About.com Astrology

Venus in Scorpio

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:14:47 +0000

When the love planet Venus is in Scorpio, it's time for secret meetings under the covers. Today through the end of the month, Venus takes us into the deeper dimensions of relating, where we say, "tell me how you really feel." But it can seem like the stakes are higher, so there's guardedness until you're sure. It's the atmosphere of mystery, veiled beauty, the volatility of passion, obsession and erotica.

You might become mesmerized by someone, and feel strangely bound to them. This can be a time of fixations that entangle you in the psyche of another. And it can also lead to being engrossed in your art or other work. In the binding, you discover a core truth about you and your relationships. It can be a cathartic time of being turned inside out together.

Today, the Moon is in Cancer, adding to a sense of wanting to retreat behind a private fortress. Being married to a non-English speaker -- a Hungarian -- we have our own language that's brief and to the point. The word for today is what we say at night after dinner, when we're starting to settle in. Cozy!

Venus in Scorpio originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 10:14:47.

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Shelley's New Show

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:47:31 +0000

The well-known NYC-based astrologer Shelley Ackerman and celebrity disher extraordinaire has a new show on Blogtalk radio! It's on tonight (8 p.m. EST) and it's called, KarmicRelief� with Shelley Ackerman and Friends. Tonight is "Episode 2" with guest Madalyn Hillis-Dineen, Chair of the (NCGR) National Council for Geocosmic Research. They'll be talking about "post-election fatigue" (an Obama backlash?), this week's transits and yesterday's shooting in Texas. They'll also talk about the big meeting of astrologers in February of 2010 for the NCGR conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Shelley says one reason she's doing this on blogtalk is the allure of being her own producer. She's got Uranus (technological bustin' out) in the 10th house (career). She also told me, "with transiting Pluto on my Capricorn Moon (and now Saturn in Libra involved), it's time to take action and provide a space/forum for the authentic voices of my friends, colleagues, and people I admire to speak in more than 30 second sound bites."

You can also catch the archive of the Debut show with Elsa Panizzon of ElsaElsa.com (the first astro blogger) and Debbie Frank, the British astrologer to the stars (including Lady Di). Says Shelley, a Libra Sun, about the forum of live radio, "Bottom line: Blogs and articles are terrific, but nothing beats the prana of a conversation." So true, Shelley, and best wishes for all that's authentic and life-infusing with your show!

Shelley Ackerman publicity photo

Shelley's New Show originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 11:47:31.

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Investing in Yourself

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:33:20 +0000

I want to give a shout out to Michelle Lessirard of New Moon Journal, whose recent post, Dances with Chickens, caught a current, and resonated widely. It hit on the Scorpio hot topic of what Lessirard calls "taking out the trash" and coming out of hiding, so we can claim our true power. And now, as we spiral into the New Moon in Scorpio, Michelle is offering an affordable Teleclass to in anticipation of this powerful New Moon (on the 16th).

Writes Michelle, "The universe is asking all of us step up so we can easily live our Brilliance as healers and soul-o-preneurs."

David Fischer/Getty Images

Investing in Yourself originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 10:33:20.

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First House: Recent Karma?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:58:04 +0000

During last night's Teleclass with Ellias Lonsdale, he said the first house holds karma from a recent lifetime, possibly even the last one. It's karma that builds up from times when we haven't been true to the authentic self.
Any planet in the first is broadcast out as the persona. And with a challenging planet like Pluto here, the end goal is to broadcast the core essence by burning off what's not authentic. Some of the new children, Ellias said, are coming in fully themselves, and he mentioned his daughter whose Pluto is in the 1st.

This idea of recent karma intrigues me. I've got Saturn in Aries, in the first house, and have had impressions/dreams of being in Vietnam, and have always been drawn to that in movies and books. It would've had to have been right before I was born, in '67. Perhaps I'm meant to be a more disciplined warrior in this life? Ellias related his own experience of having Neptune in the first house. That it's been an experience of losing everything familiar. With a Neptunian persona, and on the day that Neptune stationed direct, maybe it's no wonder that the class felt like it was held underwater. This fog of our times is hitting everyone, even those that have been in roles of spiritual guide. It's as if we're all swimming in very new waters together.

Mark Borax asked at one point if Ellias could speak to the wrenching experiences people are going through these days. And Ellias said it's to do with the Pluto cycle, just into Capricorn. That it's hitting us at the body level, in order to be grounded in an earthy way. He described the Plutonian descent as a time when "everything bottoms out, and then gets rediscovered in being lost." Something tells me we're still in the falling stage.

Paris, Luxembourg Gardens/Getty Images

First House: Recent Karma? originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 17:58:04.

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Calling on the Angels of Balance

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:58:51 +0000

This image came to me via Facebook from Mark Gray of Cosmic Doorways, with the tagline: The Recipe for Balance is an Individual Internal Experiment. It hit me as a timely symbolic image for Saturn's transition into Libra.

It's a time of checking how balanced your life is. But while it's a solo experiment, we're never alone, since there are angels and guardian spirits in our corner. As Saturn comes into a square with Pluto (November 15th), the old idea of what's fair, just and harmonized may be shaken up. It adds to the flying debris that's already in the air. As we each seek to re-balance at every turn, this image reminds me that it's wise to ask for divine help when you need it.

Calling on the Angels of Balance originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 09:58:51.

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Moon in Gemini

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:09:49 +0000

It's a thrill a minute when the Moon is in Gemini. Thoughts race and the mind fires off zingers, and that can lead to unexpected laughs and ideas so crazy, they just might work.

Watch out for distractions that spread you too thin, or frazzle your nerves. Take a chill pill and don't forget to breathe, if things spin out. The Moon is in Gemini all day.

Getty Images

Moon in Gemini originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 15:09:49.

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Neptune Direct

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:35:25 +0000

Neptune, the planet of dissolving into the All, goes direct today at 1:10 pm EST. Neptune is in Aquarius, and this concerns the global brain and how it melds together, as veils drop. Neptune here can heighten the potency of mass delusion, as circuits of fear run through the collective. It's a mental thinning of the veil, potentially creating what's been prophesied....that all thoughts are out in the open. We can read each other's minds.

Will Neptune going direct help us emerge from the collective fog? Or will the global brain, so zapped and overwhelmed by relentlessly repetitive (like Chinese water torture) mind control type propaganda, be driven to insanity. It depends on what we each choose to plug our mind's into. It can almost seem like realities are splitting here, depending on what you choose to believe, based on your awareness of what's happening.

Neptune going direct may accelerate the collective dreaming, and surprise us with genius new shared visions. It may spark a current that is exhilarating, and gets us excited about the future. It also gives momentum to artists in collaboration, and ideas coming out of the blue that shock us awake.

Digital Vision/Getty Images

Neptune Direct originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 10:35:25.

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Coming Out of Hiding

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:58:56 +0000

This morning, Jimi's line came to mind, "So let us stop talking falsely now. The hour's getting late." And how at this critical moment, it's vital that we crack open, shake out of the trance, and live as powerfully as we can. The themes of the Full Moon in Taurus have hit on digging in for what's fertile in ourselves, what we can build on. It's taking the dead stuff and composting it into something alive. I see the next two weeks as a potent time of churning and releasing, as the Moon wanes and we enter the death portal of the New Moon in Scorpio (Nov 16).

In her refreshingly sharp post, Dances with Chickens, Michelle Lessirard of the New Moon Journal, looks at how we play small out of fear. It's what she calls the chicken mentality, a kind of shrinking that leads to setting a low value on what we offer. I have hens, so I had to laugh at this analogy. We were joking the other day about how anything sets them off, and they run screaming or hide in the cozy coop. I can see how a chicken mentality can keep us from digging in to what can expand into abundance and true wealth (Taurus). It can be embedded in entire friend circles, or healing communities. Michelle calls it, Dances with Chickens, and she invites us to break free from it!

Michelle writes, "Your playing small is not helping the community you serve or Mother Earth." This hit home for me, because recently I spotted one way I was dancing with chickens in a friendship. It lead to a hard decision to dial down a friendship that had become heavy and flightless. It's a subtle thing that had to do with a feedback loop of disempowering stories. I found myself constantly trying to show her it was just a story. But like an insidiously debilitating virus, those stories started to seep into my own sense of what's possible. Letting go of the cold comfort of commiserating with this one friend has left me feeling freer. Not cutting off the friend, just the pattern....whether the friendship can evolve, that remains to be seen. But it's felt like after a break-up from a psychically draining situation, when you are set free, and can soar with a sense of possibility!

Right now, as many of us are dealing with money issues and 1st Chakra survival fears, the Taurus-Scorpio energies can re-anchor each of us in our physical-psychic substance. We can discover what we're really made of, so we get a handle on what's possible. From one of Michelle's earlier posts: "Taurus/Scorpio Polarity: Money is an energy, it's an exchange of energy representing abundance, earth/matter (Taurus and Capricorn). Earthy Taurus represents issues with self-esteem, self-worth, abundance. Earthy Capricorn represents the structure (father image) we rub up against in our quest to become grounded and responsible adults. Our task "How am I building a structure to manifest my creative inspirations (dreams) into matter (Saturn/1st chakra)? How do I make it real?"

So let us stop talking falsely now, and get the metamorphosis started in earnest. This might mean looking at the company you keep, and the assumptions there about what's possible. It means putting a value on your own natural talents and resources (Taurus), as tools to create wealth with. As we let go in the dying time, we can break free of the cages -- some of them quite comfortable -- that keep us lazy with our potential. We can take these flabby un-exercised wings and learn to fly. We can become the majestic birds we're meant to be.

Getty Images

Coming Out of Hiding originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 10:58:56.

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Heart Turned Inside Out

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:33:00 +0000

If anyone is feeling heart pain today, you're not alone. With Mars in Leo, making a tense square to the Full Moon and planets in Scorpio, there's a bulls-eye on the heart. And if you've got planets around 7 Leo, you might feel it in a stronger way. I've been feeling this pain of heart opening today, and my friend Elizabeth Jones of Star Pathways had some right on suggestions. They included telling your heart it's ok to open; releasing any negativity to spirit; sit in the Sun and let the light come into the heart; rub oil on, or put Rescue Remedy onto the heart area (the 4th chakra). "And most important," she said, "take it easy today. Nothing confrontational or harsh or difficult or intense."

Elizabeth, an astrologer based at Mount Shasta, California, reminded me that it might not be just mine, but something stirred up in the collective heart. The intensity of the Full Moon heightens the sense of opening, which today with the grand cross felt like growing pains for sure.

In his November Cosmic Weather report, Mark Borax writes about this period as an initiation into thinking and feeling as one. Though it's overwhelming, he writes, "The new is a multidimensional way of being, based on the idea that we are all completely intertwined with each other, with the living, the dead, Earth and Cosmos. This unitive consciousness is arising now to replace the obsolete consciousness that has kept our species back from fulfilling its bright potential." The pain coming through is part of the healing process, and is taking us where we need to go in our evolution. Writes Mark, "Even though things are tough in many people's lives right now, the toughness is there to make you clearer about what you're really here to do. Places where you're not living up to that inner clarity are the hurdles you have to cross in the initiation." That kind of perspective helps me deal with days like these, so I wanted to pass it on to readers and friends.

Photodisc/Getty Images

Heart Turned Inside Out originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 19:33:00.

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Full Moon in Taurus

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:39:13 +0000

Sometimes the Full Moon has the same effect on me as drinking wine late at night...I'm tossing and turning, very awake and agitated. And it happened last night, with all kinds of fear-laced imaginings in my head, and a sense of being stuck in some psychic no-man's land. This full Moon has a grand cross that engages all the fixed signs, and that can bring a sense of trying to struggle out of the soul's interior, to break free.

A grand cross is a cosmic wrestling hold, and eventually something has to give. This one brings together soul depth (Scorpio) and natural talents (Taurus), with celebration of personal creativity (Leo) and contributing to the whole (Aquarius). It has a lot to do with discovering our unique genius.

So I found it serendipitous to come across this video of Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" talking about the anguish we associate with creative risks. After her first novel had freakish success, people started treating her like she was doomed. She realized how much fear people have about the "burden of genius" and the torment it brings to people. She discovered that in Ancient Greece and Rome, it was understood that art was a collaboration with a "daemon" or a visiting "genius." The human psyche didn't have to carry the sole responsibility or credit for its creations. That some cultures, when watching transcendent art, believe they've glimpsed God for a moment.

Gilbert ends her inspiring speech by saying it's just your job to do the work we've come to do, whether it's dance, teach, sing, act, write books, parent, innovate. That the muse doesn't always show up, being a fickle thing, but that all that matters is that we try. She calls it human stubbornness to stick with it, and that's what the fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) gift us with. The end result is often unforeseeable, and that's where faith comes in. This Full Moon can give you the patience and perseverance to be with what's stirred up, and use it as raw material for your life's work.

Digital Vision/Getty Images

Full Moon in Taurus originally appeared on About.com Astrology on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 09:39:13.

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