Clear Your Head: 2012 Virgo New Moon

September 15-16, 2012
7:11 PM PDT/ 10:11 PM EDT / 2:11 AM GMT
23 Virgo 37

Keeping your wits about you is advisable when an earthquake, demolition or high drama is underway. A renewed ability to do that is coming our way with this month’s Virgo New Moon. It’s bringing our minds back into focus and offers discernment, critical thinking, boundaries and awareness of health.

With Mercury, ruler of this Moon and of our mental processes, in proximity to the event, it’s giving our minds a boost and a tune-up, which will help you perceive much in your life more clearly.

You may actually get a racing sensation, as if your mind is in overdrive. That’s because the Sun and Moon are still in an easy link to Jupiter, who makes anything he contacts mushroom and zoom. He’s also greasing the flow of certain, well, sensible topics.

Practicalities are natural topics of thought and discussion. Analyzing, even over-thinking, is second nature, for the nonce. Reality checks are both advisable and welcome. Sobriety is appealing. So are well-drawn boundaries, sturdy fences and behaviors that support your well-being, like eating broccoli, keeping a regular bedtime and, perish forfend, stepping away from the computer or TV and getting some exercise.

Those inclinations are also coming from good old feet-on-the-ground Saturn. He’s in the picture, too, in a growth aspect to the New Moon, as he inches toward the end of his tour of duty in relationship-oriented Libra. This ups the incentive to clean up those loose ends (you know what I’m talking about), tackle the details of winding down and clearing out everything that is not going with you into the next phase of your life.

That same connection to Saturn also encourages choices that are healthy for you — in your thinking, in your words, in how you treat and feed your body, in your relationships, in the simplest and all-pervasive details of your daily life. That nudge is going to prove highly useful. Listen to it.

It’s one of the gifts of this New Moon, which is a perfectly timed assist to the changes and endings that are reshaping our worlds inside and out. This event occurs on the brink of the next clash of the titans, the Uranus/Pluto square on September 19, as well as the autumn equinox on the 22nd. The energies of the New Moon are linked to the radical transformation underway from the square, which are in turn fused to the chart for the equinox. In other words: What’s going on now affects the entire fall season.

A glimpse is possible of what that will bring. The New Moon is making a cooperative link to the North Node of destiny, a contact that offers an unemotional and piercingly perceptive preview of where all our current developments are heading. Worry and paranoia are possible side effects. If you slide into them, pay attention, and tune up your thinking by harnessing Jupiter’s optimism and asking: How does this benefit me?

Wrap your mind around the Uranian/Plutonian changes and the endings that are part of Saturn wrapping up his time in Libra. Consider consequences and ramifications. Face what you know you have to do. Use your own health as a measuring stick, too.

It’s time to sort the wheat from the chaff. Keep in mind: Some of that wheat is for you. Don’t give it all away, or put it into circumstances that are beyond nourishing. Use some for your own well-being.

And make a point in the coming days, no matter what happens, to head for the highest point of elevation. Climb on top of the rubble around you if you have to. Look far out into the distance and into the future. The entire path may still not be in view, but you can see a destination — and some of the steps that will take you there.

© 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.

Me me me me me: 2012 Leo New Moon

August 17, 2012
8:56 AM AM PDT/ 11:56 AM EDT / 3:56 PM GMT
25 Leo 8

The Leo New Moon invites you to bring all the recent developments back to that most important of starting places: You.

For months, we’ve been watching once-firm ground blow up around us, beneath our feet and across our inner landscapes. We’ve been exploring desires, relationship dynamics and attitudes about money and our core worth, and starting to think and talk about what it is we want now.

This week we’ve been facing down obsessions, power struggles, fears and scary, primal impulses. Healing core wounds connected to or affected by those monsters. And applying determination and resolve to relationships, agreements and all kinds of social conventions. (Hasn’t it been easy to state what you need lately? Unapologeticly? Matter-of-factly?)

This process has brought the cosmic approximation of installing an entitlement gene. Many of us didn’t get one at birth, but we’ve certainly been acquiring a greater comfort with the concept lately. If you haven’t thought of your recent journey in those terms, consciously try them on and play with them. There’s no time like the present, with the Leo New Moon in the sign of the self.

This fire Moon kindles a child-like passion for simply being alive, for reveling in being here without need to justify our existence. (A book that will help you explore that concept is Birthright: What It Is And How To Get It Back, by Jane Fleming, a perceptive author who was, at least at one time, a reader of mine.) Underscoring that this is right and good is a helpful aspect to Mars and Saturn, rulers of our drive and ability to act responsibly, who are just coming off a meeting in the relationship sign of Libra. We’ve got the motivation and wherewithal for serious relationship work — bringing in reciprocity, dismantling the faltering connections, locking in the ones that work and, most of all, proceeding on a stronger, firmer, truer sense of self.

Allowing yourself to do this is not entirely comfortable. The Uranus/Pluto change edict is sending vaguely unsettling undercurrents into this New Moon that may shoot a mix of agitation and nervous excitement into your solar plexus. No wonder: Setting up relationships with yourself first is a departure from how many of us were brought up. Many of us, particularly Baby Boomers, were taught a false and disempowering humility that led to devaluing our own needs and making choices and decisions (including how we positioned or presented ourselves) based on our concept of what the other person or society expected. And how’s that been working lately? You see my point.

What works now is being fully yourself, neither holding back nor compromising on core values, and teaming with people who are doing the same. Awareness and openness are key, which mean paying attention to signals that a situation isn’t an appropriate fit and also being straightforward about what you are willing to do and what you need and expect in return.

Right now, this level of awareness and communication happens easily and brings grounding and stability, thanks to the Mars/Saturn connection. It’s also coming naturally (and impulsively) from the tight link going on between Mercury and Uranus, the mundane and higher rulers of the mind. We have to express our unique selves; in fact, that expression is going to fly out of us even if we attempt to tamp it down and behave maturely and soberly.

So: Let yourself come out to play, in all your quirky unique expressive glory. Be honest about what you want and what you’re willing to do. Ask for both. Make agreements you can keep (and then keep them). If a situation or proposed agreement requires you to give up too much, or anything important of yourself, well, maybe that’s not right for you. (I’m hearing Billy Joel as I type, “Don’t go changing….”)

And most of all: Make it fun.

© 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.

There’s Got To Be a Morning After: Forecast For June 25 – July 1

Big events often give way to a stretch of time to assimilate and acclimate, and that’s what’s happening now. Monumental influences have rocked us for the past month, especially in the last week. Instead of new ones entering the mix (as if anyone could deal with that!*), we get to see more and more of what’s already with us.

Latrelle speaks for so many of us, at 1:10.

Don’t kid yourself: The intensity is not going away. We’re not so much getting a break from it as getting acclimated to it. Stuck places of all kinds (beliefs, situations, relationships) have hit an evolve-or-die point. Nothing’s changing quickly. Even if immediate circumstances lurch into a new form, the ground beneath them is going to continue to shift over the long haul. We have entered an evolutionary process that will play out over years. Sunday’s Uranus/Pluto square was only the first round, pushing the process to the point of no return (If you haven’t read my short article on what that means, take the time now.)

It’s way too early to tell what this first round is really dredging up, much less what we are going to do with or about it. This week has an air of immobility, with much hanging in the air and little opportunity for resolution — an ideal formula for assimilating and acclimating.

More old stuff will be surfacing as Jupiter crosses the South Node of the past and whips up a flurry-to-tornado of archaic though patterns, memories folks and communications. The amusement value could be high; this is the type of influence that could deliver a letter or package that’s been presumed lost. The personal growth value could be high as well. Pay attention to old thinking that flies out of you. You could find yourself making statements that come from a you of long ago, and that you thought had left years ago, too.

Big shifts in those departments build as Friday approaches, when the Sun makes harsh aspects to both of the change agents and compels each of us to get with their program. (Soundtrack: Break on Through to the Other Side by The Doors.) No matter how wild and wooly the outside is becoming, the most important place of evolution is — all together now — inside you.

Besides the Uranus/Pluto square resonating, two planets are stationing direct without moving ahead. One is the ruler of time, Saturn, who is in charge of Pluto, and who ends his five-month review of relationships, agreements, reciprocity and social contracts on Monday. The other is the ruler of relationships, money and worldly values, Venus, who is in charge of Saturn, and who ends her five-week retrograde on Wednesday. Slowly — slowly — all manner of relationship, money and social matters are ripening into new and improved forms, made possible by what we’ve been encountering, rethinking and renegotiating during these retrogrades. The new forms aren’t springing up overnight, though. We can sense them, we can see them, but we have to allow them to show up on a schedule outside our control.

As Venus turns direct and eventually moves forward, stalled situations will start gearing up; ones that vaporized will come back into the picture. A big plus all around, the cosmic warning light will go dark where potential love interests and business deals are concerned. You can resume evaluating offers on the basis of your own instincts or intuition (or, let’s be honest, animal appeal) without an invisible finger wagging at you.

Even before Venus and Saturn move, concepts and talk are going to grow lively and impassioned without resulting in appreciable follow-through — until the weekend, when they fuel the personal, internal conflagration each of us is experiencing in the Uranus/Pluto aftermath. The culprit/facilitator is Mercury, the planet of communication, who abandons the emotional waters of Cancer on Monday for the playful, drama-loving fires of Leo. His shift is putting more pep in our minds, conversations and jaunts around town.

Over the weekend he closes in on Uranus’ force field, and the approach could be like a match moving toward a candle flame and igniting inches before they touch. What’s igniting is your own impulse to break out of confinement. Let your hair down. Let your inner child out. Be outrageous.

For more big-picture information (and strategies), visit my Summer of 2012 Resource page. Bookmark this and come back to it again and again!

For another take on this week’s events, listen to my quickie podcast. If you like it, please give it five stars on iTunes! (Please? I know it’s a pain for some of you to use, but that brief action would be a greatly appreciated gesture of appreciation.)

I Feel The Earth Move: Forecast for June 18-24, 2012

Summer’s here! Life is supposed to magically flip back into lazy hazy days now, right? Not this year. Intense is the new normal, and this week drives that home.

The action is nonstop, with four big events, movement toward a fifth and very little down time. That last is a necessity, though, and it’s largely up to you to carve it out for yourself. Periodically take a break, clear your mind, regroup and refocus. That’s the strategy to navigate not only this extraordinary week, but also the foreseeable future.

Summer officially begins on Wednesday, with the solstice (at 7:09 PM EDT). The Sun’s annual move into Cancer is a major turning of the year and sets the tone for the next three months. All the current astrological influences color what we’ll be experiencing throughout the entire summer. Read the rest of this forecast with that in mind. It applies until the middle of September.

Tuesday’s New Moon in Gemini renews the reminder to reconsider your what flows in and out of your head and the vehicles your mind and body use to get around. All are ripe for a new phase. That’s the impetus of the Gemini end of the current eclipse cycle, and it’s getting whipped up by bigger-is-better Jupiter settling into that sign for a year’s stay. We’ll be hearing more and more from old thoughts, old paradigms, old teachings, etc. over the next few weeks, as Jupiter moves toward a meeting with the South Node of the past (which will be exact next month).

Wait a second — did I just say New Moon in Gemini? Didn’t we have one last month? Yes, indeedy; good call, all you attentive readers. May’s New Moon solar eclipse was at the very first degree of Gemini; this month’s is at the next to last. Two consecutive New Moons in the same sign is like the cosmos saying, “And we really mean it!” Read more in my mooncast, which will be on the site sometime Monday.

Issues of reciprocity, fairness, negotiation, obligations and restructuring in relationships and agreements are under the magnifying glass all week. We can’t look away. Questions tug at us relentlessly. What’s working? What isn’t? What’s crushing your back? What has run its course? Even if we figure out what we want to do — even if we actually start discussing what we want to do — actual movement is a ways off. Saturn, the slowest influence in the sky, is coming to a stop in the sign of relationships, Libra. On Friday, he enters the exact degree and minute where he will turn direct next Tuesday. It’s just not time yet. We have to lie in the beds we made just a bit longer.

Besides, more fundamental issues are screaming for attention. On Sunday, Uranus and Pluto finally complete the square they’ve been moving toward. This tense, action-demanding aspect is beneath the general discomfort that’s been so endemic. These two planets (and a big puh-leeeez to not treating Pluto as a planet for astrological purposes) are agents of change, which disrupt and transform, respectively, everything they touch, and their brewing battle has been rocking and stressing out the very foundations of our lives and institutions. Now the pressure is reaching the point that something must give way. Stress lines are fracturing, situations breaking apart, attachments shattering.

This is no one-off, but the first in a series of seven exact squares between now and 2015. The first round may be more muffled or internal or — dare I say it? — gentler than the ones to follow, because of when it occurs: while most of us in the Western Hemisphere are sleeping (5:12 AM EDT), during a void of course Moon. Developments that occur when the Moon is void (done making major aspects before entering the next sign) have a way of unraveling later. This is fitting for the first in a long sequence of change aspects. Whatever goes down now is not the end of the story, but the beginning of a process that will morph and morph and morph…and deposit each of us into a completely new way of living.

This ongoing aspect is so important that I have written a separate overview, so that my explanation has staying power beyond a weekly forecast. You can read it here.

The only scheduled breathing room in all this activity is Thursday, when the Moon is void of course from mid-day on. Otherwise, it’s up to you to stake out down time. Take a break, clear your mind, regroup, refocus and remember what’s important. You’ll be all the more effective when you jump back into the fray.

Read my extended weekly forecast here.

For more big-picture information (and strategies), visit my Summer of 2012 Resource page. Bookmark this and come back to it again and again!

For another take on this week’s events, listen to my quickie podcast. If you like it, please give it five stars on iTunes! (Please? I know it’s a pain for some of you to use, but that brief action would be a greatly appreciated gesture of appreciation.)

© 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.

Neptune Dives Into Pisces and Splashes Up Some Archetypes

Watching the news is a great, easy and fun way to learn astrology by watching archetypes in action. A lot splashed in the surf as Neptune dove into Pisces on Feb. 3. Neptune’s the lord of the sea (and magic/illusion/alcohol/oil/film/artistry/transcendence), and his home base of Pisces contain the waters that connect all existence. Play spot-the-symbolism with these news briefs:

Ghost signs for Club Atlantis were found under the boardwalk in Coney Island.

Gaze upon the first Wee Peeple doll of the year, a dark goddess with sea shells and a watery backdrop (and read a Uranus moving into squaring Pluto tale, to boot).

CNN reported a possible leak at a California nuclear plant (this has Uranian/Plutonian overtones, too).

On the first Sunday of Neptune’s 14-year voyage, through Pisces, Antenna Television aired an episode of “Circus Boy” with an unintended but pitch-perfect summation of the potential of the next few years when Neptune is traveling with Chiron, the wounded healer, who represents the challenge to master the physicality of existence. The Pisces child actor Mickey Braddock (nee Dolenz, and later of The Monkees), gave a pep talk to an aerialist whose leg and nerve had been broken by a fall from the highwire. Being a big man means you don’t run away from problems. You recognize that people need each other. And you have to forgive. “Who do I have to forgive?” “Yourself.”

That evening, the phrase “The Sea Is Calling” appeared against a black background in a commercial for the Royal Caribbean cruise line during the Superbowl.

And, in pre-show action, while Neptune was at the end of Aquarius and approaching a trine to Saturn (rules and authority) in Libra (society and law),

Calm Within the Storm: Forecast for the Week of Oct. 3, 2011

Life continues to be chaotic, yet balance is increasingly easier to maintain or regain. That’s not coming from external factors, though they may be reflecting it. This week, stability is an inside job.

The week brings three more meetings with Saturn, overseer of order, structure, commitment and responsibility. Mercury, who rules how our minds and bodies move about, has appointments with Saturn by declination and by degree. Clarity, seriousness and purposefulness all permeate our thinking, our info gathering and our running around.

Our personalities and approach to our lives are in for a growth spurt in seriousness and personal responsibility as well. The Sun joins up with Saturn by declination on Friday, presaging their conjunction coming next week on the 13th. A cosmic alarm clock is going off, and this one is minus a snooze button.

Relationships enjoy a special, softened, enlightened glow as the weekend approaches, thanks to the two planets of love connecting on Friday. This link does not have partners clutching at and potentially suffocating each other. Instead, it fosters plenty of breathing room and admiration for each person’s individuality, with Venus and Neptune being in the late degrees of the air signs Libra and Aquarius. It’s the sort of vibration that inspires supporting your mate/partner/friend/special person to be his or her best possible self.

For my full take on the week, read my extended forecast and listen to my five-minute podcast.

P.S. In recognition of the recent epidemic of upheavals, I am offering special “we’re in this together” reading rates.

A Wild Ride (or Four): Forecast for the Week of July 25

Are you having fun yet? You should be. Sure, the summer is still tense and intense, but some incredibly wonderful breaks are having for lots of people.

More heads spins are in store this week, and how. Life isn’t a cabaret; it’s a carnival ride. Lots more’s in my forecast for the week and ever so brief podcast (barely four minutes this time!)

Want tips for navigating the energies for this summer and the rest of the year? Hie thee to my mp3 OUT OF THE REBIRTH CANAL: After the Cancer/Capricorn Eclipses, Now What?

Well, Trine My Fire: The Launch of My Astro-Videoblog

My astrology videoblog ignited into reality on Friday the 13th. The idea had been kicking around for almost a year. It took the march of planets through the last degrees of Aries to make it happen.

Last week transiting Mars (action) in my second house (my talents and earning potential) trined my natal Jupiter and Pluto (over-the-top expressions of power and transformation) in the sixth (daily work). Full-blown ideas for a half dozen videos erupted, down to props and camera angles. On Friday the 13th (I do love that date), Venus (women, money, values, art) and Mercury (communication) made trines to Jupiter/Pluto as well, and the astrological symbolism spread like wildfire throughout the day (and, apparently, my psyche).

The first stage was lunch with two female colleagues, an Aries bankruptcy attorney and a Scorpio business coach, the latter of whom kept bringing the conversation back to setting a value on our services, speeding up the time frame for financial goals and taking imperfect action instead of waiting for ideal circumstances. (Don’t you love the magic realism of astrological aspects?)

That imperative seized the day. “I’ll get around to it someday” turned into a couple of test shoots and diving with the Fool’s confidence into my first solo edit using iMovie, which I haven’t even opened since my only One-to-One training session for the program two years ago. I set up a new YouTube channel to house the blog, The Professional Aquarian, and sent out the first wave of announcements of the new arrival.

On reflection, I now see that the launch was right on schedule. When Mars, Venus and Mercury sparked my Jupiter/Pluto conjunction, they also set off the degree of last December’s Gemini lunar eclipse. The trio completed a grand trine to the Sun’s position then, in my 10th house (public life), and sextiled the Moon’s point in my 4th (home). And what happened at that eclipse? I received a group gift from my siblings and the media-savvy quasi-family member who had first suggested the blog: a video camera.

The solar eclipse coming on June 1 is conjunct my Mars. December’s lunar eclipse is on my MC/IC. This rocket ship is heading to points unknown. I have a good feeling about this!

Eternal thanks to Matt Wayne and Divya Chandra for suggesting the blog, to Karen Biehl, Kurt Biehl, Kim Fryar and Matt Wayne for providing the technology, and to Barbara Nelson for unwittingly pouring lighter fluid on the fire.

Animals and Astrology

Pluto’s entry into Capricorn is behind the serious, back-to-basics drive that so many of us are feeling. Like a low-level background noise that won’t turn off, it’s generating physical and emotional stress for everyone, no matter how good or bad a shape you’re in. Animals are being affected, too. I discuss how pets may be reacting and how you can help them on the Conscious Animal Radio blog, consciousanimal.blogspot. The direct link to my post is http://consciousanimal.blogspot.com/2008/12/your-pets-and-current-astrological.html.