I’m taking a conversational spin on the blog. This weekend, my husband got his Virgo on and pulled me into it. Elbow deep in soil working on the yard, away from the computer sigh… it felt good to be in the sunshine and the dirt. And I’ve never felt so clean. There’s something about getting dirty with the earth that feels incredibly cleansing. In nature, dirt is dirt – alive and plenty holy. The use of the word “dirty,” with baggage of nastiness and perversion is definitely a human concept. It’s a paradox I know Virgo well understands. The sensual Mae West, Virgo extraordinaire, offered her bodacious bod and sharp wit to the masses, subjecting herself to the judgments and ridicule this Sun sign seems to face, no matter what field they’re in (sorry Rachel Ray!). Dismantling criticism and taking it in stride is part of the perfecting process.

Back to balance. With Mars, Mercury and Venus in Libra it’s a worthy pursuit. In gardening I did what Steven Arroyo speaks of, feeding the elements, supercharging my missing element, which for me is, you guessed it, earth. Okay, I do have the North Node in Capricorn, which isn’t technically a planet, just an invisible point suggesting our True North, or what my teacher calls “a really good idea.” (my husband, a masterful man of the earth and Capricorn rising, chortles when he hears this about his wife). For those of you who don’t know about the super-useful practice of feeding the elements: figure out the balance of elements in your chart and balance your mind-body-spirit by filling your gas tank with that missing one. Missing air? Expose your self to thinkers, read more. Missing fire? Undertake an adventure, exercise, take one risk. Missing water? Hang out at the ocean, value your emotions as necessary and healing. This technique works wonderfully for relationship synastry, too, balancing each person’s respective need for security (earth, water) or excitement (air, fire) etc. Anyhow, since I do have Saturn in Gemini, a planet of the earth, pretty close to my Sun, the steady steps of discipline is my earth-connection. Yet too much studying turns me into a piece of parchment paper (!) and I do know there’s more oompah to earth, as I discovered when my progressed Moon moved into Taurus, when to my delight and glee and I discovered gardening. Then, as the Moon will do, she moved. Into Gemini. And I moved back into my ivory tower of words. Temperament is temperament I suppose. Yet I have heard it suggested that we can pour tremendous energy into, or overcompensate for our missing elements to fabulous success (Julie Dembowski wrote a hopeful post on this). No Donald, I have not yet built a Mcempire yet. The feminine stuff of the earth, routines and rituals, gardening and cooking, make my inner granola child grin.

So. We prepare to leave the country (again!), it is the season of preparation. To do so, we put fence around the yard to keep the deer and raccoons from dining at the Shepherd house in absentia (the critters are atwitter, hey guys, an all-you-can eat salad bar!) My husband finally capped his fence project, unveiling a Guillotine-style gate. Is it a warning? Inspired by a trip to the Tower of London, it’s wooden, handmade, and quite beautiful and slides up and down just like a guillotine. Luckily it’s on suspension, so doesn’t take a person totally by surprise. It’s only nipped me once, in the head. I suppose it’s dangerous for an Aries Moon person to be walking in and out of a guillotine-style door. I am however trying to to figure out how to fit the exclamation “heads are about to roll!” into the context of a conversation while standing next to our new entryway, but the opportunity has eluded me so far. He’s thinking: our beautiful yard will attract new visitors. She’s thinking: especially those who get a charge out of fear. Indeed, one wide-eyed Aries visitor to Casa Shepherd is obviously excited by the whole thing.

The resolve to get busy has unexpectedly extended into a job search for me, as well. As the Libra planets, including Mars, crossed my 12th house Pluto last week, they also hastened a departure from my main writing gig. It was all friendly and dandy and congenial in a Libran sort of way, and inevitable, as Pluto was involved. This ticked off, like celestial clockwork, the upcoming transiting Pluto-natal Pluto square at 1 degree cardinals. I’ll have time to finish my soul mate book!, one part of me thinks. Another part of me envisions every woman’s fear, being a bag lady, skill-less, a woman and aged in America. Typical 12th house stuff. Yet I am “in the dark” about my next step, as this summer a monumental progressed New Moon in Leo made an appearance in the 10th house of my chart – surprise, surprise! While a New Moon unfolds over days, this progressed Moon, symbolizing new creative achievements and accomplishments, will unfold over years. It’s gonna get interesting around here.

I did use the lunar cycle to time my job outreach efforts. I waited a few days after the Virgo New Moon, until La Luna Libra crossed my ascendant to reach out to my allies for suggestions and collaboration (New Moon energy is still dark, needing a few days of light-collecting from the Sun to be helpful). This was wondrously successful, especially gaining support on emotional levels. After all, I have, as astrologer April Elliot Kent generously offered been given an exciting opportunity to make money and have fun! (spoken just like a Leo I might add). I know I am not a prisoner of this recent event. Like you, I am a creative genius. Yet this sense of creative possibility remains mysterious to me because I am truly in the dark about the whys or hows of “what next.” Sometimes the hardest thing is figuring out what you *want* to do.

And for many of us, you really don’t need to know astrology to sense something monumental in your life is shifting…I knew it was coming by how I felt… yet true star-gazers get hooked on astrology for a level of personal validation and support (everyone needs a blankie!), plumbing the upswing of change, and taking a swing at cracking the code of divine timing. I know of no other science that offers this. So as fresh beginnings do carry a quality of optimism and hope, hopefully, someone will make money here (Pluto rules my 2nd house) and it’s gonna be me! Darn, back to that missing earth element. Oh, well, according to the story the transits tell, the stage is set for some good theater. My educated guess is this will be less of a prime-time special and more like the mini-drama, the Thorn Birds, spanning generous swaths of time in the discovery.

I guess that would make me the main act.