Decisions, decisions: some food for thought

by with No Comment Astrological InsightsAstrology and me

This post is born from a mixture of different insights I’ve had in the last couple of weeks. One of the things I have been thinking about is the importance of making choices as part of the process of maturation. Then again, how can I talk about maturation without thinking of Saturn?

Impossible.

I have the feeling that our choices in life need the support of our natal Saturn in order to be sustained and also for us to take responsibility no matter what the consequences of those choices are.

As someone with a lot of mutability in my natal chart, making choices have always been a bit challenging.

What if this is not the best way to do it? What if that isn’t the right place for me? What if…

Thoughts go round and round my head. The result was usually either decisions being made impulsively in the spur of the moment (the mars-uranus thing in Sagittarius) or avoided at all costs, allowing the ‘world’ to make them for me.

As I get more and more aware of the importance of having a gravity centre well placed within myself, I realise that I need to be the one in charge of my destiny. I have to be the one who consciously choses, the one who ponders on consequences and gains or losses.

When I was working as a child minder one of the moms I worked for was a life coach. She, as a Gemini Sun, would always give me some interesting food for thought, and one of the main things she felt was really important was to teach her daughter how to make choices. I always had to give the girl (when possible) two options, for example, if she preferred her sandwich cut in squares or triangles that day, that kind of thing.

As I observe the current transits I think about the sextile between Saturn in Aquarius and Chiron in Aries, both currently retrograde, reflecting the perfect time for reassessing how we make our choices and how we face the consequences (willingly or unwillingly). Saturn is also opposite the Sun and Mercury in Leo at the moment, another interesting trigger being revealed by the symbols.

How authentic can we be if we are scared of our individual power?

With the lunar nodes in the Gemini/Sagittarius axis also being involved in the configuration I have the feeling that this is big, it is major. Communication then becomes of paramount importance, our world view as well, and how supportive or prone to self sabotage is our expression. Because the south node is in Sag and its ruler just recently popped back into Aquarius, I tend to think that Saturn in Aquarius is more about inner structure and responsibility whereas Mercury (ruler of the north node) in Leo is reflecting the importance of knowing yourself more and communicating more freely and creatively. The focus right now is on self awareness, self love and respect.

Leo at best.

If we communicate in a non violent way and our ideas are still not well received, then maybe it is time to move on and find your crowd – find the people that will be supportive of who you are becoming.

The next new moon in August 8 will be in Leo, square to Uranus in Taurus, and still opposite to Saturn. Much disruption can happen when we decide to be ourselves unapologetically, just bear in mind that we don’t need to create more drama than necessary. Know who you are, know your values and stand by it solidly but respectfully of others’ differences. During this lunation cycle we can make choices that will support the development of individual integrity and self expression, lets make the most of it!

Solar Arc Direction and inner shifts…

by with 3 Comments Astrology and meInner lifeProfessional Astrologer

Yesterday my Solar Arc ascendant has officially shifted to Capricorn, which will last for the next 30 years, so I guess this is a big deal.

Amongst a variety of prognostic techniques in astrology, Solar Arc direction is the one I don’t use it so often but as a kind of a ‘scientist’ I like observing it.

Apparently, in Solar Arc direction (I would actually consider that in relation to any astrological prognostic technique), when there is a shift in astrological sign like the one mentioned, we better look at what we have in that sign natally to get some clues on how the next 30 years might play out.

I have only Jupiter and the part of fortune in Capricorn, and the sign is also on the cusp of my third house. Natal Jupiter is in a tight trine to my Mercury-Sun conjunction and this seems to have a similar message to the third house cusp thing.

My take is that perhaps this shift from Sagittarius to Capricorn will enable me to move and travel a little less and to focus instead on work and intellectual production.

I also hope that this process will reflect a change from emphasising my Mars (out of bounds) conjoined Uranus in the first house in Sagittarius (square Sun-Mercury) to, the already mentioned, Jupiter.

I feel that I could do not only with learning more about practicing patience, but also and specially dealing better with boredom, something that tend to sabotage many opportunities in my life (for work, relationships, etc).

Perhaps living on the fast lane isn’t for me anymore and I would really like to learn more about taking things slow, learn more about working steadily and patiently towards a goal, and feeling ok with being temporarily bored without the need to act out and create disruption.

(BTW, Solar Arc Pluto is one degree away from my natal Mars… so perhaps learning these lessons are in the cards for me anyway…)

Have you observed a shift of signs by Solar Arc direction in your chart? How did that play out for you? Did it help integrating your natal chart more?

Productive quarantine and Pluto retrograde

by with 14 Comments Astrology and meInner lifeProfessional Astrologer

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.

Reflections on life’s changes…

by with 16 Comments Astrology and meInner lifeSearch for home

I am getting ready to move out from where I’ve been living for the past year and a half.

Writing down organisational lists, to do lists, to let go lists, getting very organised, after all, is Virgo season!

I don’t feel devastated or fearful.

Having a Pluto transit to the natal Moon works as a kind of painful initiation. The transit is still within orb for me, and I guess all this moving around in the last 4 years is a reflection of it.

This moving out is also marking the end of a relationship that began when Pluto was forming the 3rd exact square to my natal Moon.  I have learned a lot and there are not many regrets, I try to look forward to my next steps.

I actually catch myself feeling excited about these changes as I think that my life was somehow stuck in a rut. My job as a chef and volunteer’s coordinator in the community wasn’t doing anymore for a long time. Working full time in something that isn’t my true passion is very difficult for me. Well… I think that working full time is difficult for me in most circumstances, if we consider full time hours as 40 hours per week.

That is crazy!! I mean, what about time for yourself, for organising your life, or taking care of our basic needs for food and personal hygiene etc, plus our needs for novelty and creative endeavours, plus our need to stimulate our intellect… Jesus, working 40 hours a week makes quite impossible to do all of that in a well balanced manner.

I cannot do that.

I believe, selfishly or not, that the belief that we have to be constantly productive and working is a fallacy. I probably have written about this here many times in different ways, but I cannot stress this idea enough. We need time to wonder, to just be. That is not laziness, is rather a necessity for our mental, physical, and spiritual health.

Screw the full time hours system!

Thats the thing, I feel so excited and happy and relieved that I am free again to think about whatever I want to think about, that the sadness of leaving or breaking up isn’t making such a huge impact on me at the moment. I think I have grieved quite intensely during the new moon eclipse in July so I feel ready to move on again.

As tiresome, hard work and uncomfortable as moving out and changes in general can be, I love and need them rather often… or so it seems. Or is that the Pluto transit still in orb with my Moon?

The fact is, and here is a Uranus/Mars conjunct in Sag in the first house speaking, I thrive in change and it seems to me such a delusional idea that one day there will be a plateau of peace and contentment in life capable of leaving changes and disruptions at bay. And as human beings I think that we somehow gravitate towards this idea of placidity and total fulfillment in a somewhat unchangeable situation. No…

The only constant is change.

We are a process, a life process, constantly changing and expanding, and there is nothing we can do about that other than aligning ourselves as best as we can and dance to the music… life will throw different rhythms at different times, and astrologically we can associate that to planetary transits, and somehow there is less suffering in surrendering to these rhythms.

Cheers to life!

Uranian impulses

by with 10 Comments Astrology and meInner life

I’ve been reading Liz Greene’s book ‘The Art of Stealing Fire’ about Uranus and already had some powerful insights on the archetypal energy that the planet represents. She starts by saying that in her perspective, contrary to what we find in many astrology text books, there is nothing individual about Uranus. According to Liz Greene all of the outer planets represent collective yearnings and impulses that are best mediated by a strong (healthy) ego rather than the person being identified/possessed by it.

In her words: ‘Human nature, without individual consciousness and reflection, cannot contain Uranian vision, which tends to break loose and overwhelm the powers of individual reason and individual feeling.’

I resonate with that, and looking back in my life I feel that there were many moments where I unconsciously had a reaction based much more in ideas and visions rather than how I was truly feeling. I feel that the masculine has somehow overpowered the feminine in me over and over again, especially before my Saturn Return in 2012. (Uranus is conjunct Mars [my chart ruler] in the first house, square Sun/Mercury in the 10th, and opposite Chiron in the 7th).

Further in the book, on Uranian people’s difficulty in expressing feelings, Greene says : ‘Something inside keeps saying, “Don’t get stuck in all that emotional glue, keep the door open so you can leave if you have to.” (…) I think Uranus shuts itself up, because the expression of personal feeling binds us to other people, and the daimon wants us to be ready with our luggage packed and our tickets and passports in our hands.’   This quote really summarises how I dealt with attachments many times, wanting to suddenly break them and just walk away. There is a strong impulse in me that feels pretty much like what she describes in the book.

It has been a journey making this part (the one represented by the strong Uranus in my chart) conscious and stopping identifying with it as ‘myself’.

At the moment, for the last three years,  I have attracted a partner that is also highly Uranian and he somehow had been carrying a lot of the rational, logical, removed from human emotions type of inclinations for me. It’s just recently, after we separately went to see a jungian therapist astrologer, that it somehow dawned on me what was going on. (or at least one layer of it all!)

So now, even finding this book by Liz Greene in a shop in Glastonbury for a very good price seems to be reflecting this new understanding that perhaps Im ready to embrace… I don’t know. But I silently stop blaming him for the lack of ‘human connection’ in our relationship.

Subpersonalities and Astrology

by with 3 Comments Astrology and meInner life

I have been truly busy.

I guess that’s no news since my last post (or maybe the one just before the last?)

I remember talking about how much I’m actually enjoying the energy that the entrance of my progressed Moon into Capricorn is reflecting at this moment in time.

Focus, grounding, practicality and the enjoyment of doing what needs to be done.

But everything has two sides, and yesterday I just realised how much I’ve been under the grips of my animus. The masculine in me has been repressing and beating my feminine up big time.

The realisation came after a heated argument with my boyfriend about statistics and astrology that went wrong.

Why was I so strongly attached in defending my point of view like that?

After crying a little and consequently allowing the feminine energy to flow back through me it was clear that the man inside me was just becoming a bit of a tyrant..

And going back to the magical ways that astrology works… right when my boyfriend left, a bit pissed off, I straight away went back to working on the 3 months forecast that I was writing to one of my clients before he arrived.

As Im back to the writings, feeling still quite angry myself, I realised that I was speaking about the Moon activating my client’s natal Chiron in Gemini opposing Mars in Sagittarius when my visitor interrupted me..

I have Chiron in Gemini making an opposition to Mars (conjunct Uranus) in Sagittarius myself and I knew that this configuration, which is the symbolic representation of my animus as well, was being activated at that very moment with the recent argument..

Not only that.

I then became aware that this configuration was somehow overtaking me in the last few days and I wasn’t sure what was going on, why I wasn’t feeling quite right, until that moment..

And now Im also reading a lecture by Howard Saportas on Subpersonalities and psychological conflict.

So interesting!

Seeing each different configuration in the astrological chart as one of your subpersonalities fighting for attention or sometimes possessing you..

Timed by transits and progressions, or perhaps activated by the influence of another person’s presence (which you can see with the synastry), these are the moments that you have the opportunity to reintegrate them and move further ahead on your individuation process.

So today, to bring balance, Im making a point on embracing my feminine energy again.

 

Uranic individual

by with 15 Comments Astrology and meProfessional Astrologer

 

Shifts that have no end.

In the life of someone who has a strong Uranus in the natal chart, shifts and changes can happen quite suddenly. (There are different ways of measuring if a planet is strong in your chart: by house, aspects or sign as well)

And I have quit my job at the cafe quite unexpectedly (even to myself!), ironically on 1st of May, the international workers day.

It was the first time that I left in the middle of service, and I have to say, it felt good! (Specially having  Mars conjunct Uranus in the first house, with Mars ruling the 6th house of job)

When we insist on doing something that doesn’t allow us to be ourselves Uranic energy can be a way out. We do have to be mindful not to “throw the baby with the bath water” but Uranus has also a connection with the process of individuation.

The process of becoming your authentic self by freeing yourself from conditioning and heading towards uniqueness.

I won’t be developing much more on that right now as I’m preparing for a job interview today.

Fingers crossed.

And I also have a reading to do later on.