The first Aries new moon of the year is traditionally treasure map time in the Wisestars World. This great idea is borrowed from Jan Spiller’s New Moon Wishing book (and she in turn borrowed it from another astrologer….)

This year’s Aries New Moon takes place on April 14th at 5:29 am pdt

A sextile to Neptune at 12:23 pm, just before the Moon goes void of course makes this Moon an especially good one for dreaming and visioning your future.

Try to do your Treasure Map between 5:29am and 12:23pm if possible, or wait until 3:55 pm when the moon moves out of  void of course and into Taurus.

See below for instructions………
I can help you fine tune your treasure map work by doing a reading
focusing on the Aries areas in your chart. Contact me at fern@wisestars.net for a short 15 minute reading or a longer more in-depth look. We can highlight the possibilities that are most likely to manifest and give them some super-charged energy to get things moving in the right direction.

Happy Rainy Spring!

Spring Equinox Treasure Map

(done on the New Moon in Aries following the Spring Equinox. Can be done up to two days after the New Moon.)

Materials needed:

Good Music

Friends can be nice to do it with, one year I had a party….other times it’s better alone-you decide….

Magazines

Scissors, glue, cardboard or posterboard

Leaf through the magazines, cutting out pictures and words that catch your eye and set them aside. Arrange the images however you want on the board. Create your map with words and images that feel happy to you and that look like what you want to manifest this year.

Hang in a place you will see it regularly. Enjoy observing the map coming to life in suprising and unexpected ways. Be patient, it may take more than a year for some of the biggies…..

I just finished reading Jane Juska’s books-A Round heeled Woman: My Late Life Adventures in Sex and Romance. It got me to thinking about love outside the box and this Aquarius new moon. I thought the book was well-written and engaging, and also was interested to read about how so many people in Juska’s life seemed to respond to her desire for love and sex. Many, though intrigued, were also a bit shocked-because the idea of a 67 year old woman seeking love in this way, (they said and later wrote), seemed so strange, so odd, so just plain WEIRD.

Welcome to the world of Aquarian love, a love that breaks down our barriers of what love and connection should be, that shatters our limitations and energizes us with new possibilities and potentials. Over the last year we’ve had the chance to explore Aquarian themes like friendship, community, technology and the future in a whole new way. As Chiron, Jupiter and Neptune moved posse-like through the sign of the Water Bearer, there’s been a chance for collective merging, expansion and healing around issues of who’s “in or out”. Everyone’s inner exile, outcast and rebel has been clamoring at the gates, seeking some kind of healing or at the very least, understanding. Stuff and more stuff has been stirred up, as collectively we’ve witnessed both the damage we’ve sustained by feeling left out and misunderstood and also any possibilities for redemption.

It’s time to turn a new page at the New Moon in Aquarius tomorrow evening. This New Moon closely conjuncts Neptune and Chiron and also makes a loose conjunction to Jupiter and Venus (newly in Pisces). The strong Pisces/Neptune aspects make this an excellent time to forgive and release old hurts from the past. This is the moment to step forward into a new understanding of what it means to be human.

Not to mention that it’s Valentine’s Day! Whether you love or hate this holiday of love, the astrology this year can’t be beat. We are all reminded now to exercise our human right to love and be loved. Love big, love bold, love weird and love well, as the stars align to support your grandest, most impossible dreams for love.

When I was in my early 20’s and fresh out of college, I trained as a river guide with a non-profit outdoor organization. I came to spend most of my weekends on the wild rivers of California, navigating white water and leading groups of inner city youth through nature’s twists and turns. It was a scary and exhilarating responsibility, assessing the rapids and making judgment calls based on nothing but my training and my instincts.

Though I haven’t been on a raft in nearly 17 years, I am reminded of these times now in my work as an astrologer, as I assist my clients in navigating the rivers of their lives. Giving a reading is a bit like moving through a rapid, as I guide people through  turbulent areas, but also point out possibilities for growth or new opportunities or  direct them to the calm resting periods of their lives, when it’s time to just take a break.

The people I work with trust me with their vulnerable places, their secrets, their dreams and their hopes for the future. They also gift me with stories of their success and I’ve had the privilege to witness many of my long-term clients blossoming through the years, growing more fully “into themselves” as they embody the story of their natal astrological charts in their own perfectly individual but perfectly wonderful ways.

I love the excitement of a reading, knowing that we’re going in a general direction, with a point A to a point B, but not knowing exactly how we will get there. Like my time as a river guide, with readings, I depend on both my training and my intuition, watching for signs of which path to take with a client, pulling back if there appears to be danger ahead, and sometimes taking a bold leap forward, pushing through a challenging place with them and arriving together on the other side, exuberant and alive.

Both river rafting and astrology involve reading and interpreting the stories that the natural world offers up to us. These stories are a gift from the earth, the stars and the sky, a sacred gift that teaches  us how to navigate the challenging areas of life, learning to move with the energy of the natural world rather than against it. These stories  also help us to maximize the opportunities and possibilities that exist in life, learning to time our actions with the cycles of nature.

Today’s New Moon conjunct Saturn in Virgo and opposing Uranus in Pisces is a reminder of this “earth gift”. Awakening our attention towards the “hands in the dirt” practicality of Virgo, we can grow more attuned now to not just our individual bodies, but also the body of the planet. This lunation raises the question: How can we maintain the health of both of these two forms of life that are so irretrievably connected? Uranus in Pisces simultaneously reminds us of the realm of spirit, flow, trust and compassion. Can we also dare to dream and imagine a heart-filled future, rooted in an awareness of our inter-connection?

The Saturn/Uranus opposition highlights both ends of the spectrum, reminding us that service to each other is also a service to ourselves and service to ourselves has the potential to serve others.

This planetary configuration shows up by transit in my own chart along my 6^thhouse/12^th house axis and conjunct my nodes in Virgo/Pisces, so this has been very much a time of questioning for me, as I look at how I serve and how my service serves me back. The quiet Saturnian light of the Virgo New Moon has reminded me of why I love being an astrologer, focusing my attention on the rhythm that beats at the heart of my work.

The ongoing and continuously unfolding story of the earth is the story I want to tell, the story that feeds and enchants me and keeps me motivated to keep exploring the wild rivers of the soul. Every person I work with is a unique manifestation of this story, a thread in the greater tapestry of life, and listening to and articulating these stories serves me, allowing me to flow into and merge with that great Piscean stream that makes us not just wonderfully divine, but also simply human.

So, how have I spent my eclipse season so far? Well, interestingly enough, the day of the New Moon eclipse in Leo, I found myself headed up to Sonoma to plan the Fool’s Journey retreat and restorative, which I will be teaching at this September (25-28th to be exact).

I had some small feelings of trepidation because the eclipse was falling on my 11th /5th house axis, spotlighting the polarity between groups and community and individual expression. The same themes as the Leo/Aquarius eclipse season theme, only opposite, since I have Libra rising. I was nervous because I was going to be planning a group activity with a group. Would this great team of teachers suddenly and surprisingly devolve into a band of raving lunatics? Would I become an ego-filled maniac, demanding that my creative dreams shape the structure of our Fool’s Journey camp? How would the surprising and unexpected nature of this eclipse play out on our weekend away to plan, play and connect?

So, as you might have gathered by now, I was in fact caught quite by surprise. This wasn’t the kind of knock your socks off, leave your job, partner, home, mind kind of surprise, rather it was that more sweetly, slowly, dawning pleasure kind of surprise that snuck up just at the edge of my awareness, until suddenly it was there.
As we planned the evening rituals, I put in a bid for an astrological theme to help shape our Saturday night plan. This idea was met with an outpouring of such enthusiasm and co-creating pleasure by my fellow fools, that the resulting ritual plan left me reeling with the understanding that this was a part of my eclipse lesson.
The ritual plan we came up with provided me with a way to offer up my own unique talents and abilities (Aquarius Moon in the 5th house), and helped me to offer them in service to the community and group in a form that would involve expression and sacred drama (Leo house cusp in the 11th house).

What a neat and non-scary way to live out the eclipse energies. Now if only I can navigate the upcoming Aquarius eclipse on August 16th (which is happening smack-on conjunct my moon), with similar style and pizzazz. How I love the strange and beautiful way the stars tell the story of our lives…..

Treasure Maps and Tigger

New Moon in Aries on Saturday at 7:55pm

The Aries moon tonight has a vibrant exuberance that could be a little dangerous if channeled in the wrong way. The Tigger like energy of this new moon is passionate and enthusiastic, with the moon squaring both Jupiter and Mars. Lots of juice is flowing around, so this is a good time to dance, make art, love and other benevelont mischief. Harnessing the energy in this way will help prevent the downside of the fiery flow which could be kind of accident prone.
The first Aries new moon of the year is traditionally treasure map time in the Wisestars World (thank you Maryrose for reminding me!!!). This great idea is borrowed from Jan Spiller’s New Moon Wishing book (and she in turn borrowed it from another astrologer….)
See below for instructions………
Spring Equinox Treasure Map
(done on the New Moon in Aries following the Spring Equinox. Can be done up to two days after the New Moon.)
Materials needed:

Good Music

Friends can be nice to do it with, one year I had a party….other times it’s better alone-you decide….

Magazines
Scissors, glue, cardboard or posterboard
Leaf through the magazines, cutting out pictures and words that catch your eye and set them aside. Arrange the images however you want on the board. Create your map with words and images that feel happy to you and that look like what you want to manifest this year.

Hang in a place you will see it regularly. Enjoy observing the map coming to life in suprising and unexpected ways. Be patient, it may take more than a year for some of the biggies…..

New Moon in Aquarius/Solar Eclipse

If ever there was a time to began communicating with aliens, this week would be it. A new moon solar eclipse occurs on Wednesday at 7:44 pm in Aquarius, conjunct Mercury retrograde and Neptune in Aquarius. This could be a perfect set up for weird, wacky communications from unknown origins.

Whether or not you decide to experiment with interplanetary conversations or find that you are receiving dream messages from dead people, or even something more mundane, like your voice mail recording impossible messages, this eclipse promises interesting verbal, written and psychic communications.

Look for the area that the eclipse aspects in your chart (planets and house cusps at or around 16-19 degrees of Aquarius), as you may find that that area of your life takes on a tone conducive to an article in the Weekly World News. Eclipses in general tend to create a fertile breeding ground for surprises, change and the unexpected. They have what we astrologers call a particularly “Uranian” quality. This particular eclipse takes place in the sign that is “ruled” by Uranus: Aquarius, amping up the volume and promising an electrical zing that is guaranteed to shake us up at some level.

Eclipses don’t always manifest on the external plane, and their effects can be hard to measure, as they sometimes are felt up to six months before they are exact, and up to a month or so after. But if you have hot spots in your chart that relate to the eclipse position, and you’ve observed some particularly “Uranian” changes in yourself and your world in the last few months, chances are, the week of this eclipse period will bring some new piece of information to add to the puzzle.

Generosity and greed. For those of us who grew up celebrating the holidays surrounded by the American religion of consumption, these two words carry a lot of weight. How much to give? How much will we get?

The December stars mirror these questions, with the sign of Sagittarius dominating the planetary landscape. The new moon on December 8 was in Sagittarius and square Uranus, and Jupiter in Sagittarius forms an exact conjunction to Pluto in Sagittarius all this week (December 10-17).

The fiery nature of Sagittarius compels us to expand our lives, our vision and our relationships in an ongoing quest for the essential truth of life. Like the arrow that flies outward, Sagittarius is always seeking, searching and yearning for meaning, experiences and growth. Sagittarius and Jupiter, its ruling planet, offer generosity, luck and opportunity.

When expansion happens without communication and interaction with other people, Sagittarius can deteriorate to the point of meaninglessness. Pomposity, arrogance and rigid social rules are some of the more negative expressions of this over-expansion. Overindulgence, over-consumption, obesity and greed are other shadow Sagittarian expression. Sagittarius needs the energy of Gemini to stay connected with those close by, to keep a finger on the pulse of the day to day, to listen and learn as well as teach.

Over the last ten years or so, as Pluto has transited through Sagittarius we have been experiencing the dark side of this sign. With major changes occurring in our collective experience of: long-distance travel (airlines/flying), higher education, media, faith/fundamentalism and religion. As always with Pluto, we learn through encounters with the shadow side of the sign it is transiting through.

Jupiter expands what it touches, Pluto deepens. With both Pluto and Jupiter near the end of their cycle through Sagittarius, we can expect to see a major impact on our collective reality around Sagittarian themes. When Pluto and Jupiter enter Capricorn at the end of December and early January, we will begin a new journey with the sign of the goat (stay tuned on this blog for updates….).

This new moon offers the opportunity to look ahead to the future to see what Sagittarius is like now that Pluto is moving forward into Capricorn. We are coming to the end of an important cycle and beginning the start of a new one. This next couple of weeks has us paying careful attention to this transition time, noticing what is passing away and what is arriving.

Which Sagittarian themes are alive in your own life? What is your relationship to your faith or religion? What new philosophies or belief systems are you learning about? How are you expanding your activities, embarking on adventures, or interacting with other cultures? How do you express your generous, benevolent self, sharing and giving to others? Or how have you been greedy, indulgent or pompous, expressing the dark side of this energy.

Notice what changes have taken place for you in these areas over the last several years. How have you grown in these areas, what have you let go of, and what do you hope to bring into being?

As we move towards the Solstice, and the darkest time of the year, we have an opportunity to compassionately observe our own way of being in the world, using the inward pull of winter to guide us deeper. As the darkness peaks on the Solstice, began to watch for the gentle light of renewal, the birth of the sun, allowing its warmth to lead us forward into a new year, and a new time. The story of Capricorn will began to shape us in 2008, with Pluto remaining in this sign for the next 10 years or so. This Solstice season, which is marked by the Saturn energy of Capricorn, offers us a brief forecast of the future. Spend time in nature, noticing the changes in the elements, the bare trees, and the quiet hush of winter. This display of Capricorn’s soul in the physical world has subtle mysteries, which will unfold and teach us more about our own relationship to this earth sign energy.

More to come on Capricorn in 2008…….