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.

An opposition is both a challenge and an opportunity. Are we willing to stretch and grow? To take a little Fool’s leap and do something different?

This Full Moon in Virgo offers us up a distinct menu of choices with an opposition involving the Sun, Uranus and Saturn. In one corner we have the Moon in Virgo, signifying our collective mood and the feeling tone in the air right now. With the Moon in Virgo, we are interested in the details of life, the mundane, the practical. Our bodies, our health, our dry cleaning and all the little errands that once completed, will make our lives run just a little bit more smoothly.

The Moon in Virgo lasts for another day or so, and occurs with the planet Saturn, which will remain in Virgo until the Fall of 2009. Saturn next to, (or conjunct), the Moon, makes us particularly alert to and aware of Saturn’s qualities at this time. Saturn is the planet who teaches us about: patience, commitment, persistence, stability, structure and tradition. But also, limitation, fear, constriction, anxiety and endings.
We feel Saturn today, like a breath (or perhaps a big wind), swirling around us, we are attuned to Saturn’s presence more sharply. Look to Virgo planets, or the house cusp of Virgo in your chart to see where this lunation falls and gain more clues as to how it effects you in particular.

*(Remember that the effects of this full moon will be felt up until the next New Moon in March in Aries.)

But the Moon and Saturn are just one part of the story. For the full picture we need to turn to the planets opposing the Moon and Saturn. So if we look to the other side, and the far, far reaches of space, we can reach out to those planets sitting directly opposite the Moon and Saturn, and there we find two rather interesting characters: the Sun and Uranus.

There they are, sitting side by side….Can you see this funky duo? The Sun, who lights up our lives, feeds our soul, and gives us a sense of meaning and purpose? The Sun shines, radiant and alive, full of potential. There close to the Sun, by about two zodiacal degrees, is the wackiest planetary body in the zodiac, that trickster, fool and radical change expert, Uranus. So there they are, these two powerhouse planets, moving in their own special way, vibrant and alive, and shimmering right now with a watery Piscean light.
The sign of Pisces brings us closer to god, and god in the Pisces sense is whatever that means for us individually. This isn’t some kind of organized religion thing, there’s no intermediary, no morality, no right and wrong. We either feel it or we don’t with Pisces. Pisces is pure faith, devotion and mystery. Now imagine what that means with Uranus dancing through this sign right now (and for the next year or so, as we near the end of Uranus’ cycle through Pisces). Pretty weird right? Maybe unexpected in a completely perfect way, as we sense a certain “rightness” in what is coming to us at this time in our lifes. We can’t explain, delineate or define it, really. Not to ourselves or anyone else. This is an experience that must be felt, intuited, gently grasped. This is not Virgo’s clarity, order and routine. This is different.

So they stand, face to face, or back to back, opposite. Earthy and real and practical, getting the work done, Virgo says, I’ve got a purpose, I know how to help, let me do my work. Pisces says, I inspire, I seed the work you will do in the world. I bring, the magic, mystery and life essence, the spark that feeds the flame of creativity and life purpose.
Right now Virgo and Pisces are doing this opposition dance, offering us the chance to feel and witness the differences between them, to see ourselves stretch out between these polar opposites, and to imagine what it means to alchemically blend these energies in a new form, a new way. As we respond to the challenge, we have the potential to use both the span of our vision and the work of our hands to together create the future we imagine.

Sun in Pisces

February 18-March 20

This is the dreaming season, where we have the opportunity to let go, dissolve, drift and allow.

Pisces asks us to be willing to let spirit take the lead now, and encourages us to put our ego and our personalities in the back seat to rest and rejuvenate until the spotlight turns to Aries at the Spring Equinox.

The Pisces season is like the finishing school of the gods, and during this time we learn to release everything we think is important and necessary and focus instead on what we are offered in the moment. With Pisces activated now, we are more likely to be open to receiving the gifts that spirit brings, the ones that we didn’t expect, or even necessarily ask for.

Uranus is also currently transiting through Pisces and at the same time Neptune in Aquarius is making a rather nice mutual reception to the fish and water bearer combination plate. This all makes the normally gentle, flowing Piscean energy somewhat filled with shocks and suprises that may both jolt and enliven us simultaneously.

“Wake up to the mystery!” The planets are whispering, or maybe even shouting. “Stay alert to the divine”. “Listen to your deepest voice and dream your most impossible dream”.

Can you hear them calling? If not, clear your schedule, cancel some appointments and set aside time to daydream, muse without purpose, drift without agenda and create without hope of perfection.

Pisces speaks the language of the soul, the mysterious, beautiful words which may not be precise, but are always truthful.