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Highlights for Nov. 23-29, 2020: Shifting Sands

Shifting Sands

Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone. Click them to see the date and time where you are.

Spiritual Etiquette

The invisible world would like to help,” writes Caroline Casey, “but spiritual etiquette requires that we ask.” Ritual is the way we ask for help from the gods, and Mercury’s journey through Scorpio is a powerful time to summon powerful, invisible forces to our side.

Mercury’s trine aspect to Neptune (Nov. 23, 2020, 8:39 pm PST) aligns with gifts of enchantment, mesmerism, even prophecy;and its sextile aspects to Jupiter and Pluto are a conduit that attaches us to forces of power and fortune. As intoxicating as all of this sounds, we should remind ourselves to petition the gods with the good of all in mind, and not just our own desires.

Desire and Reality

I have picked out my dream house. It’s a tiny, dowdy beach house on a desirable stretch of beach in a small, rather remote village on California’s central coast. Let’s say the gods someday saw fit to grant my wish. And one wintry, rain-soaked morning, perhaps a gigantic mudslide closes down the main highway through town, essentially trapping me in the situation I wished for.

We have our desires, and even if we succeed in summoning them, they can be complicated by hard realities that we didn’t see coming.

This, in a nutshell, is Venus in magical Scorpio opposed Uranus (the unexpected) in down-to-earth Taurus (Nov. 27, 2020, 9:10 am PST). The desires we’re intent on manifesting could possibly end up cutting us off from connecting with others, and with the world as it is. We may just wish for a change in our current circumstances which, if it happens, opens a genie’s bottle of drama.

The ultimate objective of this opposition is something in-between – a dream that satisfies our desires while keeping us from becoming too complacent. Venus in Scorpio opposes Uranus this week, and will find a way to demonstrate that even magic has its limitations, and is subject to the visible world’s unforeseen interventions.

Shifting Sands

Neptune, when it’s retrograde, is like the beach when the tide is out. The landscape looks a little stark, littered with ropes of kelp, chunks of driftwood, and birds scavenging for something to eat.

It’s easier to walk on the compacted sand at the waterline, though. And Neptune’s retrograde times seem, to me, to be a time when we walk on more solid ground, with a clearer view of the inner and outer landscapes. And then, when Neptune turns direct again (Nov. 28, 2020, 4:36 pm), the tide comes in and we’re pushed back to the shifting sands of the shore – to sit, spellbound, lulled by the sounds of the waves.

Looking ahead to the Lunar Eclipse

Next week will bring the first of two eclipses, a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse at 8.38 Gemini (Nov. 30, 2020, 1:30 am PST).  There was a solar eclipse near this degree (11 Gemini) on June 1, 2011; what was happening in your life at that time? Nine years later, this eclipse is the response to that one’s call. Something that changed for you then may be on the brink of another change now. There’s something new for you to learn, or a new way for you to share what you know. And as always at a Lunar Eclipse, your fresh awareness is shifting your relationships with those close to you.

This eclipse, and its Sagittarius Solar Eclipse corollary on Dec. 14, find the Sun and Moon dancing with Mars, the planet of action and excitement. If you find you’ve gone as far as you can in one direction, maybe it’s because you’ve lost your passion. Maybe you’ve been playing it too safe, too concerned with what others want from you instead of pursuing the path that is new and thrilling, that all but makes your heart burst into flame with excitement.

I’ll write more about this eclipse next week. For now, be thinking about all this, and see where your memories of 2011 take you. Also, this Full Moon is also the apex of a Lunar Phase Family that was initiated on June 3, 2019, with a New Moon at 12.33 Gemini. Seeds of intention that were sown then are blooming now.

Writing and collages © 2020 April Elliott Kent

Jen and I explore all the week’s highlights  in our latest podcast episode,

Ep. 57 | Learning from Neptune, Giving Thanks, & Our One-Year Podiversary!

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