As a special Mother’s day treat for you, here’s a May horoscope for Moms written by moi!
During the Sun’s yearly passage through Taurus we recognize the valuable people and things that inspire well-being. Of course this is serendipitously tied to Mother’s Day - proving there are no coincidences.
Aries: Quality of life is such an adult concept, and quickly becoming an appreciable reality for you. Yet you retain your edge. Ruling planet Mars plays in your house of fun beginning May 9 and your inner child recovers her moxie to play with abandon.
Taurus: You’ve just been elected Queen for the first three weeks of the month. As long as Venus crosses your path, you are officially relieved of trash duty. The others will get their turn eventually. Right now, it’s all about you.
Gemini: Have you ever had the sensation that while one part of you is busy yapping, another part of you is conked out on the sofa? To the casual observer you appear engaged, but you’re recharging. Don’t resist rest. So when Mercury retrogrades on May 20, you’re amply juiced. (more…)
The cat’s onto me. Skippy senses when I have a spare minute during the day, when I’m mulling over a thought between paragraphs, and jumps onto my chair for any scrap of lovin’ laying around. Within all the roles my self inhabits, there’s something for everyone, a nugget of attention here, an inquiry into well-being there, diet advice, astrological observations on the day. I do enjoy giving, or do I? Lately I’ve been wondering how to squeeze more satisfaction out of the simple exchanges in life, especially when it feels like there’s less around me. With the economy talk I do wonder if we’re being tricked into thinking we’re being squeezed into “less” on some level. Yet what of the more? More essential than these basic resources, like gold which clearly isn’t appreciating, what will appreciate over time are the qualities of attention, presence, and acceptance I bring into this moment. No squeeze there. (more…)
So How Do Husbands Stack Up in the Kitchen? An Expose’ by Moon sign. Part 3 of a series.
Aries Moon Husbands: Natural knivesmen. They probably enjoy the knives and cool kitchen utensils more than cooking. Excellent little choppers; give them a plate of vegetables for soup stock and they go to town. Make great sous chefs. Their feelings do get hurt if you threaten replacement by food processor, so be forerwarned. Don’t forget to make them feel like they’re the ones who really made the meal - they like the power. (more…)
Ever wanted an astrologer in your pocket to help navigate your cash flow, assist your next promotion or plumb your psychological state but do not want to shell out the big bucks to learn? It is your lucky day!
Introducing, a monthly Moon gathering designed just for you. Every month Marin astrologers Jessica Shepherd and Fern Feto Spring play weather girls to the heavens, exploring how moon cycles and star patterns play out in YOUR LIFE. This is a rare opportunity to understand how astrology influences awareness and energy on a personal and collective level in a group environment - with not one, but two professional astrologers. Click here for more.
He Said, She Said features one reader’s love question answered by professional astrologers Jessica Shepherd of Moonkissd and Jeffrey Kishner of Seduction Central . After they each provide their perspective, they combine their insight to offer advice they both can agree on.
Here’s this week’s Reader Question:
We have known each other for four months as business and friends, and he has been very supportive to me. He wants me to be his wife for life. We have not consummated our relationship physically but he swears what that I am the one!My concern is I just found out he was married three times. Is he for real? His last girlfriend was a ten year relationship and he was alone for the last two years? I take relationships seriously and have never been married. I am an attractive, sexy, successful woman who has had offers but I have been leery. This seems real??? My heart says one thing and my head says another. (more…)
So back to my Carrie Bradshaw moment: husbands and kitchens, is it an uneasy compromise?
No. Yes. Okay, sometimes. Seeing as how the Moon sign describes nurture from the beginning, might our beloved men have experienced a little more independence surrounding food, more coddling and feeding from mom, and a smidgen less of her instructive coaching in the kitchen? This discussion is wide open. I’m of the generation (Pluto and Uranus in Libra) where gender roles volcanically erupted and broke down into something more equitable. Still, unlike my stepdaughters, or even my 5 years- younger sister, home economics was required class material. He took wood shop. Surely that counts for something, primarily me, doing laundry, and he, joinery (huh?). And we women, blame it on breast cancer, preservatives, or taking care of our children, do often end up at the fore of wellness movements. I mean, gawd, I know there are men who have to worry about incestuous food-related illnesses that prevent us from enjoying a simple piece of fruit without freaking out about candida albicans but the ratio is something ridiculous like 1 man: 1000 woman. (more…)
The New Moon in Aries fell on my natal Moon in Aries to the exact degree. It was on the house cusp of husbands (did you 
even know that existed?). I hesitated blogging about this New Moon beforehand because I felt very much in the dark as to how this would play out, as New Moons have been known to do. And wow, of all the things I’d love to tell you I’m obligated to protect the innocent (or the guilty). So… thinking about what to write, and filtering through all the Aries New Moon news stories this weekend like “After War, Love Can Be a Battlefield” and various stress related emergency stories, including one apropos story about bloggers who are dying, yes dying, from the competition to stay current (astrologers be forewarned) I kept coming back to one conversation I had last week. It was a simple conversation. And so gosh darn tired of taking everything soooo seriously - an Aries seasonal hazard- this one made me smile. It was about husbands and kitchens. (more…)
I’ve been downloading the podcast of the New Earth for 4 weeks now and am burning to talk about it astrologically. 
Perhaps it’s the Piscean energies circulating this month, and ruling planet Neptune in Aquarius in the air raising astral-consciousness to all-time highs. It seems Neptune’s transit over Oprah’s Mercury in Aquarius has radically opened her consciousness, and the beauty of the Oprah media empire is we’re finally able to ride this new wave of consciousness - together. Goddess bless her for bringing mystic Eckhart Tolle to the masses, via webcast for his timely book, The New Earth. And it’s a fitting title broadcasting Pluto’s entry into Capricorn, which I gleefully told a client the other day after talking about The New Earth, must surely mean: “the death of the ego.” Hurrah!
Hmm, Oprah falls into the unique category reserved for Aquarians, what do we call her? She’s not a teacher, a philanthropist, a wise one - she is a visionary. Eckhart is a visionary Aquarian, too! Here’s the thing about these two: (more…)
Introducing a new bi-monthly astrology love advice 
column! He Said,She Said features a love advice question answered by professional astrologers Jessica Shepherd of Moonkissd and Jeffrey Kishner of Seduction Central . After they each provide their perspective, they combine their insight to offer advice they both can agree on.
Here’s this week’s Reader Question:
My counselor tells me that when it comes to men, I seem to running away to ones I could me and towards ones I can’t. I thought about this long and hard and decided that I just want a different reality- it may be a 7th house thing. The chart of the man is of an actor, a famous one but I’d like to get to know him as a person- all the while respecting his sense of privacy, space, time, constraints all that. I admit to feeling a strong attraction, but also I am afraid to say it, sense a connection- perhaps we share some of the same cultural history growing up in the same era. I want to know the proper way to pursue meeting or at least contacting this guy with success. I believe that some of us in the outer world are really nice folk and aren’t crazed fans. (more…)
After a month of ongoing tension between Mars-Pluto opposition, Mercury sextile Jupiter, conjunct Uranus on Thursday 
(3/27), then Venus conjunct Uranus sextile Jupiter Friday (3/28), reminds me of a benevolent, lovely and light but surprising cocktail - gone shockingly Molotov. Am I exaggerating here? The sheer amount of underlying tension in the emotional and sexual lives of folks read: what’s going on behind closed doors - is epic.
Yikes. The secret is out. I’m wondering about secrets and Pisces - mainly, because I’ve been told to keep like three, under strict confidance, all in the past two days. I’m relating these to the 12th house and Pisces, of secret sorrows and self-undoing, as these are the kind of secrets that by hitting the right ears would un-do a girl, or impel this one into direct conversations with her Maker. And yes, if secrets are circulating that means they’re no longer secrets, right? (I’m saying nothing) (more…)
Aries always reminds me of my kid self. I know, I know, you could say Leo 
is the eternal child, and having a Leo husband I see your point there, too. But maybe Aries is the perennial child, the part of us that emerges from winter into springtime, eager for today. Why does hope so readily spring eternal for Aries, the first sign of the zodiac? It’s another chance to live in the moment, because that’s when we’re really doing our Aries. There is only the now. If there were ever an Aries watch, it’s the stopwatch: Now. Now. Now.
When I was a kid, I experienced all kinds of Aries joys: I’d climb tall trees with the boys in a part of the ‘hood that bore a sign “no trespassing.”
(more…)
Yesterday, I made a not so near fatal tactical error. Hiking in the Marin 
hills, there we were like two dogs lapping up liquid sunshine. It was real quality time, the kind that’s not easy to come by as a non-DINK couple (double income, no kids). So in the spirit of adventure, with an unexplored trail with a lake at it’s head (a lake!) and Mars in Cancer transiting, no foolhardily prodding my Sun, I declared “onward, ho!”
My husband gave me fair warning, tracing the trail with his finger on the plastic park map. It looked long. And we didn’t have a map to carry. How long could it be? We checked our watches, I figured I had three hours before my astrology reading at 6 - and home was only 5 minutes by car -plenty of time. As we reached the lake after an hour (or so) and I exclaimed, we’re almost home! my husband laughed. Not even.
LSS, we got lost.
So. Have you ever seen a death march scene in one of those war movies? Perhaps had a past life memory of being in one?
(more…)
Introducing a new bi-monthly astrology love advice column! He Said,She Said features a love advice question answered by professional astrologers Jessica Shepherd of Moonkissd and Jeffrey Kishner of Seduction Central . After they each provide their perspective, they combine their insight to offer advice they both can agree on.
Here’s this week’s Reader Question:
I am a Capricorn woman. I have much to be grateful for but the one area of my life that is a perpetual source of frustration is my romantic life. I have dated a lot, I attract men, but my romances are always so fleeting, end abruptly, and not usually by me. I have tried all sorts of positive ways to handle being single, but it’s getting rough to keep up the good attitude. (more…)
Yikes, the dark of the Pisces Moon. And if you’ve never known what 
that’s about - the couple of days before a New Moon, now you do. Despite the steady San Francisco sunlight streaming into my study - it feels dark. Ominous. Mysterious. What’s around the corner? Hard to know. We can feel like we’re groping in the dark around New Moons, because there’s no moonlight, and our capacity to see what’s in front of us - that’s gone, too. It’s certainly a lesson in trusting your intuition, with that pesky Mars-Pluto opposition hanging around, stirring up trouble like two birds of a feather - at odds. Both want the same thing, but we’re too engaged in wrestling with the not so subtle differences in “I want-You want” to notice. I say potato, you say potah-to…yada, yada let’s call the whole thing off. Pisces, sigh, surrenders.
(more…)
Mars enters Cancer tomorrow 3/4/08, making an immediate opposition to 
Pluto in Capricorn. Pluto fills out the leg of a cardinal t-square involving Sun, Mars and Pluto. With a Scorpio ruled 2nd house cusp, I figured I’d be hit up with a huge bill. And new resolve to become more viable - financially, and as a person. So when an unexpected pain shot from my tooth-nerve to my brain last week, I did my Aries Moon thing:
“Moon, get Dr. Austria on the phone, cancel all appointments, this is really going to set the schedule back (what does a root canal feel like?) We’re going in…”
(more…)
Backtracking to that endless retrograde station of Mars in Gemini on my 
Saturn for a moment, I need a soapbox here because that particular transit had me wrestling with immovable questions, but also answered them. My clients began voicing a piece of me - the maternal side of me “take care of me, make it all better, promise!” Which in reality came out of their mouths like this, “answer this question. Make up my mind for me…and what will I, should I do?” and resulted in this post - a real defining moment. Straddling the fear of being wrong or right all the time really takes the spunk out of a girl. So I pulled my courage, examined what I could and could not promise, and realized I don’t like making predictions - at all. I can make a “best guess” but that’s about all. Basically, because at best they’re a crapshoot and I’m no gambler. And I don’t like being wrong. So beautifully, magically, when a client yesterday said at the end of her session, unprompted, “maybe with astrology, the exploration is the destination…” I couldn’t help but feel Mars had had his way with my Saturn.
(more…)
I confess. With Mars retrograding then stationing around my Saturn for that hellish-ly 
long period, then the Virgo-fabulous eclipse, I’ve tried to stay as low under the radar as possible in the blogosphere.
And that was the exact prescription I gave my sister when she called last week, saying her company (not to name names but they have the word Star in it) was laying off folks. She was only one of several people I know experiencing big time shakedown in the lay-off department. Fittingly, Saturn (the sickle) in the sign of Virgo, the sign of harvest and golden, abundant wheat, cutting losses has become a theme in the lives of those around me - and this no holds barred theme on big time cutbacks (for prurient Virgoan purpose of efficiency and productivity) affects both the one laid off, and the morale of those left behind (and it didn’t help that said “Star” company announced new promotions on the same day they announced lay-offs).
Worth mentioning that while the Eclipse was a week ago, eclipse energy reverberates.
(more…)
Ellen Page (2/21/87), everyone’s darling, is a Pisces.
And like many other young Piscean celebrities, she refuses to act her age - because she has wisdom way beyond her biological years. It’s a gift of the Fishes. Who can forget Ellen as waif turned disturbingly wrath in Hard Candy? Her tween-y character turned the tables on a man who used the internet to lure teenage girls into his nightmarish domain - boy, did he pick the wrong chick to mess with. And in Juno, her young elfin beauty once again paradoxically highlighted this sagacity.
It’s said that if you look deeply into the eyes of a newborn baby, you can tell if they are an “old soul” or “new soul”. Pisces people just aren’t smart - they’re old soul smart. It’s a subtle knowing, a thought transmission “yes, I’ve seen it all before.” Look into the eyes of a Pisces, young or old, and you can sense their agelessness.
(more…)
Introducing a new bi-monthly astrology love advice column! He Said,She Said features a love advice question answered by professional astrologers Jessica Shepherd of Moonkissd and Jeffrey Kishner of Seduction Central . After they each provide their perspective, they combine their insight to offer advice they both can agree on.
Here’s this week’s Reader Question:
I guess I’ll just dive in. Two broken marriages, my fault. The first lasted 16 years, the second 10. No fighting, no yelling, the first to a passionless Libra, high school sweetheart. The second to a Leo full of physical passion and deep connection–a lot more fiery. But both were very peaceful, even happy marriages until: Flirtations that became affairs…I was friendly, and then didn’t know how to say, “No, I don’t want to do this.”
(more…)
Because folks found it useful, and tomorrow’s the last of the 18-month 
Virgo-Pisces eclipses (harrah for Virgo and Pisces!) I’m excerpting a piece I wrote about eclipses last fall. Enjoy…
Eclipses move us along our evolutionary path, often with huge signposts, other times with a whisper - and always with an element of surprise. It’s like this:
You’ve been focused on redecorating several of the rooms in your house. Then there’s the attic: you’re stuffing it with all the things you’ve moved around. “Suddenly” the attic needs help because the roof is beginning to bow. It’s not really a surprise: out of the corner of your eye, you’ve noticed the bulging attic but you’ve been focused on other things. Now the attic demands your urgent attention.
(more…)
I’m so in love with my husband. We must say “I love you” like fifty times a 
day - genuinely. I know, cheesy, cute, romantic or “uh, huh still in your honeymoon period are you?” says you. No, I believe we’re different. The cup is not empty or even half-empty - but full all the time. And this NYTimes article When There is No We in Marriage made me realize just how different we are in what we come to expect (or ask) of love. And since Venus has just entered Aquarius (February 17- March 11), freedom v. closeness is the topic du jour.
To me, it’s a sad portrait. More than sad, it’s disturbing, because it lives under the guise of hip, cool, bohemian - and socially acceptable - the norm. It’s a story about two cool Manhattan people doing their thing (it’s a paradigm, agreed?) - who once decided work is equally or more important than their marriage; that it’s okay to communicate Blackberry to Blackberry; and who must know their kids will follow their workaholics examples, and be as clueless about how to nurture their marriage, too. So if you’re wondering like me, where does the “I and thou” overlap? Where does the “we” go? Sometimes it goes on a honeymoon. In this case, alone.
After their wedding, the two often and happily went their separate ways. In fact, they even started married life separately. She began their honeymoon alone (he couldn’t find his passport), checking into their suite in Venice and thoroughly enjoying herself without him.
“I learned, ‘O.K., you like Italy more than you like me - good to know.”
(more…)
We were walking the dog, my sister and I -and sat down on a 
bench in the upper crust part of SF, Noe Valley. Settling into our patch of sun, a fashionably self-conscious twenty-something walked by. Followed by another…and another.
Overheard: “So I had to cancel my Pilates appointment this morning, and move my manicure…I was just too hung over…”
My sister says, “Ugh. Sometimes they make me sick.” They being the young urban modicums of hip and cool.
“This place looks like Melrose,” I snort.
“The thing is,” she says, “I live here. But I’m so much happier not living my life from that place.”
“You mean the place where one card falls and the whole house comes tumbling down?”
“Yes.”
(more…)
Dear Moonkissd,
I have been struggling in trying to figure out what direction to take in regards to career. After racking up debts taking gen. ed. and other classes in hopes of coming to the “aha” moment, I’m afraid I haven’t come any closer to answering this question. What I have found is that: I find the thought of an uninspiring 9-5 job dreadful, but I crave financial stability. (Well, financial abundance would be preferable, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, eh?) The idea of racking up more debt returning to school does not thrill me as I have spent the last few years paying off debt and still have a way to go. Do you see anything in my chart as far as any talents or areas of luck I may have in finding my niche? I may not be financially ready to attend school yet but if there is anything in my chart giving clues as to what I should be good at doing that would bring prosperity I would be thrilled!
Sincerely,
Broken Compass
Time: 1:39 PM (PDT); Date: 10/30/1971; Place: Mountain View, CA. (Chart below)
Dear Broken Compass,
I’m feeling prolific today, and in the mood to dispense bullet point advice. I think it was something about the freedom of writing this way, combined with your stimulating question. Oh, and two shots of espresso. So if I come off a little bossy, my apologies. I am, under the influence. And it’s my website.
(more…)
What’s in store for Valentine’s Day? 
Is it really even a holiday, or a holiday invented by Zales, Tiffany, Hallmark and Godiva?
It matters not. Venus is in Capricorn, and she appreciates the stuff - the bling and rings and things. The girl wants things. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. None of this cubic zirconia crap. She wants something that will last, and anything that will improve her image will do, too.
Maybe a business card, a webpage. Or an unlimited yoga pass, a business contract or a lifetime supply of coffee. But whatever you do, don’t cheap out. Make your gift a combination of practical and useful. Or useful and practical.
Of course some of us will say, Oh, I don’t want anything. And we mean it, too (Venus can be incredibly self-denying). It’s just hard to know which one of us you’re talking to. So best get a gift anyhow.
(more…)
(this is an excerpt from my upcoming CD on how to attract your soul mate)
Everyone has a twin flame, a twin soul, a soul mate. So where did the soul mate come from and why haven’t you found yours? In honor of this Valentine’s Day Gemini Moon, here’s a love note for you.
The soul mate is ancient and a modern 
reinvention. And because we love astrology, the story begins with the Greeks.
In Symposium, Plato described it like this (more or less): this dude Zeus (Jupiter) was atop his throne in the sky observing the world of men, women and hermaphrodites. One day the Gods, overhearing a conversation at the water cooler, learned the humans were plotting a plan to climb up the fireman’s pole to heaven and overthrow their kingdom.
(more…)
Sometimes I think being an astrologer is one of the hardest jobs in the world.
Step into my world for a moment. People bring you their package of problems and lay them at your feet. Sometimes it’s as exciting as Christmas morning to unwrap them together - because we begin to see them quite differently this time, and discover the possibility of a truer, more relevant present. Why, that monster in the closet is just trying to give me a cookie! And that’s the gift of astrology, learning to understand just exactly what it is we’ve been given here. Hmm. Well, looks like a lump of coal, Jethro - but is it? Life is full of opportunities; it seems our greatest difficulty lies in recognizing them.
But still.
People like you, like me, come to astrologers for answers.
(more…)
(conversations between astrologers, Part II)
“Venus in Capricorn is so CHEAP!”
“What did you say?”
“Totally CHEAP! I’m watching the financial markets and every time an aspect involves Venus in Capricorn the markets tank! People become fearful, they hoard. They don’t want to spend their money with Venus in Capricorn and people with Venus in Capricorn are the same.”
“Oooh, this is good. Can I quote you?”
“Go ahead. I stand by it.”
(more…)
An expose’.
I got together with an astrologer-friend yesterday, for a coffee and catch-up, something I’ve been doing a bit of lately with the ol’ Merc RX in Aquarius. Sure, we’re normal folk just like you, who talk about everyday things. But you guessed it, like that VW bug (Herbie?) that used to drive itself, all roads lead back to…astrology. It’s kind of annoying to be us, actually. You can call us freaks or boring, better yet call us compulsive - we just can’t help ourselves. Wanna be a fly on the wall?
“So ever since we got back from Europe, we’ve been on this coffee kick, we’ve been roasting our own beans in the popcorn popper…”
(more…)
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