Forecast for April 30-May 6, 2012

This week we’re alternating between the accelerator and the brake pedal. No wincing at the prospect of braking! It may prove more welcome and beneficial than you think.

The start/stop vibe offers opportunities to breathe and acclimate as events speed up. It can also be fun, especially if you decide to take advantage of the braking times. Fortunately, they’re on a predictable schedule this week, which means you can plan for and work with them.

Mars, the planet the rules action and motivation, is propelling us forward. The pressure on him (form the Moon’s nodes) is squeezing us to move from old, knee-jerk behaviors into healthier, more conscious approaches. Memories of the past do not need to control. The fact that some are surfacing — and painful ones, at that, thanks to tension between Mars and Chiron — just as easily means that they’re coming up for airing, addressing and healing.

While Mars is pumping the gas pedal, other forces are bearing on the brake. Every other day this week, the Moon is void of course for at least eight hours at a stretch.

Brief refresher on voids: A void starts when the Moon makes its last aspect in one sign and ends when she enters the next. Although the nature of that last aspect colors the void, all voids have certain characteristics in common. They are diffuse, dreamy and hard to steer. During the void, it’s really best to sit back and let things happen. Nothing lasting generally comes of matters that start or are pushed then, so do not schedule important meetings or contract signings during them. Use the time instead for quiet, renewal, brainstorming, contemplation and generally letting life play out.

The start/stop schedule runs like this: All systems are go Monday until mid morning, when the Moon goes void from 10:18 AM – 7:43 PM EDT. We’re back online Tuesday. Wednesday we’re down again for the entire day, with the Moon void from about 7 AM till around 10 PM EDT. Thursday gets a green light that lasts till early afternoon Friday, when the Moon goes void from 2:02 PM – 10:20 PM EDT. Saturday is westward, ho! (and a Full Moon in Scorpio, too; look for my forecast on the site by Friday.) Sunday is truly a day of rest, with the Moon void from 8:14 AM to 9:40 PM EDT.

Start/stop. Start/stop. Start/stop. Do not let this drive you nuts. Use the flow and ebb. The pace will zoom, and then it won’t. By the time that happens, you’ll be craving a break. Let up; think; ponder; take it what’s just happened in the flurry; regroup.

Think of this week as a long car trip. When you’re moving, you’re making great time and gobbling up the miles. When the voids hit, pull off the road and stretch your legs. Explore the thoughts and emotions you’ve pushed back while in the thick of the action (all of which will grow more and more noticeable as the Full Moon approaches). Have a snack. Head for a scenic overlook and enjoy the view. Snooze, even. The change of pace will clear your mind, recharge your stamina and make your attention all the keener and sharper.

More in my extended weekly forecast and quickie podcast.

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Second Gear: Forecast for April 23-29, 2012

It’s time to get moving! (And aren’t you ready for it, too?) This is a week of consolidating, mental house cleaning, and incremental progress.

The slow foundational firming and improvement that we’ve been observing since mid-March is becoming tangibly personal — not a theory, not something we’re witnessing in our environment, but something we are experiencing for ourselves. The Sun is bringing that to fruition, along with some of the promise of last Saturday’s Taurus New Moon.

He’s completing the easy flow of energy of a trine to Mars (the ruler of our drive, in the earth sign of discernment, perfecting, and healthy habits and boundaries) and to Pluto (the purifier and regenerator, in the earth sign of structures, long-term security, organizations and traditions). The one-two contact facilitates internalizing the foundation and garden work you’ve been doing (metaphoric and real), as well as attention to physicality, fixing and organizing, making deep-level changes and refocusing your daily routine and environment with an eye to what is healthy, productive and efficient.

Sounds like a formula for breaking or adopting habits, doesn’t it? That’s certainly one arena to tackle now. All of you who have been tinkering with habits, with exercise routines and/or with diet have cosmic back-up for locking in those new approaches.

The trines will also push action on those items that carry over from week to week to (be honest) month on your to-do list. All those tasks you’ve been putting off are ripe for resolution — which may mean deciding they’re worth less attention than you’d been fearing, and in some cases none at all.

All this comes with a big dose of feeling like you’re getting somewhere. Productivity can be amazingly energizing, especially after the last two exhausting weeks of Mars dawdling in the sky. which left so many of us feeling like scorched earth. The planet of action is on the move again, at last, not merely out of retrograde but actually moving from one to degree to another, which will cause momentum to build and build and build.

As he inches along, he’s getting monkey-in-the-middle pressure from the Moon’s nodes, which will crest next week. The tension is forcing out into the open simmering aggressions and impelling choices between falling back into old behaviors and thinking or striving toward ones that are healthier for one and all. (That spells more support for lifestyle changes!)

Easing up on yourself is also part of the picture — a nice combination, don’t you think: making progress and not beating up on yourself that it’s taken so long. With the Sun in a cooperative link to Chiron, look for evidence that you’ve actually done quite well with the standstill energies of late and achieved quite a bit. If evidence doesn’t jump out at you, look for opportunities, even tiny ones, to treat yourself gently and kindly. (In fact, do that even if you’re awash in evidence of achievement.)

While you’re consolidating, moving forward and giving yourself slack, maybe even indulging in some pats on the back, you’ll be throwing out some of what’s been in and on your mind. Messenger Mercury is reverberating from Sunday’s meet-up with the volatile genius of Uranus, which resounds again on Thursday. “It’s crazy, but it just might work!” is the catchphrase of the week as wacky, innovative but workable ideas and approaches break out everywhere, along with the daring to give them a try.

And if the bolts don’t strike you in that way, they promise to deliver unexpected messages that tilt your thinking and change the picture into something much, much different. The impact leads not to rubbing your forehead or wondering what in the world you’ll do know, but springing to action, impulsively and boldly.

In this gauntlet of openness to new ways of thinking, Mercury makes an action-demanding link to Pluto the transformer. Caution goes out the window. Raw truths, even secrets, come to the surface. Game-changing information pops out. Thinking changes, permanently. Certain concepts aren’t going along for the ride any longer. The cumulative result is streamlining, liberating, motivating and energizing.

More in my extended weekly forecast and quickie http://www.empowermentunlimited.net/Empowerment_Unlimited/Podcasts_Video.html.

Ask me a question on the air from 10-midnight EDT Thursday, April 26 when I am the guest on the Be The Light Now BlogTalk Radio show. (That’s the West Coast friendly time of 7-10 PDT.) The call-in number is (347) 539-5349.

Barefootin’: Forecast for the Taurus New Moon

April 21, 2012
12:20 AM PDT / 3:20 AM EDT / 7:20 AM GMT
1 Taurus 35

Spring has well and truly taken hold, and the Taurus New Moon invites us to go outdoors and enjoy it. Take your shoes off and walk in the grass, even. We live in physical bodies on a beautiful, bountiful planet. Contact with the earth and simple pleasures are called for now, to ground us and feed both body and spirit.

Appropriately, this year the Taurus New Moon falls on the eve of Earth Day, an ecological awareness celebration-cum-movement that started in 1970. The back-to-back events parallel the back-to-basics impetus in the sky.

We are personally assimilating and experiencing the fertile potential of the grand trine in earth (I just typed ground trine again!) that locked into place mid-March. That line-up (Jupiter and Venus in Taurus, Mars in Virgo and Pluto in Capricorn) solidified a small but stable patch of turf in each of our lives. Growth has been slowly but noticeably flourishing on that patch, which will serve as a personal point of stability as challenging aspects ramp up this summer.

The Sun and the Moon are now moving toward the position that Jupiter occupied during that trine. The rational/willful and nonrational parts of our being are taking in and making concrete the stabilizing, grounding and, above all, tangible gifts of that manifesting energy.

At the moment of the New Moon, the two luminaries are in an easy flow with Mars in Virgo, a helpful contact that encourages taking care of your physical body as well as your environment. (Who else has been altering his or her diet? Or noticed the epidemic of interest in vegan or plant-heavy eating lately?) This flow can help you lock in attentiveness to physical needs, whether that translates into exercising or shifting your diet or dropping a habit with physical consequences or keeping a more regular, efficient schedule.

Ease in shifting, dropping and changing will continue after the New Moon, as the Sun and the Moon each move into an exact trine with Pluto and his regenerating powers. That link will build with the Moon phase and draw attention more and more to simplicity, to basics, to the unadorned and natural. (Now would be an optimal time to start paying attention to where your food comes from, if you haven’t been.)

Simplicity does not mean lack; in fact, it can open the door to an all-encompassing, all-pervasive grace, even ecstasy. Ever eaten a strawberry fresh off the plant? Or a fish that has just been caught? Unadulterated flavors pack an intensity that packaged foods (much less laboratory flavorings) can’t replicate. So does a spectacular sunset, a spring day with a clear and perfect sky, or the twinkling canopy of a night sky free from light pollution.

Simple transcendence — not merely awareness of, but also awe at the presence of a realm outside the physical — is available to you. The New Moon is making a cooperative link to Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. Spirit is not relegated to churches and temples. The spiritual is part of the continuum of existence. These days, we’re living with our heads in the clouds (some days more than others!) and feet on the ground. The spiritual and the earthly work in tandem, spirit adding grace and transcendence to physicality and physicality providing a vessel for the expression of the spiritual. In effect, Neptune and Chiron are watering the garden where the New Moon is hanging out.

One more note about earthly pleasures: Impulses will run high to share them. The New Moon is ruled by Venus, who is on her own in affable, talkative Gemini, in the shadow of the retrograde she will enter in May. (We’ll revisit some current relationship and money themes, issues and individuals as she moseys back across this area in June.) She’s caught up in the mutual reception going on between Mercury (mental processes, communication and travel) and Mars (our drive and ambition, plus the masculine in general). Because she is in Gemini, Venus answers to Mercury in Aries, who answers to Mars in Virgo, who answers to Mercury…and back again.

All of which means you aren’t likely to lounge in the grass by yourself. The inclination is rampant to reach out and connect — in packs, at parties, on a date with one person and then on a date with someone completely different. This is footloose, no-strings territory; think “carpe diem” with a scout’s sensibilities. Don’t hold back in asking for what you in the moment…and then move on to the next moment’s delight.

© Kathy Biehl 2012. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this article as long as the copyright notice is intact. No part may be used or reprinted without my prior written permission. Karma, ya know.

First Gear: Forecast for April 16-22, 2012

The pause button is off. The brakes are being released. All manner of developments are creaking forward and gaining slow but rolling momentum. That’ll mount and speed up next week. What’s important now is that mobility has returned.

That’s because two bodies in the sky have regained ease of motion. One is Mars, the planet of action, who ended his nearly three-month retrograde over the weekend. Matters that have been stalled are moving into position for something, anything, to happen with them at last. Mars will not clear the degree of his turn-around until Monday of next week, which gives us one last, solid week of fiddling with details, fixing, organizing and tidying up.

The Mars Travel Agency

Mercury, ruler of communication, transportation and the technology that has become so pervasive in our lives, is the other body moving more comfortably. The week begins with him leaving the all-connected, sometimes confusing waters of Pisces for the fiery impulsiveness of Aries. Some of that recent brain fog will be dissipating, thank gawd, and we’ll be getting our mental groove back. Mercury is far more compatibly and comfortable in Aries, which encourages bold, independent leaps of thought and action. He was last in these parts in the beginning of March, before his retrograde, and instances may arise now of picking up pieces from them and moving ahead.

With Mercury back in Aries, he is resuming a special relationship with Mars. Each of these planets is in a sign the other governs. This relationship is called a mutual reception, and it blends their energies and influences, so that anything that happens with one resonates with the other. With both of them moving comfortably now, everything that breaks loose or inches forward will have an added oomph, excitement, exhilaration … or maybe just impulsiveness.

Not all of the impulsiveness is going to be pretty, or sweet, or fun. Mars is approaching a clash with the nodes of the Moon, which represent the path to the future, on one end, and instinctual, past behaviors on the other. This clash will dislodge more angry bursts from masculine forces attempting to drag the collective back decades. (Mars is moving into a showdown with Chiron, too, so a lot of wounds are getting salted and irritated.) On a personal level, watch for situations to impel you (not compel — you have a choice) to ditch old ways and step into ones that can carry you into the future. Healthier habits, healthier eating, healthier boundaries, healthier thought patterns, more efficient systems — those are just a few ideas of where the pressure’s heading.

The point is to settle more fully into physical experience and live fully and sensually in the moment. On Thursday, the Sun enters the enjoy-the-earth-mode of Taurus and resuscitates the foundational shoring up of the earth grand trine that took place in mid-March. The Taurus New Moon follows on Saturday, in a tight, easy flow to Mars, a tight cooperative link to Neptune and an easy flow to Pluto that will intensify as the Sun and the Moon move apart. (Read more in my mooncast, which will be posted by Friday.)

This progression is making personal and internal the gifts of last month’s grand trine. At that point, three areas of your life locked together and firmed up, into a supportive patch of ground, tiny as it may be, that is beginning to flourish. Mystical, transcendent Neptune is watering that patch of ground now — perhaps with compassion (toward yourself, first of all), perhaps with artistic inspiration, perhaps with spiritual guidance and insight — and nurturing further growth. This is the platform on which you will stand when Uranus and Pluto go at it in June and September . It’s the promontory that will remain beneath your feet when other parts of your surroundings and life break away.

Ponder the nature and parameters of this patch on a symbolic level. Then go outdoors and immerse yourself in the physical world around you.

More in my extended weekly forecast and quickie weekly podcast.

IN HONOR OF TAX TIME: UNDERSTANDING YOUR MONEY CODE
Your birth chart shows how you’re wired for attitudes about money, your earning capacity and your self-worth. In this special 30-minute reading you will learn your code and how to work with it consciously — and express it in other ways other than what you’ve always been doing. $90. Info and booking here.

Forecast for April 9-15, 2012

Last week of special readings for Aries sun, moon and risings! Do you feel like you’re being challenged at every turn? I have a reading special just for you. Learn more…

Ready to say goodbye to that stalled-out feeling? Not so fast. Forward motion is returning this week (as millions cheer) but not anywhere near full speed. Best to embrace the leisurely pace. Take advantage of it, too. (You know what you haven’t tackled yet.) Soon enough it will be a distant memory.

This is one of the last weeks that affords the luxury of getting organized. Mars, the planet that rules our internal drive, will soon leave the fix-it mode he’s been in since January. Friday he stations direct, at last, in detail-oriented Virgo, which he has been backing through since late January. Even after he goes direct, he will not be marching ahead noticeably until the 23rd. — at which point the pace of life will speed up.

Instead of balking at, complaining about or fighting this week’s lull, get your life in order now. Repair your tools. Clean your desk. Set your work area up to support your activities more effectively and efficiently. Boring activities, yes, but throwing some time at them now will put you in a much more beneficial position when the energies start zooming and hopping and popping.

Your mind should be able to help out, for a welcome change. It’s part of the one area that is moving out of a stall. Thinking, communicating and getting around will all flow more easily, as their ruler Mercury finally gets going, after the seemingly backward motion he was in from mid-March through last Wednesday. He’s still in the sign of Pisces, which means that brain fog continues to be a factor…but at least we’ll be able to reach people on the phone, have questions answered, see ideas progress and develop and travel about more freely.

And people will be inclined to connect, chat and hang out together. The pause button will release on delayed conversations. Some of them may date back years, even decades. Old friends and unfinished business will be surfacing with relationship ruler Venus moving across the South Node of the past. She’s joining the nodes in putting pressure on Chiron, who embodies abiding wounds and challenges us to sink fully into physical human existence.

The ganging up is weighty enough to force a lot of clearing the air. Don’t be surprised if someone apologizes for — or confronts you about — an ancient offense. Long-suppressed issues find a way to the surface with a configuration like this.

That goes for our collective experience as well. The feminine will be throwing counter-punches in the escalating legislative and political battles to control women’s bodies. Some of her spokeswomen will be voicing views that hearken back to an idealized past that may not have ever existed…such as Phyllis Schafly rising last week from the dust of the 1970s to warn Citadel cadets against feminism (and their commander-in-chief).

Much of the connecting, sharing and surfacing is anything but a one-off. Some of these conversations and connections will be coming back around in the near future. By the end of the work week, Venus is entering the shadow of her upcoming retrograde (one of May’s attractions). She’ll be passing this way again at the end of June and beginning of July. Some of this week’s information and themes will return then.

One more retrograde colors the week. Pluto, the agent of unavoidable and metamorphic change, stations on Tuesday to retrograde until mid-September. In some ways, this will lighten the pressure that’s been building to transform our foundational structures. In other ways, this will simply send the rumbling to a deeper level. With this about-face, Pluto is moving into position for his first showdown with the other cosmic change agent Uranus. Their first clash may not be till the end of June, but its demand for action will be building palpably. As you feel the pressure build, look around for areas you could clean up and organize now to prepare.

More in my extended weekly forecast and quickie weekly podcast.

© Kathy Biehl 2012. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this article as long as the copyright notice is intact. No part may be used or reprinted without my prior written permission. Karma, ya know.

Push-Me Pull-You: Libra Full Moon

April 6, 2012
12:19 PM PDT / 3:19 PM EDT / 7:19 PM GMT
17 Aries 23 / 17 Libra 23

Our ability to coexist is up for review under the Libra Full Moon. The topic is not easy or comfortable under the best conditions. This time, it’s especially full of contradictory pulls.

This Moon takes place on the relationship axis, Aries and Libra, the two signs that connect each of us as individuals to other people one-on-one. The Full Moon lights up where your individual impulses are in harmony with your relationships (ground rules as well as people)…and where they are not.

Each of these signs is hosting an outer planet with divergent influences: rebellious and unpredictable Uranus in the sign of the individual and order-imposing Saturn on the relationship end. Uranus in Aries acts independently and impulsively, Libra favors compromise, and Saturn wants rules and agreements to be followed, for their own sake. The Sun and the Moon are literally caught in the middle of this dichotomy, since they fall roughly halfway between the two giants.

And so are you. This Full Moon is a point of culmination in this balancing act. Some of what the Moon lights up will be satisfying, headed for locking more deeply into place when the Moon meets up with Saturn. Some of what the Moon lights up could leave you feeling torn, with your mind and emotions at cross purposes and existing obligations hampering your ability to be a free agent (and yourself). And some of what you see will spur you — or other people — to action.

The Full Moon’s tension is part of the prolonged gear shift that relationships have been undergoing since the holidays. We’ve been in a relationship lab since Saturn entered Libra in the fall of 2009, and that’s wrapping up now with him in the final months and degrees of that sign. We’ve got till the beginning of September to tie up loose ends, nail down new arrangements and clean up ones that are history. Recent months have brought a flurry of relationships ending abruptly and bewilderingly, due to a disparity in reciprocity or commitment that made the arrangement unsupportable. Even people who are mourning a breakup have admitted to me that they could not accept the situation as it had become.

This Full Moon is a measuring point in the relationship lab wrap-up. Look at how you view yourself in relation to others now, what you are now willing to do and contribute and accept and, especially, what parts of the old game you are now longer willing to play. Look, too, at how the one-on-one connections are flowing differently and, especially, in how people are treating you differently. Look at how differently everything feels and is when you respect your needs and individuality and act with responsibility to yourself. Relationships become honest, genuine and real.

Still, tension and disparities abound. Something else in the sky is fueling them besides Uranus and Saturn, and that’s the clashing, head-butting contact the Full Moon’s rulers are making. The Moon’s ruler Venus (who rules our hearts and what we hold dear) is in Gemini, squaring the Sun’s ruler Mars (who rules our inner drive) in Virgo.

Heart and will are not allied. Neither are the feminine and masculine. (The national news should get interesting.) Their push against each other demands action. (Reeeeeally interesting.) That could take any form from flirting (with aggression masking attraction, as in screwball comedies) to outright combativeness. The action will likely involve what we think, say, hear and read, since the sparring lovers are in the two signs ruled by messenger Mercury.

Words aren’t going away; situations aren’t resolving quickly; thoughts and information will unspool for a while. Mercury’s just ended his retrograde, on Wednesday, and isn’t in any hurry to get moving. His lounging mode affects Venus, who is gearing up for her own retrograde (coming next month), and also Mars, who is retrograde himself and easing into the about-face that will take place next week. All of this spells slow burns, slow reveals and words that can not be taken back.

Take a long term view of this week’s developments. What is fair, responsible and supportive to you, first of all, and then to the other? What is unduly restrictive? These questions apply to the collective, too. (Take, for glaring example, the Supreme Court decision sanctioning strip searches for any arrest, even for minor offenses.)

Think about them. Talk about them. And get to work.

Are you Aries sun, moon or rising? Do you feel like you’re being challenged at every turn? I have a reading special for you. Learn more..

© Kathy Biehl 2012. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this article as long as the copyright notice is intact. No part may be used or reprinted without my prior written permission. Karma, ya know.

Hang Loose: Forecast for April 2-8, 2012

The big turnaround is starting now. This is the moment that the ocean liner changes direction, the engine enters the roundhouse and circles into an about-face, the boat of a car slowly backs-and-forths into a K-turn. Have you been organizing, clearing, prepping and getting into shape? Might want to tackle what you can. Time for them is already becoming scarce…and will be a luxury soon enough.

The two retrogrades are coming to an end that have been largely responsible for the every-which-way-but-forward drag we’re been experiencing. Their final days have the effect of brakes ever so slowly halting a train as it pulls into the station.

Much of the week will have a suspended in air feel, as if time has momentarily stopped. Mercury, the planet that rules communication and travel flow, is stationing direct on Monday, and will not move noticeably until next week. By the week, Mars will ease into the degree where he will turn direct next week.

Thought, conversations, messages, getting around, getting anything done will all move into slo-mo. On top of that, since Mars is in a stressed-out aspect to the cosmic fog machine Neptune, motivations are going to be murky, cloaked and misread. People could stop in mid-action with no idea of what they were doing or how they got there.

Be prepared for this, and utilize it. Take second, third and fourth looks at everything. Double-check your research, facts, data, reasoning and planning. Allow scads of extra time for traveling. Put your car and work space in order. Send out feelers without expectations of a time frame for responses; just send them out and wait and see what comes back when.

Make a game out of it. You may as well, because no one will be able to force or predict timing. Expect that to be forever and you can only be pleasantly surprised.

Oddly, as these two retrogrades are wrapping up, Venus is entering the sign where hers will take place in May and June. She rules what we value (money, possessions, our connections to others, traits and talents in ourselves), and she’s about to whip up a lot of talk and activity in that arena. About to, mind you. She moves on Tuesday into the communication and technology-happy sign of Gemini, but since that is ruled by Mercury — who is as good as motionless — her stay there will get off to a leisurely start.

In this slow, simmering stew comes the first Full Moon of spring, on Friday. The Libra Full Moon spotlights our social connections, agreements, responsibilities and obligations. How are they faring? How’s the reciprocity? How far have you come in winding up old business and patterns, renegotiating or clearing out unworkable situations and firming up mutually beneficial arrangements? (My moon cast will be up on the site Thursday.)

What we see in the light of this Moon is not going to fade from sight quickly, with so much slowed in the sky (and the Moon’s ruler Venus lounging about in Mercury’s home sign while he is, again, basically motionless). Saturn’s putting on the brakes as well. He’s a bit out of reach of the Full Moon proper, but he is in the Moon’s sign as well as in her path. Time will abound to think and talk and formulate responses and action plans. Implementing them is another matter. That comes later; they’re still ripening now.

Work with the slowness. Look closely. Inspect. Analyze. Ponder. Rethink. Redo. Reorganize. While you can.

More in my extended weekly forecast and quickie weekly podcast.

Are you Aries sun, moon or rising? Do you feel like you’re being challenged at every turn? I have a reading special for you. Learn more..