Weekly Weather

Weekly Weather February 26, 2007

Have we got an earth shaking, mind expanding, shocking, brilliant and revelatory week ahead of us or what? Two major and one minor astrological events combine to offer us wisdom and understanding about our journey on Planet Earth. I can’t wait even as I am anxious about what will take place. But aren’t you finding yourself anxious too? There is a kind of high charged energy skittle, skedaddle and jumping around the world like butter does when dropped into a hot frying pan!

First up, is a ‘minor’ astrological event as Mercury reenters the sign of his exaltation and brilliance in Aquarius. Retrograde Mercury means Mercury is paying extra attention so he doesn’t hit something as he backs up in the sky into Aquarius. He takes us back over our thought patterns and decisions. He asks us to revise, revisit, redo, research and reevaluate. The world sure looks different when you are backing up and double checking the decisions you’ve made in your life! If you knew then what you know NOW….

Mercury backing into the FIXED land of the FIXED sign of Aquarius asks us to review our FIXED decisions about the FIXED parts of our life and chart. Think of the retrograde as kind a giant cosmic TiVO for a very important section of your life ~ what DID they/ you say? And, perhaps, more important, what DID they/ you mean? Quick, TiVO it! Watch what their/ your lips say as you listen closely…. Do you still agree with their or your earlier conclusion? Don’t be so darned fixed about stuff! As if we could be less fixed …. Well, the universe IS asking us to change our FIXED places right now. What fixed place or belief system would you like to change?

Mercury in Aquarius is detached, distance, cold and crystal clear as he soars 20,000 feet above it all, seeing, understanding and getting a clear picture of everything as he surveys about the world and dramas below with not an inch of extra emotion. Think Google Maps! You are Google Mapping your life. Mercury in Aquarius has amazing retrieval abilities ~ a bolt of lightening coming down to strike what it wants during a summer rain storm. Of course, Mercury’s retrograde means Mercury’s putting together all the various patterns and pieces of the puzzle. He’s figuring out all sorts of stuff as he gets ready to station on March 7 at 25 of Aquarius. Plus, when Mercury stops, he’ll wake up last December’s Saturn station retrograde and July’s fire trine of Saturn and Pluto. He’ll see what stopped the forward motion of your life.

Next, we have part two of the trees falling in the forests story from the last week in August and first week in September 2006 as Saturn opposes Neptune at 20 Leo/Aquarius. Old worn out, over taxed structures will begin to collapse all over the place. Big collapses that change the structure of your life, forever. New visions and new structures are being formed but aren’t quite in place yet. DON‘T WORRY. Some of our firmest and oldest structures will collapse and fall over before us like giant trees tipping over in the forest. Expect crashes. The collapses are necessary for the new to be born. The King must die! The King is dead! Long live the King!

Of course, we WILL worry. We will worry about our tree like a loose tooth! Remember when you were little and losing a tooth? How the tooth jiggles and wiggles as you move your tongue over it? How the tooth is SOOOO loose but NOT ready to come out? How it feels like it is going to tip over and yet it doesn’t? How you pull and push at it and show it to your parents, siblings and friends. They say to you “Ahhh! Yes, it sure DOES LOOK LOOSE! Oh, there, see ~ right underneath the loose tooth is the new tooth!! See it? The new tooth is getting ready to come in”? Well your loose tooth MAY come out this week. Or your loose tooth may wait and wiggle away in your life until the end of June when we have part three of the Saturn /Neptune opposition. Or your loose tooth may wiggle and jiggle until Saturn goes direct in Mid-April. Saturn direct is a great time for loose teeth to fall out! Or perhaps you might decide to pull at your loose tooth by tugging at it with your fingers. You tug at it firmly. Tug directly. Oh, ouch, then your tooth starts to bleed a bit or hurt ~ so you get apprehensive and stop tugging at it. I know, I know, having a loose tooth between now and the end of June is going to drive you SIMPLY CRAZY! However, your loose tooth might not be ready to fall out yet. Go do something else and stop playing with your tooth. Stop worrying about it!

And finally, the first of the March 2007 eclipses arrive! The eclipses are coming! The eclipses are coming! It is a lunar eclipse on the full moon between Virgo and Pisces. It promises to be a VERY EMOTIONAL eclipse at 12:59 of the Virgo/Pisces axis. If you are like my clients, you’ve already been feeling what the eclipse is about. Wasn’t last week fun? The north node in Pisces, the node of where you are going next, is joined to Uranus in Pisces and adds the volatile, transformative nature of chaos, change and hopefully, a bit of higher consciousness to the eclipse energy. The Sabian Image of A POWERFUL STATESMAN OVERCOMES a STATE OF POLITICAL HYSTERIA is activated by the eclipse. Going to be fun on Planet Earth!

Eclipses work within larger Saros cycles of 18 years. (Actually all lunations do, we only remember eclipses better!) The eclipse is going to bring up March of 1989 events. Think back to what was going on in your life then around your lights, your Sun and Moon, your male and female energies ~ the point of union of your logical and emotional components. I know March 1989 was a particularly profound time in my life. Make sure to act with that time in mind ~ what lessons did you learn from March 1989 that you can apply now? What do you want to change or revise from what you learned back then? Act with love and your best intention in heart as you work with the eclipse energy.

The actual full moon in Virgo/Pisces also culminates the new moon cycle that began on September 3, 2005 when the new moon took place at 11:21 Virgo. The opening quarter was last June 3, 2006 when we were tested around decisions made and projects begun in September 2005. Now we see the results of our actions on the full moon. Do you like what you see? If so, keep on. If not, change it. The closing quarter is December 1, 2007 so push the energy towards what you want, wisely!

I know, the week ahead IS a lot to wrap your mind around! Mercury looking at all sorts of fixed, solid and stuck stuff; Saturn Neptune taking out the loose teeth and big trees in your forest; as the upcoming eclipses say review the life events within a bigger cycle of 18 years of logical and emotional development. Some weeks are like that!

So, what to do? Well, first, remember to breathe. Deep, slow breaths. Lots of them. Air and breaths are most important! Breathe! Second, be gentle and kind with yourself and all the others in your world. The entire world is running on frayed, stressed out nerves and pots of caffeine in the week ahead, complete with shouting and yelling and kvetching and giving birth to their new being. Third, remind yourself that it IS a TRANSITION, a TRANSIT, a moment in time ~ it is NOT for EVER!! It is for now! Then it will be gone, fading into a distant memory. Live as much as you can in the moment. Don’t worry about the stuff you can’t do anything about. Focus on what you can do something about. Decide if you want to take action on it.

Fourth, NO ~ YOU ABSOLUTELY do NOT have to DO some thing, any thing! Eclipses give us the sense that we simply must DO! We must ACT! We HAVE to DO some thing, any thing or we will die! It is a false sense of emergency and do or die in most cases. Now, IF you or your family are facing an actual life and death HEALTH emergency, do call 9-1-1 and get to the hospital. If you are facing a dangerous physical situation, DO call for back up, get extra support or enlist the police. However, if it just FEELS like you will die AND, as near as you can tell, your heart is beating and your breathing regular and your EMOTIONS are crazy and out of control, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. It is called an eclipse. A particularly emotional eclipse. It will be over in a few weeks. YoU do NOT hAve to do AnY tHinG aT aLL!

Fifth, this why we were building our Saturn muscles all last year. Do your Saturn. Yep, right now. No I am not kidding. Do your Saturn. You can’t do anything about the situation you can’t do anything about. However, you CAN do your Saturn. You CAN do your work in the world. That is how to ground the energy and make it feel a bit more stable and less chaotic. Do your Saturn. Do what you can do and let the rest go. The universe is going to take over the steering wheel for a bit. All you can do is do your Saturn. Ground your energy for yourself by doing your Saturn.

Remember the butter-pillar! Part of a caterpillar’s birth process into a butterfly involves the caterpillar removing itself (with QUITE a struggle) from its cocoon as it morphs into a butterfly. Did you know if you help a caterpillar hatch, it dies? It turns into a butter-pillar corpse ~ neither caterpillar or butterply ~ some strange combo of both. Part of the process of giving birth to oneself is the struggle to emerge from our own, very personal, designed just for our evolution cocoons. We are each giving birth to a new vision of our fixed parts. A new kind of vision that integrates what we’ve learned with where we are now. The new vision will mostly be in our Leo part. Remember, when one thing changes, everything changes. That means all of our fixed parts are changing as our Leo part changes from Saturn‘s journey through it. Do your Saturn (especially the parts you like) and trust in the larger wisdom of the cosmos. All things happen for a reason in their proper time and place.

There are, of course, a number of other aspects going on during the week ahead ~ there always are other aspects during weeks like this! So hang on tight! Remember to breath. You’ll be fine! And ask your angels or guardian angels or friends or mom or dog for help and a hug or two if you need it! You have to ask. That is part of doing your Saturn! Get over the fear of asking for what you need!

Monday, Mercury enters Aquarius, retrograde. Isn’t the view fabulous at 20,000 feet, flying backwards? Mercury has whoosh energy with Mars to help an odd kind of journey get launched. Take off might be a bit crooked or cockeyed but it IS there for you to see, if you decide to look. Me, personally, I plan on closing my eyes. I always close my eyes at take off! And I say a ‘Hail Mary’ or two.

Tuesday, Sun joins with Mercury by parallel as Mercury talks to Jupiter. I call these the ‘Ah-ha’ moments. A kind of forehead slapping, wow, I never thought of that ~ wholly cow THAT is IT! Aspects like this are when DNA’s structure was discovered, Edison’s first light bulb lit up, or the printing press was invented. The pieces of the puzzle finally work, make sense, come together. You get it! Of course, the moon is void all day so it could ALSO be a day when you completely obsess over something you have absolutely NOT a shred or inch of control over. Remember during Void Moons we are supposed to kick back, relax, go with the flow and let the universe whisper to us! We are not supposed to shout at the Universe about how miserable we are. Nor is it overly productive to worry the loose tooth. It is not time for the tooth to fall out yet.

Wednesday, Saturn perfects his retrograde opposition to Neptune today. Act Two of the Saturn / Neptune journey finished. Ta da! So EVEN IF you GET it or GOT it and feel good, you STILL have a pile of work to do to get your new structure built and all of your changes complete. Mercury’s opening sextile to Pluto and Venus’ aspect to Pallas let you see and understand how the whole business is part and parcel of the circle of your life. Part and parcel of your reason for being here at this time and on this patch of earth. Moon in Leo suggest pride kicks in. You are not nearly as whiny as you were the past couple of days ~ feeling a bit better perhaps?

Thursday, Sun has an aspect of brilliance to Pluto. Worry that tooth of yours just a bit more. Maybe it will fall out…. While you are worrying that tooth of yours with your tongue and obsessions, do your Saturn. Moon in Leo has a bunch of aspects today, including occulting Saturn in Leo. Some days we feel like motherless children. Do your Saturn. Doing your Saturn will help ground you.

Friday, busy, busy day. Stressful, busy day. Stressful, stressful day. A hurry and get no where fast kind of day. Remember to breath. Worry that tooth of yours. Do your Saturn. Do your Saturn.

Saturday, our full moon eclipse takes place across the Virgo Pisces axis. Darn that tooth hurts ~ you must have pulled at it a bit too much. The eclipse pulls Uranus into the evolutionary mix as the Sun parallels Uranus in the sky. Virgo Moon moves to oppose both Sun and Uranus. Read my full moon column on this site for more information on how to work with the eclipse energy. Moon in Virgo has a tendency to worry about things it has not a bit of control over. Just go do your work. Do your Saturn.

Sunday, we rest. We need a rest. And good foods ~ indulge a bit in wonderful, nutritious, and healthful foods. What did you dream about last night? Maybe you can trade with a friend a shoulder or foot massage? Do feel the sense of ‘wow I made it’. Have a laugh or two with a dear friend. Remember to breathe. Flex your thumbs to get your will going again. Worry that tooth of yours (if it is still in your mouth) and get ready to face next week!

Mundane: The eclipse is setting off the fixed star cluster of the Swan or Chicken ~ so one more opportunity for my obsession, that darned H5N1 bird flu, to mutate into a form that can be transmitted rapidly among humans. The eclipse is setting off George’s and especially Dick’s charts quite profoundly so I expect the activity in their lives will pick up considerably. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to drop tactical nuclear weapons on Iran (and do) with all the triggers taking place in their charts and as the third air craft carrier group arrives in the Persian Gulf. The structure of the eclipse lunation lies flat across the ascendant/ descendant axis when cast for Washington, DC. Eclipses correspond with the collapse of kings and the fall of countries. The South Node is on the Washington, DC ascendant. If I was a court astrologer into predicting the end of kingdoms, I would say the king will fall.

Last week, Dick was met with riots by our friends down under in Australia. England withdrew troops from Iraq and sent Prince Harry off to fight in the war. Putin warned us, very clearly and not so nicely, to keep our bases and nuclear missiles out of Poland and Russia’s other neighbors. He then told the Russian military to aim their nukes at Poland. The US Congress began to revise the initial authorization for war to limit George and Dick’s right to attack all perceived enemies of state willy nilly ~ after all the conditions have changed ~ Sadam is not in power any more and those weapons of mass destruction ~ well it seems Sadam must have moved them to IRAN before he was overthrown. We can expect a verdict in the Scooter Libby Perjury case ~ it will contain a surprise as it takes place on the Saturn/ Neptune square and Virgo Pisces eclipse. Personally, I am hoping for a sealed indictment about the leaker to be UNSEALED now that Scooter’s trial is finished up! The Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s chart is active too! And, that cute, teeny, tiny piece of legislation slipped into the Military authorization bill last fall about how George and Dick can declare Martial Law and have the US Army fire upon USA civilians for the first time since the Civil War is getting needed press! Gotta keep a sharp eye on those bad boys… you never know what they will think of next! And, of course, Anna Nicole Smith is getting buried in the Bahamas next to her son unless her mother decides to appeal and we STILL don’t know who her baby’s daddy is….

Also, of general note, the eclipse taking place THISCLOSE in cosmic time to Part Two of the Saturn/Neptune opposition means we WILL witness a number of our leaders, wise ones, old ones, organizations or countries, and all the various categories of ‘firm structures’ in our lives dissolve, disappear, resign or collapse like a sturdy cardboard box does in the rain! Or maybe merely tip over like a huge tree does in the forest when her time is up. We watched the Berlin Wall fall and Russia collapse at the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune in 1989. Make way for the next part of the Saturn Neptune transforming and dissolving structures adventure ~ it will take place all over the world. The Sabian image of A POWERFUL STATESMAN OVERCOMES a STATE OF POLITICAL HYSTERIA describes interesting upcoming events and a busy news week! Remember, being forewarned means you need to get ready to move into position for the next phase of your life. Make way and watch for the new! Let go of the things you need to let go of! Get rid of your consumer debt and variable rate mortgage!

Copyright © 2007 Anne C. Ortelee

Posted by Anne Ortelee at 09:43 AM | Permalink

Weekly Weather February 19, 2007

Expect a bit of rock and roll on earth as four planets change signs within a week ~ Venus into Aries, and Mars into Aquarius. Yesterday, the Sun went into Pisces. And next Monday, Mercury retrogrades back into Aquarius. Venus and Mars will continue their sextile dance with each other, slowly, as they are separating. Now they are out of earth and water and into fire and air. You know what fire and air do to each other! Expect the fires to flare, even with their moving apart. There are a number of crabbier aspects in the week ahead too ~ squares, semis and sesquis. Squares, semis and sesquis make us FEEL like we need, want or have to take action, even if we don’t KNOW what we need, want or have to take action toward. Not fun.

Focus, as Mercury moves deeper into his retrograde, on getting your things in order and doing what you love. There is not anything you can do about the stuff you do not love. There is not anything you can do about the stuff you are worried about. You can only do what you love right now. Focus on that. Work on it as much as you can.

Mercury and Saturn are both working on the bigger problems in your life. They are both going retrograde and having a conference about what they want to do about the situation in your life. Let them go work it out. Leave them and it alone. Give them space and time to work on the problem. Now, as for You ~ you go work on the stuff you can do something about. Get ready for when Saturn goes direct mid-April. He’s going to move like a house a fire once he switches direction. Get your papers in order now while Mercury is backwards and get ready for when Mercury goes direct early March. Get your dreams moving towards a new reality to take advantage of the Saturn opposition to Neptune at the end of the month. It feels like the sides of the world are softer and more open to being pushed towards what you would like to create.

And, last but not least, we are in the first day of the Chinese year of the Golden Pig, a magical year occurs every 600 years. It is calculated using a combination of the Chinese zodiac and yin and yang theory. This year is also called chonghae which means a red pig. A red pig year occurs every 60 years. The red pig year is believed to be a most auspicious year for starting businesses and expanding family. Pigs in the Chinese astrology system are symbols of wealth and good luck. Pigs are omnivorous animals that survive well under any climate and circumstances. They are fertile, giving birth to 6 to 12 piglets on average. Pigs grow faster than most other animals. Dreams about pigs are thought to be auspicious, foretelling the gain of wealth or abundance.

I love it when the various astrological traditions arrive at the same information using different methodologies. Here, I have been making noise about it being the beginning of the next 12, 14 or 30 years of your life while the Chinese astrologers are saying the next 60 or 600 years of your life! Gotta love it! So, regardless of which tradition you look at, get your world ready. Focus on the stuff you can get ready, for the next 12, 14, 30, 60 or 600 years of your life! Once Saturn goes direct mid-April, your life is going to take off like a rocket.

Monday, Venus has an opening square to Pluto bringing up her issues from early December 2006. Right after Saturn stationed, she joined with Pluto to start a new cycle. Now she has an opportunity to adjust those plans to get what she truly wants. She is also in a bit of a snit with Juno as she forms an inconjunct with her. Now Juno is about tradition and the way things are supposed to be to support what society wants. Venus is NOT in the mood to support what society says Venus should be. Venus wants what she wants when she wants it. She is NOT going to be happy today. Her desire nature is thwarted. However, in a couple of days, after she moves into Aries ~ well watch out world! If you are frustrated by NOT getting what you want because it is not nice, kind or perfect or whatever every one else or your mother or society wants you to have, today is one of the days when you are going to get a bit snarky about it. Temper tantrums abound. Smile, nod and go on your way. Bide your time and your temper.

Tuesday, the Moon in Aries makes nice aspects with Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn. In a few weeks, when Venus gets to the late degrees of Aries (and she will), she is going to remember what fun Moon had today. I find during readings that folks often do not know what they want. They know what they DO NOT want. So creating a positive list out of a negative list is the way to go to figure out what you want. Yesterday, you were VERY clear about what you did NOT want! So make your positive list today as the Moon aspects Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn. Venus is paying attention. She may not be able to move toward it yet but she is listening. Moon, on the other hand, is irritated and VERY clear about what emotionally irks her ~ so you will be quite clear if you write it in positive words.

Wednesday, Venus enters Aries. As the ardent nature of zodiac fire pulses through Venus’s being, feel the flaring of her desire. Venus ignites when in the Cardinal primal nature of Aries flames and essence. In an interesting juxtaposition, it is also Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. All around the world, folks are walking around with ashes crossed into the middle of their forehead. The ashes mean they were reminded, “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.” I always loved Ash Wednesday ~ life is short. Make the most out of your life before you turn back into dust! Neptune has an aspect with Ceres to remind us of the cycle of life.

Thursday, there are a couple of squares with Mercury and Mars as the Sun joins with retrograde Mercury. When Mercury is combust the Sun, he gets a certain crystal clear and penetrating clarity about the things in his world. Expect to see or process more ideas about the pattern you observed at 20,000 feet last week. Mars continues Venus’ argument with Juno about the role of tradition versus what your own unique dreams are. Lately, I have been noticing how hard it is to hold on to our OWN voices and thoughts. Clients have been commenting on it too during our readings. SO many other voices speak, talk, and demand we listen to them. TV, radio, advertising, images, internet. Voices of others fill our days with chatter and shoulds and coulds and woulds and have tos. Take time today, as Mercury squares Vesta to think what makes YOU happy in your own home and hearth. What is your voice asking you to do? Give your voice some time to speak to your soul today.

Friday, has a bit of an emotional crabby feel ~ what did you dream last night? Your dreams were particularly important and possibly quite disturbing. I want you to write them down. The Moon in Taurus made aspects to Neptune and Saturn as you slept. The heavens were giving you important information in that dream of yours. Make sure to tell it to a few people to see what they think of it. Neptune is trying to point out the pattern to you. Saturn is trying to get your attention to do what you love and let go of the shame. No judgments. Just notice the dream. Tell your therapist. Tell your friends. Tell your diary. Tell your family. Just get it out of your head and heart. Get it written down and in front of you on paper so you can see it. It is an important dream!

Saturday, again a bit of a break through kind of energy with Mercury chatting with Uranus by declination. Mars and Pluto are having a bit of a spat. Then Mars goes on to argue with Uranus. These three planets talking together are generally NOT fun energies on earth. They are violent, mean and nasty. In our lives, they are clarifying if unpleasant. Go back to yesterday’s dream or disturbances. They are all related. Saturn is aspecting Pallas asking you to try and see the pattern between the dream, the synchronicity of events in your life and the events of yesterday and today. Unfortunately, our consciousness is revealed to us slowly over time. Poke at it a bit. Dig at it a bit. Gnaw at it like a bone. It is all about releasing and changing the fixed parts of your being and letting them evolve into the best they can be. Chat up any and all ghosts who appear today. Don’t be afraid. Look them clearly in the eye and chat them up.

Sunday, Venus is a busy gal as she aspects and links up the energy of Neptune, Saturn and Vesta. Neptune and Saturn are tightening up their opposition for next week, round two. If you think about the story from last August and early September 2006 and what is going on now, do you see the pattern? See how the stories are related? It is time to dissolve the old structures that no longer serve you. Change. Evolve. Grow. A tree is about to tip over in the forest of your life. You are going to see the sky. Rain. Sunshine. A structure in your life is moving on. Time for you to get ready to move! As Mars enters Aquarius, air of Mars combines with the fire of Venus in Aries. Yes, the energies are separating, for now, but soon they will join up again. In the meantime, let Venus speak to your heart about what you desire. Let Mars make a big picture plan for how to get it. Get your ducks, ideas, dreams and plans in a row for when Saturn goes direct in Mid-April and Mercury goes direct next month.

Mundane: I love weeks like this. The astrology promises a rocking and rolling week on earth. We are going to find out such cool stuff! The aspects are all over the place. With this kind of turbulence, things inevitably pop to the surface of the water, bob along and let us scoop them up. Read the message in the bottle and watch for clues!

Copyright © 2007 Anne C. Ortelee

Posted by Anne Ortelee at 12:45 PM | Permalink

New Moon February 17, 2007

11:14 am EST

8: 14 am PST

28:37 Aquarius Sun and Moon

The new moon invites us to examine our assumptions to see where our vision of our life is different than what we’d like. New moons always ask us to reflect on endings in our lives as well as offering the promise of a new beginning. Mercury is retrograde, after recently passing a retrograde conjunction with Uranus, offering an awakening of our consciousness. We’ve figured out important concepts during the lunation that recently ended as Mercury stationed and Sun formed aspects with Saturn and Neptune. Whatever important (to you and your life) insights arrived over the past few weeks, the time is NOW to put them into practice and work towards incorporating that new knowledge into your being and life.

A new moon at the very end degrees of any sign indicates a new beginning built on the shoulders of the insights that took place during the journey that occurred before it. Such is the case for this lunation. We’ve been undergoing a long journey around the areas in our lives and our charts that are fixed and not so open to change. We tend to be fixed in our fixed places. Funny aobut that. Our fixed areas of life are a good thing. However, times change and our fixed areas need to change too. So the point of the journey over the past two years has been to examine, modify and incorporate the fixed areas (after all, they ARE profound parts of our being) into our lives in a slightly different way. Fixed areas of our charts provide the stability we crave as creatures of habit. However, we can become a bit dusty and stuck in those very ruts that provide such comfort on planet earth.

The purpose of every chart is to evolve past the energy that preceded it in the sky or universe or cosmos. As children of our parents, we evolve past them. As parents of our children, our children evolve past us. As we incarnate, we inherit (because we are supposed to) our parent’s problems and inhibitions. Numerous phrases such as “sins of the father” and “chip off the old block” remind us of this “fact”. Our charts reflect where our PARENTS were in their lives, at the very moment when WE were born. We inherit the situation(s) they are experiencing in their life as the blueprint for our lives. (So, yes, you can blame your chart on your mother and father!) We inherit their belief systems ~ they are describe by our chart! Our chart is part and parcel of our DNA. We also inherit their inhibitions which we call our Saturn. We incarnated into this darn chart we call our own. We spend the rest of our lives figuring out how to work within it.

A parent’s job is to pass their insecurities and fears to their child, to each of us. We got their fears. They are described by our charts! That is how they keep us alive enough to grow up and live our own current lives. We are little people in their world, hearing, seeing and experiencing what they are going through. We attempt to make sense of it. Making sense of it can be hard, as we know the RULES but not the reasons for those rules.

The past couple of years have been about understanding the rules of the game you inherited in your chart. You’ve been looking at why and how you play the game of your life. Do you LIKE the rules? Do you AGREE with the rules? Are they EVEN YOUR RULES? If they are your rules, great. If they aren’t your rules, even better. The point is to be CONSCIOUS of what the rules are, in YOUR version of the game, and TO PLAY YOUR BEST GAME!

Once I was complaining once to my younger sister about how I, as the oldest, had to forge the way with our parents while she, as the youngest, essentially skated through getting whatever she wanted. To my mind, she got stuff ‘early’ that I had fought hard won battles for! I was looking for a bit of appreciation and gratitude from her for my role as her older sister and the fighter of battles of childhood.

She said to me, “Well, those things weren‘t that important to me! They might have been important to you! But I didn‘t care if I got to shave my legs or wear nylons before Easter in 8^th grade!” She got to wear nylons in FIFTH grade! I was stunned. She, then, wisely added, “Besides, I watched you and Barney (my brother) so I KNEW HOW TO NEGOTIATE with mom and dad. I learned what the rules were before I needed to use them. And, as a result, I was able to “skate” through life as you so nicely put it.” And then she laughed at me, as younger sisters are prone to do.

However, she WAS right. We take for granted and look for appreciation and medals for the battles that were so hard won for US. We fail to understand that just because WE fought a battle, doesn’t mean the next person up has any need or responsibility or even any desire to fight the same battle. It isn’t their battle. And, often, they don’t much care about our battles, frankly. They have other fish to fry.

On this lunation, the cosmos are going to be talking to you about the battles you’ve fought which you need to put down. You need to put them down to go skate through the rest of your life. You aren’t going to forget those battles. However, you don’t need to hold the resentment of not being able to shave your legs or wear nylons before Easter in 8^th grade. You need to take that experience (and IT WAS AN IMPORTANT EXPERIENCE) and integrate it into your life in a new way.

For me, the battle for wearing nylons was important. I help people learn how to negotiate with the energy in their charts to get what they want in their life. I cheerlead them on to be first and take risks to live their best lives, even if no one else thinks they can get it. My early training as oldest (and bossiest) required me to learn skills to do THAT job as I negotiated and argued to get nylons. My sister, was born into a tribe of people (four of us preceded her arrival on earth and into our family). Her job is to work with groups and get them to all move in the same direction, know the rules, learn how to maneuver within the rules and make sure to take advantage of any openings to get what you want ~ she is a NCAA Division 1 College Basketball Coach. See how wonderfully the world works? We both, in the same family, received the training we needed to live our best lives.

So the past couple of years have been about helping you understand how the fixed areas of your life and your chart gave you the skills you need to create the life you want IN THE FUTURE. The discoveries you’ve made about your Saturn have contributed. Your understanding of your strengths and weaknesses around the fixed issues and your Saturn have helped. And now, you need to put down the FEARS from those battles ~ especially the battle from 1982/83. That battle made you a bit skittish. It was part of your training but it doesn’t have to make you afraid any more. You survived it.

So, now, gently, and kindly on this new moon, just do your best work to love your Saturn and support it. Your Saturn wants to go forward and create YOUR life. Not the life your parents wanted or feared or avoided or scared you from living. YOUR life! Not their life. Time for you to change and move toward and into your new life. Think about “The Metamorphosis”, the story by Franz Kafka. The protagonist awakens to find himself transformed into an insect. He dies as a result of his family’s neglect and his own failure to act. The metamorphosis portrayals the problems of his family life and acts as a metaphor for the ability to transform our lives, IF WE GIVE OURSELVES PERMISSION to be who we are supposed to be!

Yes, it is hard! But, you are SO ready! So give yourself a bit of permission to dance in the energy of the hopes and dreams of the new moon. The Venus square to Pluto says you need to be brave. Maybe not this particular situation but a situation soon will be what you want in your life. The Mars in Capricorn on the world axis asks you to announce to the heavens what you want and start to work toward it! Neptune and Saturn opposite to each other point out how the limitations we agree to create our limitations. Neptune and Saturn also point out how we can create the HIGHER version of our hopes and dreams instead of dissipating our energy and feeling blocked by the naysayers in our world.

The North Node is approaching Uranus in Pisces. Some one dreamed that it was possible to do a double luxe, run a four minute mile, sail around the world, fly like a bird and land on the moon. And, after their dream happened, the reality was created. As the node moves closer to Uranus, your dreams are calling. What is the dream you want to create in your life? Time to go for it.

The Sabian Image for Aquarius 29 and Lynda Hill’s interpretation is profound and seems to match the work we‘ve all been doing in our lives over the past few years. A BUTTERFLY EMERGING FROM A CHRYSALIS

Commentary: ‘A Butterfly Emerging From a Chrysalis’ is nothing less than a complete emergence into a new life and total transformation. It’s facing a whole new beginning and an entirely new life from what it has previously known. The ‘Butterfly’, after it struggles to ‘Emerge’ from its ‘Chrysalis’, takes a moment to stretch its wings and orient itself. It has shrugged off its ‘Chrysalis’ and is free to take flight when the moment is right.

Oracle: Like an awakening, you may feel that you are suddenly able to do something that truly reflects your inner self and what you’ve always wanted or meant to become. Things have been developing within you that reflect who you truly want to be. There will need to be care taken with this great effort of birth and rebirth to ensure a smooth transition into another dimension of life. With this brand new start, you will be able to realize many more of your talents and potentials, even the “latent” ones. What have you been storing up and learning and what do you assess your life’s purpose to be? There is likely to be an awakening to a whole new field of opportunity, and this can be very exciting, although somewhat confusing and confronting. A cautious, but hopeful, attitude at first would help you to ease into it. There can be nervousness here, a feeling of having to “find one’s feet”. It may be a good idea to take a moment to adjust to any new developments before taking flight. There can be some pain involved in the birth of the new, but if one has faith in a new beginning, this is soon forgotten and life takes on a whole new meaning. Events often happen to us to help us come out of ourselves in a more meaningful and beautiful way. Seeing each event as an opportunity for rebirth can lead to new depths of life that you’ve possibly only previously imagined. Imagine the beauty that is coming through in the birthing of these new wings and this new life.

Keywords: Slow building of confidence. Coming out into a fuller participation in the bigger picture. Growing up and out. Emerging from the dark. Leaving yesterday behind. Becoming more and more beautiful. Finding one’s feet or wings. Metamorphosis. Huge changes in the works. Giving up struggling. The drama of new life unfolding.

The Caution: Failing to allow changes to be experienced. Feeling like one will never “arrive”. Struggling to emerge ahead of time. Feeling confined. Being tied to the past. Rushing leading to disorientation or injury.

The interesting thing about Butterflies is they COME from Caterpillars! Do you think a cute little caterpillar chewing on a blade of grass knows she is going to turn into a butterfly? Nope, probably not. However, once the call comes to spin that cocoon and nestle in to a quiet time to turn into a butterfly, she follows the call. She spins the cocoon. Suddenly, she has parts that shoot silk threads out of them! Who knew! She climbs into the cocoon. She metamorphoses over time. She emerges a butterfly. Metamorphoses is defined as

1. a change of physical form: a complete or marked change of physical form, structure, or substance. the overnight metamorphosis of the pond water into ice

2. change of appearance or character: a complete or marked change in appearance, character, or condition

3. supposed supernatural transformation: a transformation caused by supposed supernatural powers

4. transformed person or thing: somebody or something that has gone through a complete or marked change

5. zoology change in animal form: a complete or marked change in the form of an animal as it develops into an adult, for example, the change from tadpole to frog or from caterpillar to butterfly

Metamorphosis fom Greek metamorphōsis , from metamorphoun “to transform,” literally “to form differently,” from morphē “form” (see morph).

The past couple of years have been the universe’s way of asking you to turn from the lovely, delightful, and delicious caterpillar you are and have been into a bright and shiny butterfly. Follow the call of your heart and go build your cocoon. Change! Look for your parts that shoot silk threads out of them! Times a-wasting.

Copyright © 2007 Anne C. Ortelee

Posted by Anne Ortelee at 05:23 AM | Permalink

Weekly Weather February 12, 2007

Our week ahead features a number of lovely Sun and Venus aspects as well as both Mercury and Juno stationing to go retrograde. The stations and retrogrades will set off the “Active Degrees” we’ve been working with over the past couple of years ~ 25 Aquarius/ Fixed, 10 Pisces/ Mutable in the case of Mercury, 12 and 28 Libra/ Cardinal for Juno. Astrologers take special notice of “Active Degrees”, which are degrees that have had a number of astrological events take place on or near them such as lunations, aspects of major planets, and planet stations. When an “Active Degree” is set off, we all go “ah” as the Universe or Heavens present us with an opportunity to remember or work with the story from those degrees yet again.

We have a number of node aspects during the week ahead. Nodes aspects signify turning points and moments of choice. I refer to them in readings as that giant sucking sound when you go “AHHHHHH!”

We also have an awesome new moon at the last degrees of Aquarius triggering the hopes and dreams area of every chart with the inspiring Sabian Image of A BUTTERFLY EMERGING FROM A CHRYSALIS on Saturn’s day and for the East Coast of the USA people, during Venus’s hour. Make sure to read the new moon column on the website for more information on how to take advantage of the new moon energy.

When we combine nodes with active degree aspects and a lunation in the sign of our hopes and dreams, all the puzzle pieces seem to fall into place. It is going to be that kind of week. Now, it might not be a FUN week but it will be an enlightening week. It might be fabulous in parts and difficult in other parts. The entire world is going to be going through it at the same time you are. That means that folks can be a bit extra sensitive and perhaps not so pleasant, especially if they are having a tough time looking at the puzzle that assembles in their life this week. They might not like what they see. It is that kind of week too.

If we take a 20,000 foot view of your life, we see a different pattern than the one you might be noticing up close and involved in the personal parts and events of your life. The magic of backing up and looking at our lives from a broader perspective helps us get a different vision of what is going on. As an astrologer, I am continually amazed at how the past events of our lives are repeated and shown in our charts by our current lives, particularly as we pay attention to the cycles of the planets.

Remember back to when you were flying in a plane. As you fly over the earth, you notice the patterns below you from an entirely different perspective. Housing clusters all connected and swirl around roads in little blobs off of bigger main roads. Lakes, ponds and rivers move along defining boundaries. Backyards link in clusters. Blocks open. Big, long stretches of roads cris-cross and form squares with asphalt boundaries around masses of land. Your chart is like that.

This week, the universe is going to take you flying over your life. You are going to see your life from a different perspective. Look at it like you are flying over it for the first time. Use new eyes. You are going to understand. You are going to understand the rock tumbling you’ve been going through. You are going to understand the purpose of your blind spot(s). You are going to get why you have to adjust, adjust, and adjust. You are going to understand Shame, its purpose and guiding power in your life. You are going to understand your Saturn in a new and different way. You are going to see the purpose and reason for the last couple of years. All the puzzle pieces will be assembling themselves before your eyes.

Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to those you run into who are perhaps a bit overwhelmed by the 20,000 foot view of their own life. If they are stunned, say “Yeah ~ isn’t that COOL!!?? The universe rocks!” They (or you) might be a bit apprehensive about flying. They (or you) might be a bit apprehensive about the view at 20,000 feet. You might not like how the world looks from that perspective. Fear not. Flying is a very good way to notice all the cool stuff that the heavens put into your chart. And you will land, safe and sound, after your flight.

Monday Ceres joins with the Node to make you see how the puzzle pieces fit. There are a number of parallels today with Venus, Sun, Node and Juno that help you see the patterns. Patterns aren’t good or bad. They are patterns. At 20,000 feet, traffic flow, cities, towns and patterns look different than they do when you are stuck on the highway caught in a traffic jam, smelling the exhaust from the car ahead of you. Sagittarius moon encourages that vision of yours to see the forest, not just the trees.

Tuesday, Mercury stations, at one of those significant degrees of 10 of the mutable sign Pisces. Uranus was rolling back and forth over this degree all last year. Expect situations and ghosts from the past to come calling. Chat them up. Expect illumination. If an old lover calls, take their call. It contains important information about fitting the puzzle pieces together. Expect to hear or see or learn about something that makes you go “Ahhhh, so THAT is what was going on…” The clues fall into place. The pattern reveals itself. Capricorn moon says we have our patterns. They don’t change. They are our patterns.

Wednesday can go either way. Juno is stationing at the late degree of Libra setting off the story from 1982/83. To everything there is a season. Venus and Mars form a finger of god with Saturn. Mercury, stationing retrograde and parallel to the North node, well, all I can say is things happen for a reason. When Saturn forms a finger of god under this kind of energy, it acts like a giant sling shot and shoots you 20,000 feet up into the air. I did say you were going flying, didn’t I? I forgot to mention you might not be in a plane. Look around while you are up there. Check out the patterns. Notice what you notice. No judgment. Just notice it. Venus makes an aspect to Juno suggesting there are strange bedfellows or partnerships being revealed.

Thursday, Jupiter squares the Nodes, setting off the degree of upcoming eclipse. Just loading that eclipse up with a bit of extra energy. Nice big old eclipse. If you don’t see a pattern this week, do note what happened. When the eclipse takes place next month, you will see how this part of the story pertains to the story that will be revealed during the eclipse. Aquarius moon says look at the big picture, community, tribe, connections between friends.

Friday, Sun trines Juno. One of the lovely things about paying attention to things that go on around you are days like this. The ah moment. The astrology connecting the dots. The linking of various parts of your story into a coherent whole. No judgment. Just notice patterns. Notice partnerships. Understand what the partnerships and patterns point out to you about the bigger picture. Moon in Aquarius makes aspects to Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune ~ gotta love that balsamic, past life karmic phase of the moon!

Saturday, Illumination. If you didn’t get it when Saturn shot your energy up to 20,000 feet during the finger of god on Wednesday, you will get it now. Sun makes aspects of illumination. Remember, we often do things over and over and over again until we get it right or figure it out or solve the problem. If we do rotten stuff, we eventually get caught and set right, if for no other reason than we get sloppy. We want to get caught. If we try and want to do good stuff, and unconsciously, we still keep encountering or recreating problematic patterns, we eventually figure out why we do stuff over and over. We will get it. We get it today. Today is what goes around comes around kind of day. A realization kind of day. A moment of truth kind of day. An ‘I married my mother’ kind of day. ‘You might be my husband but you sure are like my father too!’ kind of day. A ‘You/I did WHAT?’ type of day. An ‘Oh my god, I AM my MOTHER! I AM my FATHER! I am. I am!’ kind of day. But you are also yourself. I am also myself. We are all evolutionary critters, just a smidge further down the evolutionary line of the cosmos from our parents and forebears. Notice the smidge. It is important. Read the new moon column for more information on how to work with the energy today.

Sunday, so who are YOU? As Venus aspects Chiron and Saturn today and Mars joins with Jupiter and the Sun enters the sign of universal connectedness and oneness of Pisces, you get it. We are all connected. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yes, that sounds simple. But today you understand WHAT that phrase means. Mazel Tov! Blessings! Congratulations! You’ve figured it out. Or you’ve evolved! Metamorphosis! Or turned from a caterpillar into a butterfly. Or whatever. Tomorrow is another day but the vision you had this week is never, ever going to leave you. Even if you WANT it to go, it isn’t going any place. You’ve changed. Your view of the world is changed. Pisces moon sends loving energy to Sun in Pisces. A time for everything under heaven.

Mundane: Ah the tangled webs we weave when first we ….. I imagine there will be oodles of ah ha moments all over the globe this week. One of those “busy news” weeks. Expect major news in the Scooter Libby trial. Oh, Dick, now WHAT did you do that for??? As the prosecution rested last week, I am quite fascinated to see what the defense presents. Anna Nicole Smith passing away was the Venus/Uranus conjunction square Jupiter aspect in action ~ an unusal (Uranus) woman (Venus), full of Jupiter in Sagittarius excess. As her son passed away near the first opposition of Neptune and Saturn, and she passed away near the second opposition, there will be a part three of the family’s story at the end of June ~ perhaps the cloudy, hidden (Neptune) paternity (Saturn) of her new daughter (Saturn opposite Neptune) will be resolved! By my count, there are at least three men claiming to be the girl’s father. And, as she left us during the middle of the Neptune Saturn oppostion, we can expect her to enter the pantheon of beautiful goddesses who die early.

Copyright © 2007 Anne C. Ortelee

Posted by Anne Ortelee at 11:48 PM | Permalink

Weekly Weather February 5, 2007

Shame seems to be the theme of the week ahead. Shame is ruled by Saturn so, as you might expect, Saturn has aspects in the week ahead. So let’s talk about shame. According to my dictionary, shame is a painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness or disgrace. Shame is caused by a person or thing that brings dishonor, disgrace or condemnation. Shameless, on the other hand, is impudent and implies a lack of both modesty and sense of decency together with contempt for the rights of others. A book title I’ve always loved is “Healing the Shame that Binds You.” Saturn and Shame hang out together. And, if Shame is misplaced, misused or misdirected, it does indeed bind us. Our Saturn can bind us.

I often wonder why the heavens are set up that way. As I understand it, our Saturn represents our work in our world during this incarnation. And our Saturn is the area of life we are ashamed of. The shame we feel about our Saturn has to do with how OTHER people react to our natural, normal and instinctual inclinations when we were young. We incorporated their judgments and comments about our Saturn’s behavior into our psyche and react. Often we reacted with shame.

I have Moon in Pisces trine to my Saturn in Scorpio. Saturn in Scorpio has trouble with endings. As the trine to Moon suggests, I have trouble with endings of food. When I was about 11 or so, I remember the mother a friend of mine commenting on my behavior after I ran my finger around in the marvelously delicious sauce on the snack plate and neatly licked it clean off my finger. She said, “And then she licked the platter clean!” in what I interpreted as a mocking voice. I was mortified! Shamed! Embarrassed! It was delicious sauce. I didn’t want it to end! I wanted every bit, bite and morsel of it. And, in an UNCONCIOUS moment, I acted on my instincts ~ my Moon trine Saturn in water~ to lick that platter clean of fluid. Now, I had a mother who was VERY into table manners and proper behavior. I knew better than to swipe my finger around on a plate and lick it clean, much less at someone else’s table.

Since then, whenever I want to “lick the platter clean”, I flash back to her comment and pause. It is over 40 years later! I still remember her remark as well as my reaction! Now, maybe, it was a mocking remark on her part. Or, maybe, she was pleased that I loved her sauce so much that I licked it off my plate and she “shared her joy” with my finger’s behavior by commenting on it. Or, maybe, she was trying to teach me table manners. Or, maybe, it was just a moment in time. I am willing to bet she has NO memory of it. She noticed, and commented on, my Saturn in action! And I was shamed. And I still remember it.

Shame is going to happen to you in the week ahead. Some one is going to poke at your Shame button. And when they do, I want you to say right back to who ever says some thing that shames you, “Yep, I DID lick that platter clean. IT was DELICIOUS. Can I have the recipe?” Or whatever you feel you need to say to put the shame you feel into a context that is workable, moveable and acceptable to your being.

Think about trying to be SHAMELESS about your Saturn in the week ahead. Don’t worry. You won’t go to hell or burn or be forced to carry the burden of an out of control Saturn forever. I am not going to start licking the platters on the table next to mine in New York City restaurants. But I CAN lick my OWN platter, IF I decide I WANT to lick my platter! You have an overdeveloped sense of your Saturn’s shame compared to all the other folks in your world. Part of getting to know your Saturn and healing the shame that binds you, is to let your Saturn be proud of its instincts and desires. Let Saturn lick the platter if he wants to. Or at least, own the fact that you WANT to lick the platter whether your Saturn does or doesn’t choose to lick.

Licking platters is an easy example. The harder story will be the issue that surfaces regarding your area of shame and your Saturn. Give your Saturn room to move, flex and stretch. Give your Saturn other interpretations to think about and try on. Offer your Saturn options. Or let your Saturn feel his shame. Let Saturn sit for one minute per year of life in the time out chair of shame. Then have a chat with your Saturn to let it know that you love it once the shame time out is over. You love Saturn even IF Saturn is feeling shamed and bad about his behavior. Let Saturn figure out how to work with his natural instincts and not be ashamed of them. That is how we heal the shame that binds us.

The balance of the week has aspects that ask us to embrace who we are and what we desire, regardless of what we are ashamed of. To every thing, there is a season. Venus has lovely aspects. Venus loves being in Pisces and she dances all week with Jupiter, Chiron, Pluto, Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Uranus as well as joining with the North Node. The season of Venus is to understand what you desire. What do you desire (to lick the platter of the person at the next table?) even IF you don’t act on it?

I remember being at a restaurant with a small portion friend as the waiter took her plate away. As he turned away, he popped a large shrimp left on her plate into his mouth. Just at that second, she interrupted our conversation to say, “Oh, wait, can I have those leftovers wrapped?” As he had pivoted toward me and I’d seen him eat the shrimp, it presented me with one of those “ah ha” moments about shame, desire and opportunity. During the week ahead, when Venus calls to you, act on your desires or at least acknowledge the desire. Then, in the moments after Venus calls you, if shame arises, due to no fault of your own, (other than acting on your desires), note it too. It is going to be one of those kind of weeks.

Monday, Venus expresses her desires to Pluto as symbolized by the moment that waiter pops the shrimp from your friend’s plate into his mouth ~ just as Venus speaks, Chiron rears his head. She asks for her leftovers to be wrapped. The waiter hears her as he moves away with her plate. You know the story before you. The moment of choice is upon you. What are you going to do?

Tuesday, ponder. Libra moon with no aspects lets you weigh all the various options before you. Explore the shame. Wait to see what happens. This is one of those pivotal moment in time. Just sit in the space before you and explore your various options.

Wednesday, Shame arrives in the form of Saturn in declination aspect to the Sun as Venus joins with Uranus. The Sun joins with Neptune by declination. Would you tell your friend that the waiter just ate her shrimp? Will you let him handle it~ however he choose to? Will you shout out “Oh my God, he just ate your leftover shrimp!” in a very loud voice? WHAT are you going to do? What is the waiter going to do? What is your friend going to do? Talk to your shame, nicely, as it shows up today. You will have the equivalent of popping a shrimp into your mouth as you follow a desire that leads to shame. Recognize other people are going to be super sensitive to their shame stuff. Mars has a lovely aspect to Saturn that will help you (and them) understand that link between desire, acting on desire or instinct and the shame that some times can accompany following or ignoring Saturn.

Thursday, take advantage of Sun’s union with Neptune to explore old shame memories. Venus joins with Uranus by declination. I didn’t want to rat out the waiter because of my early experience with licking the platter and my friend‘s mother‘s comment. But I watched, transfixed and fascinated, by the situation before me. Next, I rationalized ~ well, my friend almost always throws away her leftovers, uneaten. She, the Queen of the Small Portions and Food Control, could, and often did, throw away half of a Twinkie’s Ho-Ho, uneaten, after it sat on her desk for the entire afternoon, with the white cream filling drying out. She’d drop the desiccated Twinkie in the trash basket right before she left for the day. Me, I am a unit eater, small unit, large unit, I finish the unit. So what to do? What would you do? Talk to the Shame issue before you and figure out your choices, good, bad and ugly. No right or wrong here. You have time to do something, say something, but it is before you ~ a choice. Explore your options. Should the waiter say, “Oops, I ate your left over shrimp? Do you still want the rest?” He was QUITE furtive about popping that shrimp, rapidly, right into his mouth. Or perhaps he can quickly dump the plate into the bucket of dirty dishes, removing the conflict on his side. And, that shrimp over pasta was certainly delicious! I’d had the same entrée and finished every last bite~ including licking up my garlicky sauce with a slice of bread as I’ve progressed past finger licking in adulthood. J So look at the relationship between Venus and Saturn ~ your desire and your shame today. Try to integrate them. Support those before you who are working out their issues between desire and restriction. Some of the restrictions are necessary and others are not. What is important to you today? In your future? Do you see how to heal that shame of yours?

Friday, The Moment of Truth Arrives as Venus joins with Ceres and aspects Pallas and Jupiter. What do you think I should have done? What do you think you should do about the Shame and Desire issue before you? Vesta joins with Sagittarius asking us to understand what our belief systems are. They come from our family of origin and our tribe. I don’t begrudge the homeless fellow on my block his right to dig through the trash for leftover partial lunches from the hospital folks who eat in the park by my house. Sometimes I make sure to leave half of my sandwich on the top rim of the can so he can find it. Other times I give him a bit of money to buy his own food or alcohol. I don’t want to ruin the waiter’s tip, or my friend’s dinner or embarrass the waiter (maybe he really is a starving actor) or gross out my friend (in addition to being a small portion eater she’s got a heck of a lot of Virgo in her chart) or cause a scene and yet…. What is the right thing to do? You will be facing the same kinds of question today. Understand your Saturn. Make friends with your shame. Get to know your desire. See how they interact. Mercury’s union by declination with Uranus says “Ah and now what are you going to do ~ Is it? Is it time to say something. And, perhaps more importantly, what do you want to say? ”

Saturday arrives with Venus joining the North Node. Sun opposes Saturn. The waiter delivers the wrapped remnants of my friend’s dinner back to the table in a lovely bag as well as the check we’d asked for. I want you to just sit with the choices before you today. Look at them. Look at the shame issues. Look at the Saturn issues. Look at the Venus issues. You don’t have to do anything but look at them and understand them, where they come from, what they are and how they influence you. What are they? Can you name them? Do you see how they influence you?

Sunday, my friend pushes her leftover bag towards me, saying, “I thought your cats might like my leftover shrimp for their dinner.” Who knows, maybe she thought I might like her leftover shrimp too? By now, wiping the sauce off my similar plate of food began to assume gigantic proportions and bring up my old finger licking shame issues! Isn’t Saturn a fun planet to work with? Take advantage of the Sagittarius Moon and her aspects to Mercury and Uranus to figure out other options if my friend hadn’t passed me her leftover shrimp. The whole point of Saturn retrograde is to re-order, re-organize and re-structure what you would do based on what you know NOW.

Unfortunately, with these aspects, your friend WILL NOT push her shrimp toward you, offering it to your cats. And, the waiter WILL NOT choose to pretend to not hear my friend ask for her leftovers and dump them into the dirty dish bin. He brings them back, nicely wrapped. And you get to decide what you want to do with the situation. Isn‘t astrology fun? What is your belief system? Mercury stops in the sky, getting ready to station, and go retrograde, in two days. TIVO yourself back to watching the waiter put the shrimp in his mouth and revisit the story of the week that just passed.

Mundane: The week’s aspects speak to accountability in the world. We are accountable for our sins of omission as well as our sins of commission, as the nuns used to say. What we do and what we fail to do can BOTH be sins. Saturn rules sin as well as shame. Darn Saturn’s is in charge of so much fun stuff! The Scooter Libby trial, complete with who said what to whom is still perking away. Dick’s note with ’the prez’ crossed out suggesting Scooter was to be sacrificed instead of the other guy ~ Karl Rove? Hmmmm. Accountability and failure to follow the accountability rules properly will be prominent in the week ahead. Gonna be fun news as Saturn makes us accountable or gives us a cosmic time out to think about our behaviors and our choices.

Copyright © 2007 Anne C. Ortelee

Posted by Anne Ortelee at 03:25 PM | Permalink

Full Moon February 2, 2007

12:59 Leo

0:45 am EST

The full moon on Candlemas, the cross quarter day of the Earth’s journey around the Sun (or Ground Hog Day for the non-pagans) celebrates the culmination of the new moon at 12:48 Leo on August 4, 2005. Back in August 2005, a year and a half ago, you started a brand new journey, leaving your family and Cancer issues behind. Saturn exited Cancer the month before. As he did, he wrapped up the family and roots story dominating the previous two and a half years of your life. You were done “taking care of” and finished with “nurturing” people who should be old enough or smart enough or whatever enough to take care of themselves. Saturn was bright and shiny in Leo, calling to you to come create.

You were off! Time to make YOUR life your LIFE! It was time for YOU to PLAY, CREATE and HAVE FUN. You breathed a sigh of relief at the suspension of ALL the Cancerian emotions and neediness swirling around. You were ready to enjoy and frolic! Saturn in the sign of creativity said it was time to make YOUR dream. Time to make your work your heart’s play. Time to follow YOUR joy. And then the world, Universe, Cosmos or things in your life said, “Well, there are STILL a few things to take care of, BEFORE we can begin …” And here you are, one and a half years later, one and a half years older and wiser. One and a half years clearer about what makes your heart sing. Or perhaps what makes your heart ache and what you are never, ever going to do again.

So what happened? How do you find your life going right now? Saturn in Leo is about DRAMA. What is the DRAMA that unfolded in your life over the past year and a half? That drama, or creative part of your life journey if you prefer, is coming to an end in September. You still have a bit more drama but the end is in sight. Saturn is in Leo. Saturn is retrograde. However ~ the Creative Vision of WHAT IT IS that you’d like in your life is starting to get a bit clearer or more defined. The fog is clearing a bit?!?

The focus on the full moon is to get systems, processes, procedures and structures in place to support you once Saturn goes direct in the middle of April. Make the adjustments you need to make to support where you’d like to go, eventually. You might not be there quite yet but hold the vision of what it is going to be. In the future! Not in your past. Focus on your FUTURE.

Mercury is the last degree of Aquarius. He entered his shadow and is getting ready to station and move backwards in a few weeks. He’s going to move back to OPPOSE and STATION where SATURN stationed last fall at 25 Leo. So let’s think and look big picture of what the heavens are trying to communicate to you. Your life was moving along at a pretty good clip in your “new direction” last fall after you‘d cleared out the stuck stuff, that fixed cross energy, from earlier in the year. Then, on December 5, 2006, Saturn stopped dead in his tracks! Oops! Saturn FORGOT something. Saturn is, after all, having a Neptune Opposition! Or perhaps, Saturn didn’t QUITE get together ALL the stuff he needs in his bag of tricks to create your future. So, right NOW, Saturn is heading BACK to where he was LAST August and September, during the first of three Saturn/Neptune oppositions.

The point of the time between now and Mid-April, while Saturn is busy going retrograde, is to get your act together! What did you decide you wanted to add to your life in the future over the past year and a half? That is what you are to focus doing on between now and when Saturn comes back to pick you up at the end of April. Saturn is going BACK to pick up some thing or some one or some situation he forgot or didn’t get to resolve last fall. Saturn will tell you about it in a bit, when he gets it cleaned up. In the meantime, YOU HAVE WORK TO DO! You have STRUCTURAL ISSUES to address around CREATING YOUR NEW LIFE! There is LOTS to do while Saturn is otherwise occupied.

So what does that mean? Structural Issues around creating your new Life? Sounds important! Well, deep in the midst of the DRAMA over the past year, you’ve had a vision a growing and glowing like an ember in your soul. It is getting hotter and clearer ~ more focused. Your vision ember is going to burst into flames and take off come May. Until then, your job is get stuff ready to go. There are tasks to be done to make the foundation for what you want to create. Make a to-do list. Chop the fire wood, bundle the twigs, shred the paper, get ingredients you think you will need ready for when your vision ember bursts into flames. Chop the vegetables. Get the database of your clients set up or cleaned up. Get your files in order. Develop your website. Take care of your health issues. File your taxes. Empty your closets. Clear out your bookcases of old books. Outline your book. Pitch your clothes that don’t fit. Refinance your house. Pay off your debts. Exercise. Sleep. Meditate. Write your thesis. Start your law school or graduate school or college or grant applications. Release what ever doesn’t serve you. Sell your house. List yourself on a dating service. Focus, as much as you can, on doing actions that SUPPORT the vision of where you are going ONCE YOU FINISH UP THE PILE OF STUFF in front of you and when Saturn gets back to pick you up. Saturn will be back and RARING to go, come mid-April. He’s going to burst through the door and expect you to be packed and ready to go with a cooler full of snacks for the trip ahead. Step by step by step.

Jupiter in optimistic Sagittarius is in a lovely trine to the full moon in Leo. Mars is exalted in Capricorn and arguing with that Leo Moon asking it to adjust and do work. Uranus in dreamy Pisces is arguing with that Leo Moon asking it to get clearer, more dramatic, more focused on what it wants and perhaps be even a bit more passionate! Actually, Mars and Uranus are in a Finger of God with the Moon as the Apex! It is time to act. Time to point your Leo Emotions towards what you’d like. To get the cool creative and fun stuff you want, you have to take emotional responsibility for your dreams! You have to work towards your dreams. No fear. Just give yourself permission to make that to-do list. Take the to-do list OUT OF YOUR HEAD, put it on paper. Then start to execute the tasks on the list. Time to create the STRUCTURES to SUPPORT your CREATIVE VISION of YOUR HOPES and DREAMS!

Saturn and the Sun are in mutual reception. They are talking to each other by a secret channel. Moon and Jupiter are in mutual reception by triplicity and face. They are talking to each other by a secret channel. Moon and Mercury are in mutual reception by term and face. They are talking to each other by a secret channel. Moon and Jupiter are in mutual reception by face and face. They are talking to each other by a secret channel. Mars and Saturn are in mutual reception by ruler and face. They are talking to each other by a secret channel. Look at all that communication going on. Hustle up your community. Gather your friends together to support your plans.

Onto Lynda Hill’s interpretations of the Sabian Imagery for our lovely full Moon in Leo on Candlemas. The Leo Moon at 13 evokes the image AN OLD SEA CAPTAIN ROCKING ON THE PORCH OF HIS COTTAGE

Commentary: ‘An Old Sea Captain’ is ‘Rocking on the Porch of His Cottage’. This Symbol is an image of someone who has put a lot of time and energy into his life’s work. He has now reached the point where he can take time out, to rest and relax. Being an ‘Old Sea Captain’, the love of the sea and adventure will be with him forever. He may or may not be retired; however, he is taking a break. He now has a chance to get on with more domestic matters and to seek peace and quiet ‘On the Porch of His Cottage’.

Oracle: There is a need for quiet reflection, to look back at past experiences, especially those times that may have seemed threatening. Take some time for a little solitude and to contemplate the overall picture before you. When you are back into the business of life you will be more relaxed and have a better idea of how you fit into the big picture. Feeling tired and reluctant to get on with one’s work can lead to feelings of failure and missed opportunities. There may be a need to take time out to contemplate your home and environment and how you fit in. Perhaps jotting down your memoirs can bring the missed and more dramatic moments back into you mind. Even if things seem quiet now, it is probably only you holding yourself back from more exciting adventures. The minute you feel like getting back to it, do it. You’ll be surprised by how easy it can be to get back into the swing of things. Enjoying the ‘Porch’ or the garden of your home can lead to inner calm and quiet after many years of work, struggles or difficulty.

Keywords: Retreating into one’s self. Reflecting. Quiet confidence. Knowing that one can conquer life’s storms and come out wiser. Observing life from afar. Wanting to opt out. Retirement, pensions and pension plans. Being dismissed from one’s job. Redundancy. The story of ones life. Memoirs. Rocking chairs and verandahs. Contemplation.

The Caution: Ignoring what is happening in favor of memories. Inability to get going. Disconnecting from current reality. Feeling lazy. The impression that the world owes you a living. Feeling jaded and worn out. Envying those that are ‘”out there’” in the world. Wanting others to look after you. Complacency. Giving in and giving up. Hangovers.

The Aquarian Sun at 13 evokes the imagery: A BAROMETER

Commentary: ‘A Barometer’ is shown. The word ‘Barometer’ comes from the Greek “baros”, meaning weight. It measures atmospheric pressure by responding to fluctuations. In weather forecasting, the ‘Barometer’ is used to signify and help the analysis of weather producing pressure systems. A storm is generally anticipated when the ‘Barometer’ is falling rapidly; when the ‘Barometer’ is rising, fair weather may usually be expected.

Oracle: You may feel the need to plan for future action and to know what to expect or at least anticipate. This can picture a situation where there’s the task of being a “translator” of what’s going on in the environment. You will find in your own sensitivity to the environment, and to the people around you, the very instrument that can sense how they’re feeling or what’s coming up next. Watching, waiting and feeling out the atmosphere before taking any action will lead to the best answer. Observing other’s reactions will provide clues, as well. Once you know which way to move with this situation, you’ll be able to go straight for the objective, so take a little time to sniff things out. Perhaps someone else is doing this, watching and waiting. It may be that they also don’t want to commit to anything without the benefit of further information. Opening yourself up to the signals around you may lead to increased psychic ability with people turning to you for advice or instruction. It can indicate a need to live day by day and not make any major decisions until things become clear. Checking the “weather” and how the prevailing conditions “feel” will help you to proceed with your plans or dreams. Whether these things are emotionally, physically or mentally important, you’ll know in good time. If something doesn’t feel quite right, and a change in the environment seems imminent, taking precautions ahead of time can save a lot of problems.

Keywords: Staying ahead of the weather. Feeling changes ahead of time. Measured responses. Measurements. Perceiving subtle changes. Insight. Indicators. Knowing when rain or storms are coming. Stilling one’s self for answers. Talking about the weather. Putting out one’s feelers. Anticipating shifts. Opinion polls. Anticipating what’s going to happen. Being on guard for inclement weather.

The Caution: Fear of change. Constant looking to fashions or fads. Not knowing how to react because of shifts in the atmosphere. Watching and waiting to see how other people act, seemingly with no will of one’s own. Being changeable. Having no anchor. Constant looking. Not being able to read the environment accurately.

Oh, I almost forgot. Pluto is joined to the fixed star Acumen! Pluto is sitting in the last, late degrees of wise, observant, forthright Sagittarius. According to my thesaurus, synonyms for “Acumen” are astuteness, shrewdness, sharpness, cleverness, smartness, judgment, discernment, wisdom, perspicacity, ingenuity, insight and sagacity. Looks to me like the heavens are supporting your dreams with a bunch of great ideas! So why are you still reading and wasting time? Get busy!

Copyright © 2007 Anne C. Ortelee

Posted by Anne Ortelee at 03:10 PM | Permalink