Sun enters Sagittarius

Sun in Sagittarius November 22nd to December 22^nd

When in Sagittarius, the Sun is in good spirits, adventurous, open-minded, and opportunistic with big, bold ideas. Life is in the living, experiencing and growing. It's the journey, not just the destination. While this is true, this sign can get out of control.  Saturn and Mercury are already in this fiery sign and the New Moon will follow in December.  We’ve seen last week the tragic effects of a Sagittarius Saturn, with the bombings in Beirut and Paris. Remember, Sagittarius is a crusader, a convince-and-convert archetype. It is also a mission driven and invasion archetype. As we have already seen, when combined with Saturn the consequences for ideological or religious disobedience can be harsh, even dire. Saturn at this level is a “accept the doctrine or be punished and perish” combination. With Mercury in Sagittarius, you are able to see the big picture, but it's harder to see the fine print.  Now nothing is hidden in open Sagittarius.  This energy is honest to the point of bluntness.  Be prepared that when you ask a question you may get more than you bargained for.  And tying it all up in a neat bow is Neptune now in direct motion once again encouraging us to live in denial.  You will be challenged to find a distinguishing line between reachable goals versus pipe dreams.

So what do we do?  How do we cope?

Sagittarius carries with it tremendous gifts and the need for responsible care that any fire brings. In the midst of great change, responsible care becomes even more important. Sagittarius fire expands. As a questing fire, it fuels expansion by searching and exploring new territory in variety of ways, internally and externally. Inwardly, it can help you seek the meaning of life or shine the light of consciousness on the truth within. To burn, fire needs air, appropriate containment, and safety. Learning to effectively work with fire means you must set your intention clearly, hold your focus carefully, create emotional safety, and choose suitable earthly containing parameters. If you focus on what you do not have, you will only experience more of what you feel is lacking. Instead, if you mindfully place your focus on all there is to be grateful for in your life, then the energy can shift toward what you are choosing to expand and create.

Sun enters Libra

Sun in Libra September 23rd to October 23rd

Fall arrives in the northern hemisphere as the Sun moved into Libra on September 23, and remains there until October 23rd. Libra is ruled by Venus, it’s symbol is the Scales so this will be a time of seeking balance in life. Justice, fairness and relationships will be highlighted. How are our light and dark aspects working?  Are we in harmony with ourselves or are we our own worst enemies?

The Libra Sun encourages harmony between the individual self and the shared self. Accommodation and compromise are its primary ways of creating harmonious duos.  But many people find intimacy difficult. It feels suffocating, confining and limiting to them, which is a high price to pay for sharing one's life with another person. Limits on personal freedom come with every relationship. There are general rules of behavior and individual preferences in play with every connection we have. Some people are very comfortable with compromise; others shrivel at the thought of giving up any authority to a partner. The balance of Self and Other is the crux of relationships – the dance between I and We.

While the Sun is in Libra, our challenge/opportunity is two-fold. Part one is to open our hearts to the romantic images of joyfully shared experience. It is a vision of liberating compromise that happens when what we give up of ourselves is multiplied in return by what we receive from another. Part two is recognizing that relationship is a process in which we move toward and away from each other, an ebb and flow of combining and separating that is completely natural. Accepting the variability of our emotions gives us the flexibility to find happiness within ourselves and when shared with others.

Sun enters Taurus

Sun In Taurus

April 20 to May 21, 2015

On April 20th the Sun moved from fiery, get moving Aries Sun, into the pleasure days of Taurus. What naturally arises from Aries is the need for the new seeds that have been planted, to now take root. Taurus, being what we call a fixed earth sign, enables seeds to become entrenched in the earth, in order for them to deepen their hold on the ground and eventually bring the seed to fruition. While Taurus may have a reputation as stubborn, the Bull also is placid and steady and we will welcome this new energy after the nonstop activity of the Aries Sun. However, since Taurus is a fixed sign, we may notice a tendency to be so overly focused on the direction that we are taking that we don’t allow outside or alternative viewpoints to be considered. It’s time to savor every moment of life and indulge your senses as you connect to the reawakening Earth. Taurus treasures the pleasure of all the physical senses. Enjoy. Luxuriate. Get a massage. Take time to renew on every level. Refresh your physical world by spring-cleaning your house or by planting your garden.  And remember your relationship to your finances. Taurus loves the pleasures that money can provide and works toward a secure stable economic flow. Allow this sign to support your financial goals this month. When the Sun and/or New Moon are in Earth signs (the other Earth signs are Virgo and Capricorn), it’s extremely helpful and important to focus on taking solid steps toward your financial goals. This stable energy helps you to stabilize and support the other elements, so that they all work together effectively throughout the year toward your prosperity. The Sun steadies in Taurus, where slow but sure trumps quick and risky. In Aries, the Sun is bold, confident, direct, quick-thinking, quick-acting and quick-tempered. In Taurus, the Sun slows down, steps back, makes considerations, and assesses risk vs. gain with the timing involved.

Sun enters Aries

When the Sun moves into Aries on March 20^th, it’s like a total rebirth for mind, body and spirit. It’s the Spring Equinox, that pivotal moment in the year when daylight equals the dark. It’s time to break out and break through. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac and signifies all-things new. We have completed one whole zodiac cycle and we are ready to start all over again. This is always a much welcome transit after the dark, murky last days of the Pisces. Aries is ruled by Mars, and is the most physical sign of the zodiac. Now is the time for those New Year’s resolutions, not the dormant winter which is better for meditation and contemplation.  This is the time of year when we crave physical release, excitement and new challenges more than ever. This always brings a serious surge of new fire into our lives, welcome heat and inspiration.

Spring asks of us these questions - Who are we? What are we here to do?  Asking questions awaken our creativity, while judgments shut us down. In the days ahead, let yourself wonder about the coming year and perhaps beyond.  Begin to lay the foundation for new accomplishments, new focus or a new direction. Another good strategy as you enter this season is to keep your focus off of what you don’t want. Spring is the season for beginnings. Your future is being created by your attention now.

Sun enters Cancer

This year on June 21, 2014, the Summer Solstice, the Sun moved into Cancer.  Cancer, a Cardinal sign,  is ruled by the Moon and belongs to the element of water. This brings an important point as the Moon has no light of her own. She can only reflect the light that's given to her by the Sun. This quality of reflection is a central factor in the Cancer archetype. Cancer claims exclusive rights to the Moon, both sign and planetary ruler termed, “cold and moist” in nature. Understanding the essence of that phrase reveals a lot about the complex sensitivity that lies beneath Cancer’s thick, crustaceous shell. In Cancer, we enter the world of emotions and feelings, as well as needs, intuition and the ability to bond with another human being. The rational Gemini self-awareness leads readily into Cancer's intuitive self-reflection and its personalized, feelings-based assessment of life. We now enter the realm of the non-rational, not necessarily irrational, but that which does not adhere to conventional logic or cause-and-effect.

In nature, water has no shape of its own, no taste or color. It needs other materials to be observed. Feelings and emotions are like invisible forces made perceptible by external events that cause internal ripples. Our feeling state can be affected by internal psychological dynamics and includes emotions, but also includes the intuitive senses. You can have a “feeling” about something without necessarily having an emotional response to it.

As children, we are very open. We freely express our emotions, from delight to contentment to primal rage. We learn to consciously identify our feelings by observing how we react to various situations and sensations. As we mature, we develop a more complex repertoire of feelings. Our first experience of being emotionally affected by others is our family, initially by the mother or mother-figure. Whether we experienced our childhood as nurturing, supportive and safe, or as painful, erratic and dysfunctional, our internal emotional growth tends to take on the shape of the environment in which it grew. It is here we first learn how to nurture and be nurtured, to bond and be separate, to be an individual and yet be part of a larger whole, i.e., the family. Unconscious dynamics which are passed down from generation to generation also have their roots in Cancer and the 4th house. Hence, Cancer also governs family, childhood, mother, our ancestry, and the past in general. As infants, we learn how to bond with another person, usually the mother first and later we begin to distinguish between where we stop and others begin. Our initial symbiosis with the mother-figure, combined with our subsequent ability to separate ourselves, matures into a capacity for empathy. The roots of our needs and behaviors in adult relationships are found deep in our Cancerian past. The archetypes of Aries, Taurus and Gemini form the foundation of the Self in its own right. Although Gemini brings us a conceptual experience of others through information and environment, Cancer involves an experiential, deeply personal encounter with others. In Cancer, it is enough to return to our roots and past to discover the dynamics which enabled us to grow into the person we are today. If we try to go forward without knowing where we came from, we risk becoming aimless, reckless and disconnected.