candle to the dark sea sky, they are nonetheless candles, offering a glimmer trail to follow into your own psyche.

1. Two areas Pluto consistently makes an appearance: your relationships and your health. In myth, Pluto comes above ground for two reasons: once to heal a wound inflicted on him by Hercules, and another to abduct the lovely maiden Persephone. Illness and intimate relationship crises are plutonic initiations, catalysts for ‘seeing’ invisible parts of our natures that we are, for the most part, in the dark about. Expect intimate themes like: jealousy, fear of abandonment, betrayal.

2. Eliminate and let go of anything no longer true for you. This popular Pluto phrase is a Zen Koan bobbing around in my brain. Be careful with this one. Astrologer’s rule number one: Don’t feed your fears with astrology. You’re about to have a Pluto transit: the house probably won’t burn down, you probably won’t die. On the other hand, this is a good line of thinking, What is your deepest fear? Is it controlling your life? If you’re unhappy and feel that Plutonian urge to tear down and destroy, there is a possibility of hurting your self or other people. Pluto is a psychological planet. Don’t wait until your pain gets so bad that you’ve irrevocably harmed your self or others. Psychologists help.

Freud said that our waking consciousness is only the tip of the iceberg- the 95% underneath and hidden is Pluto, so if you don’t know what you need to eliminate, you’re not alone.  And it’s buried. Sometimes Pluto issues are repressed & hard to get to; it takes time to do this work.

3. “Pluto is inherently separative and isolating. An individual is apt to feel himself to be set apart. The normal rules and expectancies of the world just do not work anymore.”A dark night of the soul interpretation from late Astrologer James Eshelman. He’s talking about a psychological feeling of alienation. Even if one has worldly power and it all looks like smooth sailing, according to Eshelman, they have Lone Wolf qualities to them.

4. “Don’t expect to understand what is happening/has happened to you.” This helpful insight came from my mentor, Paul Bogle who explained that he, and many others who have experienced major Pluto transits, often cannot digest what has happened to them until many, many years later. Sometimes 20 years later. Why? Something about our little pea sized consciousness being unable to fathom the effects of the outermost planet… Changes are either so outwardly dramatic or inwardly, deeply pivotal, that it takes years for the psyche to integrate what’s happened.

5.The effects of Pluto are not always visible to the outside world. Pluto is the master of invisiblity. When I have shared my existential sense of alienation, loneliness, and an odd identity crisis with a chosen few I’m at first greeted with, What? Life is so great for you! This internal feeling of being set apart can reinforce the dark emotions, so it helps to have a journal, art form, a psychotherapist or a Plutonian partner with Eighth House planets/Pluto aspects who can handle it.

6. You feel like you are dying or you lose loved ones. Death and the insignificance of our mortal life is a silent presence for the most part, but during a Pluto transit -it’s not so silent. My grandmother died this year (not unexpected) but the feelings of grief, loss and dying, linger. Alternately, you are likely also engaged in the Plutonian process whereby parts of your self are actively dying. Bring your dark humor: What psychiatrists call mental illness (which often isn’t a pathology, but reclaiming lost/wounded parts of self) is what Roman Polanski calls good theater.

7. Get comfortable with Nothingness. Darkness, nothingness, oblivion. For me, goals are harder to accomplish, difficult. The everyday world of accomplishment and routine satisfaction goes quiet. Clients share their morbid fascination with dark matter, oblivion and black holes.

8. Pluto transforms (through crisis). We’ve covered this, but like a marketing gimmick, the idea that one will ascend to new heights/depths of magical power during a Pluto transit may be a distraction from doing the real work of being present to the unpleasantries surfacing.

9. Don’t try and control circumstances and people. Don’t project your power onto others. Control is an issue with Pluto -too much or not enough of it. Trying to control circumstances is futile and during this time Pluto is bent on reminding you of that, which can cause backlog of psychological futility and various permutations of powerlessness (anger, fury, re-wounding). In my experience, raising a bit of hell now and again with Pluto, isn’t such a bad thing -it gets the poisons and furies out. When your contractor basically moves into your home office, when you feel like you’re about to explode into bits of drywall, go scream into the wind or in a locked bathroom. Talk to your partner or your ‘person of offense’, honestly. It’s unhealthy to hold it in.

10. Find psychologically fearless friends.  Until the Pluto transit is over, there is always more psychological work to do –so who can help? Guides, shamans, priests and some therapists may help, yet anyone who tries to fix you or sugarcoat things won’t. Get friends who are psychologically fearless, who speak truth -folks who can give you the nuggets of insight into yourself you so need.

Articles and books for a Pluto transit:

The Dark Night of the Soul by Erin Reese

Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair by Miriam Greenspan

Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals by Thomas Moore

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Library) by Pema Chodron

image: Julia Stiles in the play, Persephone

Sure, I have admiration and even love for this sign. But I don’t look forward to this season.Planets in the hot, dry, barren sign of Aries are often uncomfortable, and unlike say, Taurus, which offers plenty to look forward to, I rarely look forward to the hot, edgy, difficult, impatient season of Aries when people get fed up and pissed off. Individually, when planets transit the sign of Aries in our chart, the possibilities are many, but generally there is an impatience to get on with things that have been holding us back, frustrating, bothering us. Like a shot of adrenaline, the rush of this is what and who I AM infuses the blood stream, and just as the spring bud forces it’s way through a branch, whether (we think) we are ready or not, it is time to make new choices and decisions for our self. The opposite of indecisive, sensitive-to-others Libra, Aries is the sign of self-ish decisiveness.

Uranus in Aries offers this New Moon it’s dispassionate, awakening energy . It’s not about caring about what others think (Libra), feelings (Cancer), or your social status (Capricorn). Uranus is known for it’s jarring objectivity; as a planet it feels metallic, amped, edgy, emotionally detached or dissociated. It’s not a warm fuzzy planet, but there’s a place for that in life. You wouldn’t want, say, Neptune or the Moon as an EMT on the scene of your accident for example, because Uranus, who can shut down all emotions and efficiently get the job done, is a far better ally. As friend or lover, instead of hugging you through a difficult crisis, Uranus cuts to the chase by turning you onto their Buddhist teacher, or telling you that it’s time to look at your father issues, and consider their job done. You may look at them like they’ve just grown a second head, but there you have it.

Well, that’s all right. It’s not time to sing kumbayah and hold hands. It’s Aries time. Time to make new choices, and be a little more detached about it all. Uranus aspects this New Moon. If it aspects your chart, you may experience a shocking awareness. Maybe you suddenly know your job will end, your relationship is changing, or an old dream is fading away; you may see a pattern in your self, how you are holding your self back. It comes on like lightening, but lightening coming from within your self, lightening you need to integrate into your life — because once you’re given Uranian knowledge,  you can’t send it back. You can’t turn away from your true self. To experience this self-knowledge is to feel like a shaken up soda can with heat under it, from all the pressure to break free.

No, I don’t enjoy Aries season. I have Libra, Cancer, Aries planets. I just looove the agony of having to check my Aries (Moon & Mars) impulses against my hypersensitive and others-oriented Libra/Cancer side. Before I make any decisions, I have to diplomatically consult others, and not hurt their feelings -which goes on forever because, well, it takes that long for others to figure out how to make you happy, versus doing it yourself. But this Aries season is Uranus-in-Aries season, too, which has an odd new tilt to it: when you know you need a change, you gather courage & just do it.

This is how it happens: you’re graced with a shock of precious Uranian self-knowledge that you know can liberate you, and in that wild moment, your body on fire with the truth and self-love and the courage to do what will free you from what you have been longing to be freed from, you know what you need to do. You also know that sometimes you’ve got to do it without asking permission. No one’s asking Libra what she wants- not today, anyhow. There may be pain (there usually is), but once you know the truth…it’s better to rip that band-aid off all at once.