Last Full Moon in Leo, the IC, insights, and novelty.

Last week there was a full moon in Leo, square the nodes, and it only dawned on me now that it was opposing my progressed Moon in Aquarius.

I have been keeping super busy, trying new mediums and ways to channel creativity and fill my days with astrology work. It has been truly exciting but it’s so easy to lose track of balance and end up overdoing something – in particular, overworking and not paying enough attention to the need for conscious down time.

I had a mini health crisis on the day of the full moon, with food poisoning and a lot of purging and lacking energy to do anything else other than rest. The situation then got me thinking, what was I not paying attention to?

Looking into the symbolism of the IC for a talk I gave to the AFAN yesterday was so insightful (again). Growth is remembering, as we spirally move from stretching out of, to falling back into our patterns again and again.

One of my favourite things about astrology is its relationship to cycles. The beauty and reassurance of cycles. Everything has its right time, don’t you worry. This too shall pass, etc.

Gardening can be really useful in that way too, as we interact with land and weather, we see the ciclic motion in which life unfolds. No need for anxiety, no need to rush or resent. There is a right time for everything.

Astrology too, can help us with that, and as I worked on my presentation for yesterday’s talk, the importance of the IC was highlighted as, amongst other things, our place of rest. And by rest here, I don’t mean going to sleep every night. I am thinking of conscious rest, ritualistic down time as opposed to closing our eyes and drifting away.

(nothing wrong with that, we obviously need a good night of sleep in order to heal and recharge daily)

How many of you out there have given importance to down time as much as you do to productivity? Do you place those activities in your calendar as you do with the other ‘more serious’ ones?

After this insightful, even if painful, full moon in Leo (which rules creativity, inner child and self expression) I was reminded to hear and consider those needs more seriously.

Novelty also deserves to have an important place in our busy schedules.

Progressions 3rd round

Here I am preparing a talk I will be giving tomorrow for an astrology group about astrological interpretation and still pretty impressed by the uncanny accuracy of Secondary Progressions.

Today I was taking a closer look to sign ingresses and etc in past progressions and how fascinating that was! When my Sun progressed to Libra I moved countries, and mind you  I have natal Moon in Libra ruling the 9th house of long journeys abroad… and just like this one there were many other examples…

Progressed Moon just about to move into the 3rd house when I applied to my masters…hitchhiking for 3 months when Progressed Moon was in Sag conjoined my natal Mars-Uranus in Sag… wow man… so many other examples.

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to give the attention that I feel Secondary Progression deserves as a technique!

Not to mention the big questions that are naturally brought up by this symbolic and most impressive astrological practice; what is behind everything? How come we live in a compressed format everything that we will live during our lifetime (the so called ‘one day-per year’ of life formula)? Why these patterns seem to repeat themselves in different vibrations and contexts? What about the invisible thread connecting it all? Is there such a thing? …

Celebrating some achievements

The last month and a half have been so incredibly busy for me: taking up my two final modules for the masters (that in itself is so much work already!), doing three talks in the month of June, also started teaching astrology webinars and have over 10 students waiting for me to come up with the second series, not to mention the other more humble life tasks which are equally important (even if it doesn’t seem like).

After all, where would I be without my routine? Without my ‘healthy-ish’ meals? Without my long walks after lunch and long baths listening to Billie Holiday? I honestly think that I could only manage the amount of things I had to do because I kept track of my basic routine as well. Without that I wouldn’t have made it!

Interestingly, Uranus is transiting my 6th house, and work is somehow embedded in my daily rituals and routine. There isn’t one without the other.

Two out of the three talks are done already, and I think they went very well. I have a real passion for teaching. This week I will be finally giving my talk at the Astrological Association’s conference on the astrology of the Handmaid’s Tale. Such an interesting novel, with an amazing tv production and not to mention, Margaret Atwood herself, a figure that I deeply admire and researching about her was a real joy.

Atwood’s natal Sun is very close to my ASC, so I guess the commonality speaks for itself. I somehow feel a sense of closeness when I watch her speak and I wish I could meet her in person one day and have a cup of coffee.

How did I manage to get through the most difficult challenges of this month, in special my fear of coming out professionally in the astrological community and my inner critic’s strength and power over me sometimes? I guess that I have used a few different tools in the process, but specially reminding me of the joy I feel when I talk about astrology and when I share ideas in general (which helped me with the masters as well) was a huge part.

Passion and joy seems to be a great guidance force in life… at least sometimes… or maybe most of the time…

What is your passion and what brings joy into your life?!        😀

 

 

Productive quarantine and Pluto retrograde

I think that I am finally managing to create a productive routine during the lockdown. I guess moving countries again was also inevitably disruptive on my daily practices, etc.

That Mars/Uranus in Sagittarius in my chart reflecting the part of me that keeps travelling and moving around no matter what…

Anyway, Im enjoying the time and space to focus on the things that truly matter to me, in this case, my astrology work. I’ve been working on talks that I will be giving this June, and also taking the opportunity to watch free online courses as well. It really is mind blowing the quantity of online webinars and lectures available even for free at the moment.

That really made me think about the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius that will be taking place in December 21 this year. It seems like we are heading towards the direction of a massive boom of online education, where information is made accessible to a larger number of people.

These days I watched an interesting webinar on how to create online courses and it was quite insightful. Im glad I did it. Now Im being flooded with ideas for creating a short course on astrology myself. I love teaching and public speaking, especially about a subject that Im so passionate about like astrology, so I see potential for developing something really nice.

I even had someone getting in touch with me for a short astrological session in order to learn a bit, rather than just receive the interpretations. That is a sign, isn’t?!

As I work on my talks and think about these ideas of mine, I have to witness a very strong fear of coming out, perhaps a fear of failure, Im not entirely sure. But I do remember astrologer Frank Clifford talking about the journey of Virgo being connected with developing self-confidence because they never believe they know enough or that they are good enough.

That resonates with me so much!

My first big talk for the Astrological Association is happening in June 28 or 27 and Im dreading that moment and, at the same time, really looking forward to it because I will have to break an old pattern of fear, otherwise I won’t be able to do it.

I feel that I was born to be a communicator (amongst other things of course), but it does not come very easily in terms of taking action and being confidently encouraged. But once Im on stage it is almost like something else takes me over and it is really joyful, I feel incredibly high during and afterwards as well.

Anyway, Pluto is going retrograde today until around October the fifth, and this is a great time for revisiting our shadow work. Looking into those paralysing fears that are limiting our capacity to live our lives to the fullest, preventing us from being what we are meant to be.  That’s what Im going to do as I prepare myself for the series of talks that I will be giving in the near future…

Wish me luck!

And if you have been following me and my work for a while and feel that you could be interested in knowing more about the teaching side of it, get in touch. I would love to hear from you.

A note on Mercury

These days I watched the MISPA event celebrating the 10 years that the astrology school has been open and they had many astrology talks with great astrologers on. But the main one that I wanted to talk about here is the one that Darby Costello did on Mercury and Hermes.

I absolutely loved how she talked about this archetype and I feel that we (at least myself) tend to take for granted planets like Mercury, only paying attention to it when is retrograde and saying that it relates to your intellect, full stop. There are many dimensions to each archetypal pattern represented by the symbols in astrology.

And Mercury isn’t an exception!

Darby said that Mercury relates to travelling and movement, as is already largely spoken in the astrological community, but she connected that with the idea of information as well. Thats why Mercury in the Jupiter ruled signs are in fall or detriment, because Jupiter relates to belief and truth. And when we are communicating something that we believe is the truth we automatically shut down the process of exchanging information, which is the function of Mercury.

She also said that Mercury is about the collection and exchange of information that can be useful to people, that is the relationship to Gemini and Virgo, the two signs ruled by Mercury.

It was so insightful to me as I have such a powerful mercurial nature, with Sun, Mercury, Venus, Chiron and the North node all ruled by Mercury in my chart.

Darby also talked about Mercury being a guide, for Hermes is the one that can take people into the underworld, and in order for us to tap into that guidance we have to keep in motion. When you are stagnated Mercury does not help you, but once you go on a journey, it is there to help or trick you.

Astrology is such a magical subject with many facets for us to realise and empower ourselves with!!