New Moon in Pisces: Where is Your Sanctuary?

Posted by & filed under New Moon, Pisces.

One of my recurring fantasies is to renovate and live in an old church. I’m enchanted by the idea of a home with arched stained glass windows, a choir loft (perfect for a master bedroom!), wood trim and floors lovingly scrubbed for decades with Murphy’s Oil Soap… and something more, perhaps. A peacefulness; a soulfulness gained from years of prayerful contemplation that have seeped into its bones, transforming a simple structure into a sanctuary.

I was born with Pisces, the sign of the spiritual seeker, on the cusp of my 4th house (the house of home and family). Home is my sacred place. The search for peace and quiet, for a gentle place of order and contemplation, has always been my first priority in choosing – or creating – a place to call home. Although my husband and I haven’t realized our fantasy of living in a church, our little bungalow is quiet and private. Two large trees shield the front of the house, the miracle of Caller ID protects us from unwanted phone calls, and uninvited visitors will find we don’t even have a doorbell. Inside, flickering candles and contented cats lend an atmosphere of relaxation.

Visitors often tell us that our house feels especially peaceful, but it wasn’t always so. When we bought our house, its recent tortured history (a divorce, discordant renters) seemed to linger like barnacles on the bottom of a boat. We had checked out the neighborhood carefully before buying, trying to avoid noise; but the very day we moved in, renters pulled up next door with a U-Haul truck and a pitbull whose barking kept us awake all night, every night. This was only the first of the challenges we’ve faced here, and it’s taken an enormous amount of spiritual work – negotiating with the universe through ritual, and (more tortuously) with neighbors – to create the sanctuary we enjoy today.

Wherever Pisces falls in your chart, you seek to create a sanctuary into which you can retreat from the rancor and agitation of daily life. But as anyone who has lived in a monastery can tell you, retreat and sanctuary don’t exempt us from working on our issues! In fact, I think the areas of life symbolized in our birth charts by Pisces are sacred not just because they’re places where we can retreat and regroup, but because they describe where we meet the issues that stand between us and true inner peace. (more…)

Conjuring love

Posted by & filed under New Moon, Pimpin' Pals, Relationships, Venus.

When I was single, I hated Valentine’s Day; I felt it had been created for the sole purpose of throwing my loneliness in my face with a cruel, taunting laugh. Now, of course, I realize it was created for the sole purpose of wringing money out of husbands and boyfriends. In any event – if you’re single and tired of it, and hating this Valentine’s Day, run out and buy a copy of my friend Jessica’s inspiring book about conjuring love in your life. You’ll feel lots better.

Here’s a conjuring story of my own. Some few New Moons before I met my husband, I decided I was truly ready to find a partner. Since relying on my own flawed judgment hadn’t gotten me very far, it occurred to me that perhaps a benevolent universe could do better job of match-making; and so I composed a ritual. It began with a step I think was the most powerful: creating a list of the five essential qualities I wanted in a mate. That took some doing; it’s probably the first time I had stopped to really think about what I wanted, rather than what I didn’t want (which my many failed and, occasionally, tragic romances had made abundantly clear to me). (more…)

Full Moon in Leo: Make Your Own Kind of Music

Posted by & filed under Aquarius, Full Moon, Leo.

by April Elliott Kent

Leo Lunar EclipseChalk it up to a Leo-heavy birth chart, or simple introversion: I tend to feel uncomfortable in a crowd. But when my progressed Moon passed through Aquarius a couple of years ago, I became downright gregarious. After years of dragging me kicking and screaming to social events, my sociable Libra husband was flabbergasted to find me planning parties and initiating outings with friends.  For awhile, all this socializing actually catalyzed my creativity. But eventually the progressed Moon moved on, leaving my energy and creative juices depleted. It felt as though I’d been trying to jump-start my battery with the jumper cables attached to the wrong terminals.

At this Full Moon, the Sun and Mercury are moving through Aquarius, the sign of friends and social networks. Each year when the Sun leaves diligent Capricorn for the friendlier pastures of Aquarius, the temptation is strong to replace a work-jammed calendar with more social engagements than usual. But even if you’re naturally extroverted, filling your days and evenings with appointments, phone calls, emails, and parties may eventually cause your vitality to flag. We all need time on our own to “re-create” – to feed the Solar/Leo self. For some, it’s relatively easy to recognize the signs of social fatigue and take happy refuge in the studio, the kitchen, or whatever space we’ve carved out for creative ventures. But some of us are not so lucky and have a hard time finding the way back to our own creative hearts – may not, in fact, have ever discovered them in the first place.

Even the most well meaning parents may neglect the playful, creative side of their children, focused as they are on preparing their kids to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. And for all children, peer pressure and the desire to fit in can dampen creative expression. Where my husband comes from they call it “Tall Poppy Syndrome”: anyone who tries to stand out from the crowd gets cut down to size. For women, in particular – naturally attuned as we are to lunar rhythms – tapping into the Solar self can be difficult. Everything in our culture urges us to master the arts of relationship and attraction rather than pursuing the independent path of a creative “tall poppy.”

Become the artist you want to date

When I was younger, I watched many women project their Solar selves, their creative, intellectual, and even spiritual urges, onto men. I had friends who would only date artists or musicians – even when their gifts were accompanied by drug use, financial irresponsibility, or infidelity. During my years as a musician I saw a lot of women like this, hanging around backstage waiting to meet the guitarist or the drummer, and they baffled me. Partly it was because having worked with so many musicians, they held no romantic mystery for me. But it also seemed that women who were obsessed with artists were missing out on something special: the thrill, validation, and power that come from creating and performing art themselves. I couldn’t imagine that romantic involvement with musicians, writers, or athletes would be nearly as satisfying. Better to feed your own creative Leo lionness, I thought – to become the musician, the writer, the athlete.

But my dirty little secret was that I’d become a musician not just for the satisfaction of self-expression, but because I was a social misfit without a lot of other options. Unlike the girls who hung around backstage at the clubs where my band played, who traveled in tight, homogeneously attractive groups, I didn’t fit in. And to be honest, I envied – still envy – women who “fit in.” Even now I often feel out of place at a bridal shower or girl’s night out.

Those of us with untapped Aquarius energy wander through life feeling as though we missed school on the very important day when social networking skills were taught. Humans are social animals, and it’s threatening to be unable to find a place in one’s pack. We’re hard-wired to crave the very Aquarian experience of belonging. But if fitting in means surrendering the ideas, gifts, and self-expression that are uniquely ours, our Leo selves insist that it’s too dear a price to pay.

Finding Your Place by Standing Out

As it turned out, not fitting in has proved to be one of my greatest blessings. I remember thinking early on that if I couldn’t fit in, I’d damn well make the best of standing out. So I gave myself over completely to music and later to writing, and in the end, a wonderful thing happened: By standing out, I somehow managed to find my place – to find love, acceptance, and friendship on my own terms.

Every now and then, the odd Uranus transit or progressed planet in Aquarius gives me a taste of what it’s like to simply, effortlessly, belong – to take enjoyment and energy from social connections. But when the transit passes and I return to the social wilderness, I don’t mind. There are creative treasures to be found there. I find myself there.

During the Sun in Aquarius season, collective identity and common purpose are energized, to the extent that your Leo self may be feeling a tad undernourished. At this Full Moon in Leo, painful memories of creative, romantic, and social hurts may be stirring. Rather than pushing these unhappy memories hastily to one side, perhaps there’s something to be learned from them.

At the Leo Full Moon, we’re asked to meditate about the kind of fuel that powers the engine of our hearts – and to seek our place in the hearts of others. If you’re feeling tired and stale, schedule some time alone for creative play. If you’ve been feeling as though you don’t belong anywhere, maybe it’s because you’re trying to fit yourself into shapes that don’t suit you. This Full Moon is an opportunity to step back for a moment and get reacquainted with your passions – to make your own kind of music, as the old song says – and to trust that they will unite you and the people with whom you truly belong.

© April Elliott Kent. All rights reserved.

New Moon in Aquarius, Mars retrograde: Clearing the Air

Posted by & filed under Aquarius, Mars retrograde, New Moon.

by April Elliott Kent

My friend Alice called me late last Friday afternoon. “I thought you’d be on your way to Happy Hour,” I said; it was her usual Friday post-work ritual to go for drinks with her co-workers. “Nah,” she said. “Ramona will be there.” Alice and Ramona had once been close friends, but the relationship soured when they became rivals for a coveted sales position in their company. In a twist that proved fortuitous for Ramona, Alice had been reprimanded (falsely, she insisted) for making a costly mistake. The sales position went to Ramona. Alice strongly suspected her rival had undermined her, but eventually decided to let bygones be bygones.

“I thought you’d sorted all that out,” I said.

“I thought I had, too. But lately, every time I look at her, all I can think is, ‘I hate her!’” Alice chuckled. “Hey, it’s bad enough that I have to work with her everyday, I’m not gonna drink with her, too.”

The January 23, 2012 New Moon falls in Aquarius, a sign that represents casual friendships and group affiliations based on shared interests. We shake Aquarius’ convivial hand when we head off for Friday night drinks with co-workers, serve on the board of our local astrological organization, or bake cookies for a fundraiser. Some of us are “group” people – Aquarian by nature – and some of us are less so. But few of us can escape the web of sociability altogether.

At each New Moon in Aquarius, in the dark and cold of midwinter, our fraternity of friends and associates normally provides a source of joy and sustenance. This is typically the time of year when we celebrate the simple, friendly connections that knit us into the fabric of society. But Mars, the planet of competition, war, and aggression, has been slowing down in recent weeks, getting ready to station and turn retrograde, which it will finally do soon after the New Moon. So during this Aquarius season, in order to keep our Aquarian connections vibrant and satisfying, we’ll have to pay alms to Mars as well. (more…)

The Rising Planet: Your “First Responder”

Posted by & filed under Astrology Techniques, Jupiter, Learning Astrology, Mars, Mercury, Moon, Natal Astrology, Neptune, Pluto, Saturn, Uranus, Venus.

by April Elliott Kent

Confession: “No” is my first response to most new, unfamiliar, or spontaneous situations or suggestions. If the suggestion is, “April, please have some more Cheetos” – a snack I’ve enjoyed with regularity and satisfaction since birth – my reaction would be an enthusiastic “Sure!” But if the suggestion is something like, “Hey, let’s go to lunch and hit the zoo together tomorrow,” my knee-jerk reaction, even if (and this is key) I like both you and going to the zoo, not to mention lunch, will probably be “No, thanks.”

Why is this? Well, I like my little routines. I feel safe in them. The more I can contain and control my surroundings and schedule, the happier I feel. And I had planned to work too hard and have soup for lunch tomorrow. There is no room in those sad little plans for socializing, sandwiches, or gazelles.

The planet closest to your Ascendant, usually in the first, second, or third houses, is called the rising planet. I also call it the “first responder” planet, because it’s the planet that is first on deck to handle anything new that comes your way. (This should not be confused with the “chart ruler.” That’s the planet that rules the sign on the Ascendant. In this chart, since Aries is the sign rising on the Ascendant, its ruling planet, Mars, is the chart ruler.) (more…)

Full Moon in Cancer: Can Hard Times Make Us Whole?

Posted by & filed under Cancer, Full Moon.

by April Elliott Kent

Can Hard Times Make Us Whole?It’s been a chilly holiday season here in San Diego. Not when compared to anyplace with real weather, of course, but the discomfort is real enough to us. Cold is a relative thing, and when a place that seldom sees daytime highs below 65 degrees experiences a string of days in the 50s, folks around here get a little testy.

Of course, we’re testy – scared, really – about a lot of things, not just the cold snap. Just as the real estate bubble of recent years inflated home values in Southern California to the point of morbid obesity, the popping of that particular bubble has had an equally exaggerated effect in the opposite direction. Many, many houses in our neighborhood are for sale, few of them are selling, and foreclosures have skyrocketed. And I’ve lost count of the number of friends who have been looking for work for what seems like years – bright, hard-working people who’ve held full-time jobs for decades. These are scary times, full of chickens coming home to roost and unpleasant realities being dumped unceremoniously at our doorsteps. Hard times. Capricorn times. Saturn’s children, we hold ourselves rigidly, as if preparing to take our punishment from a harsh father. (more…)

It Is Summer There

Posted by & filed under Capricorn, Seasonal Essays.

It is Summer There.
by April Elliott Kent

My husband was born in the southern hemisphere, and the fact that their seasons are opposite ours has always fascinated me – stories of Christmas spent at the beach, for instance, as we might celebrate our major summer holiday, Independence Day. Pondering this seasonal quandary, I once asked him whether January was called winter or summer in New Zealand; it seemed like an intriguing question until it flew out of my mouth and immediately hit the pavement like a dodo, finding out the hard way that it’s a flightless bird. And extinct. “Duh!” I hastily answered myself, but Jonny is kinder than I am. “No, no, it’s a good question,” he assured me.

And in a way, I guess it kind of was. Anyway, I can see what I was getting at. What does “summer” mean if it includes Christmas, with its residual secular connotations about the return of light and so forth? And astrologically, what does “Capricorn” mean if the sun’s journey there corresponds to hot, languid days, so antithetical to Capricorn’s stiff-spined reputation?

The way we practice astrology in the west is based on the seasons, with Aries and spring marking the beginning of the seasonal cycle, the starting point on the wheel. It is a system that speaks to the truth of our northern/western orientation: Aries happens to be the sign that ushers in spring, and we feel spring, in our bones, as a surging, sappy call to action and enthusiasm. The sign Cancer feels like summer to us, hot, endless days lying on the beach, the coconut stench of suntan lotion, romantic longing. Libra is the crunching leaves and tingly air of autumn. And by the time we reach Capricorn, it is winter here, our energy contracted into layers of clothing and short, cold days. The light is thin and weak, and that’s exactly how we feel – out of energy, our light fading, like the moon at its last quarter.

So this uncomfortable, contracted, low-energy experience is what informs our mythology of Capricorn. We make him Scrooge, all wiry and dour and pitiless, the taskmaster who drives his employees to work even on Christmas day; we fear him, and his ruling planet, Saturn, like we feared our dad on a bad day. They are, like winter, mean and harsh, and only the hardiest survive their tyranny. (more…)

Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in Gemini: Beyond Words

Posted by & filed under Eclipses, Full Moon, Gemini, Lunar Phases.

by April Elliott Kent

In Gemini, the Moon finds comfort in language – in the reassuring hum of parents’ voices down the hall as their children fall asleep; in the soothing mantra, the dog’s welcoming bark, delighted laughter, a favorite poem. Even, when the time comes, in the sensitive eulogy for a loved one, delivered by someone with keen powers of observation and a lyrical tongue.

Eclipses of the Moon reveal unconscious processes that we take for granted. Most of us can happily assume that when we open our mouths to speak, intelligible sounds will emerge. That if we want to write something, our brain and fingers will help us translate concepts into symbols and record them. We take for granted the ability to reach just about anyone at just about any time, something that would have seemed like a magical power only a couple of generations ago. Through technology, we can live far from our loved ones and still see them and talk to them at a moment’s notice.

This Full Moon in Gemini is a lunar eclipse, when the Moon slips into the earth’s shadow and is hidden from view. It reminds us that even in the age of constant information, constant contact, there are moments when the Gemini gifts we take for granted can be taken away, when the world’s comforting voices diminish into unsettling silence. When, having quarreled, the parents lie in chilly silence; the normally voluble relative’s stroke leaves him quiet and withdrawn at the Thanksgiving dinner table; the beloved pet slips away, mutely, with labored breaths. The phone forgets to ring. The heartfelt email receives no reply. (more…)

Venus and Pluto: What you have left

Posted by & filed under Pluto, Transits, Venus.

This lovely story really spoke to me when I ran across it.  I haven’t found a better metaphor for Pluto/Venus transits (and believe me, with transiting Pluto opposing my natal Venus, I’ve been looking for them) – transits that often make us feel that too much has been taken from us. Perhaps, in light of today’s Venus/Pluto conjunction, it will speak to you too.

Violinist Itzhak Perlman was crippled by polio in childhood and walks with the aid of braces on his legs and a pair of crutches. At a concert on the night of November 18, 1995, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, one of the strings of his violin suddenly snapped during the performance. Stunned, the audience held their collective breath, expecting Perlman to stop and leave the stage. Instead he paused, then continued playing – adjusting, creating, compensating as he went along, and when he put down his bow at the end of the concert, a mighty roar of applause filled the hall. When it had died down, he spoke to the audience: “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

Excerpted from Gardening for a Lifetime. Copyright 2010 by Sydney Eddison.

Preview: Astrology of the December 10 Lunar Eclipse in Gemini

Posted by & filed under Capricorn, Eclipses.

From my e-book “2011 Eclipses”

Sabian Symbol for the Moon at 19 Gemini: In a museum a large archaic volume reveals a traditional wisdom.

This lunar eclipse reflects many of the same issues as the solar eclipse two weeks ago – the square from the Sun and Moon to Mars, especially. We’re not done fighting, competing, struggling for territory – but with the Sun and Moon in good aspect to Saturn, we’re resigned to the idea that consolidating our empire will take time.

Meanwhile, Venus’ trine to Mars speaks of alliances recently formed, but its square to Saturn reminds us that it’s a time for reinforcing serious bonds with people who really understand us – not people whom we think may help us achieve short-term goals.

Hot degrees: This eclipse will probably be especially significant for you if you have planets of angles (especially the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant) between about 15 and 23 degrees of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, or Pisces.

Past years in this cycle: Since 1990, eclipses near this degree have taken place on:

December 9, 1992 (lunar)

June 10, 2002 (solar)

An essay about this eclipse is coming early next week – and if you’re interested in finding out more about what this eclipse will mean for you, order my exclusive eclipse report.