The Rearview Mirror
The Aquarius New Moon kicked off the start of the week early Monday morning before most were awake. Later that evening Mars went Retrograde, and will seem to move backwards in the sky for 80 days. It may seem like certain areas of your life are moving backwards now, almost as if you’re looking at everything through the rearview mirror. Which I realize might not be all bad. As I’ve said before, often we don’t know what’s good for us. Sometimes doors have to be slammed in our faces so that we don’t go down the wrong road. Only a couple of weeks ago I felt like I had a guardian angle that was literally blocking certain roads; my salmon bagel that morning didn’t have salmon (don’t order a bagel when you want healthy salmon) and I literally couldn’t order cheap clothing (most likely made in sweatshops) on Forever 21 because my work address wasn’t to their liking. Neither of these things I needed, and both of them I was doing because I was in a bad mood, and was trying to make myself feel better.
But in other areas I felt blocked as well. At first I couldn’t understand why–until I took a step back and reflected that maybe, just like bagels and Forever 21 clothing, what I wanted at the time, ultimately isn’t going to work for me in the long run. And perhaps might be much worse for me than empty calories and impulse spending.
Not that I really know where to go now in my life. I feel more confused as ever, but maybe that’s the point. I should point out that for this Retrograde, Mars retreats from 24 back to 3 degrees Virgo. However, it will affect those with planets in these degrees of Gemini, Pisces, and Sagittarius, as these will be challenging square and opposition aspects. In my chart, let’s see, my Mars, Venus, Moon, Saturn, Neptune, and ASC/DSC are all in that Gemini/Pisces/Sag zone even though I have zero planets in Virgo (plus transiting Mars will trigger a Grand Cross between all these planets as it retreats)! It’s no wonder I feel like a walking train wreck!
So it’s time to look in “The Rearview Mirror”! Have a listen to a playlist with the same name!
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Beached: The Upcoming Mars Retrograde!
There are times in ones life where one feels one has arrived in a place so far from where one expected to be, that the only metaphor one can relate to is one of a beached whale or dolphin. Indeed, this past Monday I had an epiphany that can only be described feeling beached, landing on the shore when I expected to be in the water. The sensation is rather horrific and humbling. “How could I go so far without realizing where I was going?” one asks oneself. It is literally as if ones sonar direction has been so fouled up, as to not know how one arrived where one is or how to get back in the water.
In times like this, however, I am grateful that a Retrograde has almost arrived. Because Retrogrades offer the ability to Re-Do things, and Re-Think life, and how one has arrived where one has. Pre-Retrograde Shadows usually show us where we have dramatically gone off course, and the actual Retrograde allows us the opportunity, if not to get exactly right what went wrong during the Mars Shadow (in this case from Nov 19 to Jan 23), at least to find the correct direction we should be heading in once Mars goes Direct on April 13.
Interesting enough, Mars will go Retrograde on January 23 at 8:20 pm EST, and we will have had a New Moon at 2:39 am that morning. For almost three moon cycles Mars will be Retrograde–that’s a long time, but Mars, the planet of Action goes Retrograde the least of all the planets–only every two years. So use this time wisely to do either a literal or figurative house cleaning. Purging psychic demons and one’s clothing wardrobe are equally auspicious! More suggestions for what to do during a Mars Retrograde to come!
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Letterpress Calendars!
Just because we’re all on iphones and ipads in 2012 doesn’t mean that we don’t need a letterpress calendar to take us throughout the year! If you haven’t already gotten yours, check out this amazing Quilt Pattern Letterpress on Etsy! Half the proceeds go to help out a deserving family, so it’s a win-win all around!
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Full Moon in Cancer/Capricorn & Swimming Against The Tide Mixtape!
I’ll come right out and say it: 2012 has been difficult so far, and it’s only week number 2! How can that be, I think! I mean, really, I love New Years! I love all the things that come with New Years–starting afresh, getting things done, making lists, prioritizing, planning, the whole shebang! And yet this year, I feel like I’m swimming against the tide, and Mars isn’t even Retrograde yet! I’ve even had dreams I’m swimming in crystal clear waters upstream with fires raging all around me. Could it be due to the Mars Retrograde Shadow that’s been in effect since November 20th? I do wonder. Everyone seems to be swimming against their own personal tide that is not helping them. While home visiting the fam (where it rained the entire time!), with both my parents sick and stuck in the house with nowhere to go, I got sick and recovered twice. Returning to New York, a week later I am sick yet again!
And it’s not just that. I’ve come to some realizations that I’m just not making the headway I thought I was in certain areas of my life. And all my attempts to move forwards seem to be blocked some way or another. I’m trying to take it all as a cosmic sign that I should be slowing down, and in fact not moving ahead where I think I should move ahead. See, even as an astrologer, it’s hard for me to take my own advice sometimes!
So I’m trying to remember in this pre-Mars, soon to be Mars Retrograde phase, that sometimes, very often, we don’t know what’s good for us. And if you really try and swim against the stream, you’re just going to exhaust yourself and make yourself sick, like I have. I’m going to try and be more Zen, if I can. Forget about “do-ing” for the next couple of months, and try to “be” instead. “Being” doesn’t actually require “do-ing” at all, which is something I sometimes forget!
Have a listen to my “Swimming Against the Tide” mix tape if you’re feeling a little flummoxed yourself!
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Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012 and “Project Renewal”
2012 has arrived! I feel it’s lucky that 2012 began with the Moon in High Voltage Aries. I personally had a great time dancing in the New Year! Which is good since with Mars going retrograde too soon for my taste on January 23rd, and staying that way until April 13th, we all may feel the slowdown, and like fish trying to swim against the stream. Mars is already slowing down; while in a normal two week period it might move 10 degrees, it will now move only 2 degrees until it goes retrograde in two and a half weeks!
So while I’m not really feeling very New Year’s Resolution inspired this year, If you do need to start something important start it now! Even by the weekend of the 20/21st I would not recommend initiating anything new. Mars rules action, and when it goes Retrograde, reviewing, resting, and relaxing, are the order of the day not running out and starting dozens of new projects! If you want to revise or finish something that you’ve already started however, or rethink a plan, or even re-decorate your home, it’s not a bad thing, and in fact you’ll find you’ll be helped along in that area. Given that this Mars Retrograde will be in Virgo it will be an even better time to re-organize or de-clutter anything that needs it!
Don’t even get me started on how Venus will be going Retrograde in May before we’ve even finished the Mars Shadow once it does finally go direct! Let’s just say I’m not planning anything big to get started until at least July or possibly August, and what I do expect is that the cards of my life are going to get reshuffled around in ways that I least expect it! Hopefully through everything though, we’ll all get some very much needed down time and relaxation for the first half of the year. While resting and taking time for renewal aren’t always popular things to do, they’re very important if one is going to continually grow! So I’m dubbing the first half of 2012 as “Project Renewal” because we’re going to get so many opportunities to revise and renew in our lives!
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Wordless Wednesday
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A Holiday Mix-Tape For You!
It’s Christmas Eve, the Fifth night of Hanukkah, and the New Moon in Capricorn was this morning at 10:08 am PST and 1:08 pm EST, and Jupiter will go direct officially tomorrow at 2:10 pm PST, 5:10 pm EST! That’s all you need to really know astrology-wise; we’re starting a new Moon Cycle and soon Jupiter, the Santa Claus of planets, will turn Direct and we’ll start feeling like luck is on our side again!
So while you’re relaxing by the fire, have a listen to this “Winter Wonderland” mixtape. May your days be filled with the holiday spirit, sharing good times with friends and family, thinking of the abundance of the good times of the past and how grateful we are for what we have! May you also get to put your fuzzy-slippered covered feet up and get some good rest!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanza, or Festivus (for the rest of us) to you all!
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Wordless Wednesday
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In Praise of Unfinished Business
This past Mercury Retrograde really threw me. I hadn’t even noticed that it was going to go Retrograde in my 6th house of Work/Health, which is probably why I was surprised I was sick and overworked for pretty much all of it! Ironically I only started feeling back to my normal energy level last Wednesday after Mercury went Direct. Before then, my head was foggy and my energy level so low I did nothing of the holiday revelry that others have this holiday season. Now that I’m back in action, however, with only 5 days left before Christmas, I feel completely behind the 8-ball! I’ve been scrambling to get presents and feeling like this should be early December, not less than two weeks away from 2012!
I always loved school for the sense of completion it gave; you took a class, worked hard, got a good grade, and then the class was over. Until you took another one! But life is not like school in that lessons do not come pre-packaged with a syllabus and homework reading, no one is really monitoring your progress except yourself, and there’s no teacher to give you a gold star or an A for important accomplishment or an official Transcript!
Which is why, I shouldn’t really be so hard on myself that I have an unfinished holiday ornament wreathe on my wall. I began to decorate my apartment early this year, by Nov. 19th in fact! I was having a get together and wanted to have some pre-holiday cheer. It was a good thing I did, given that I never really got around to completely finishing the ornament ball I made. If you look closely you can see that for the upper right area I ran out of ornaments but I simply put the darn thing up anyways! I figured I would get around to finishing it before the holidays.
That hasn’t happened, but I realize that in fact, it’s OK to have unfinished projects and goals in life. In fact, it’s more than OK! Because if my house were perfectly clean I might have too much time on my hands, and if I finished every project or book I tried to read, I might not start anything or certainly would curtail my personal growth in a lot of areas. They always say it’s OK to fail because you learn from your failures, but I’d like to point out this holiday season that it’s OK to not finish everything you start. To leave something for later. I always think that I’m going to have time to organize my CD collection, but the truth is, it may never get organized (and at a certain point you have to ask, since all my music is digitized now anyways, do I really even need to organize it?).
So as I review 2011 and think about my accomplishments and resolutions that I did achieve and the ones that I did not, I contemplate the unfinished holiday ornament wreathe on my wall, and think “It’s OK that I didn’t get it all done in 2011. There is always tomorrow!”
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Mercury is going Direct: Let’s the Holidays Begin!
There are times when one can’t wait for a Mercury Retrograde to end, just like one can’t wait to return home after a long trip! That’s how I feel right now; this retrograde has been long and exhausting! There have been lost packages coming to me, Netflix dvds missing in the mail, orders being cancelled, miscommunications with friends, friends getting the dates of brunch wrong, friends being too ill to go to brunch, and cancellations and rescheduling of book groups! I was planning on a little pre-holiday downtime and instead I got a lot of pre-holiday runaround and being ill. What I’ve been able to do, I’ve had to often redo twice in order for them to get them done at all, which almost made me wish I was sicker than I already was, because then maybe I wouldn’t have tried to accomplish anything during this Mercury Retrograde!
If it weren’t the holidays I wouldn’t have been trying to initiate new things at all. That is the “general rule” during most Retros: don’t start something new, but instead finish and review things you’ve already started. I even have to give myself the advice I give everyone else: if you are blocked doing one thing, do what you can do; don’t initiate agendas if you’re not getting anywhere, be flexible and prepared for plans falling through and multiple re-schedulings! But the holidays do have a timeline associated with them sadly. This 12th month with a holiday at the end of the month I think can stress people out more than it relaxes!
However if you have been stressed out, I think will start to get better once Mercury goes direct starting tonight, December the 13th at 8:33 pm EST. In the direct chart, there’s a grand trine with Mercury the Moon and Uranus, in fire signs. This means you can start sending holiday packages out and buying presents if you haven’t already. There are still 12 days until Christmas, and we’ll be out of the Mercury post retrograde “shadow” by the time New Year’s Eve rolls around on the 31st. This means whatever has come up during the retrograde period that might need re-worked should be re-worked by then!
Let it snow and let the holiday season begin!
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