Moonkissd by Jessica

Today’s astrology is not lightweight. More like benchpressing. I awakened this morning from a shadowboxing dream. I was being stalked by a predator, and although this was never a physical reality for me, through the screen of my own natal Mars/Pluto square I recognized him as a symbolic piece of my self. In an earlier dream sequence, I raised my hand to strike someone I loved. I was the perpetrator of violence, which shocked the “Me” in the dream. Oh, and this was followed up by a scathing email from an angry client and news of a death in my extended family - all before noon. Wow, this red guy really packs a punch!

Here’s the gift of astrology: it allows me to objectively evaluate my own and other’s aggression (and fear of aggression) without self-judgment. Everyone has a Mars figure in their chart – the aggressor and empowering figure. People have different relationships to the “I AM” planet of personal empowerment, righteous anger, passive aggressiveness and unfathomable violence - as evidenced by their relationship to Mars. Mars can be forthright; he can be suspicious and sneaky. But one thing’s for sure, our relationship to our own anger affects how we get what we want (or don’t want) from the world.

Right now, Mars in Taurus is squaring Saturn in Leo –AND- being quincunx’d by Pluto. Mars in Taurus is slow to anger but when he get’s going, he stubbornly persists down the same path, you know - the one that’s not working. Immovable Saturn is blocking the expression of anger, making it hard to let it out. When Pluto comes along and quincunx’s the stalemate, the shadow emerges. There’s the juice. When we can see our shadow, we can take responsibility for our “fighting style”. What’s the shadow of anger? Victimization. Personal abnegation of your own aggression. Not taking responsibility for what you want. Any others?

This timely article on Yahoo Health today (do the media have personal astrologers or what?), “What’s Your Man’s Fighting Style?” by David Zinczenko is a fun read and a worthy exploration for Martian Stargazers. You may even want to check out his book, Men, Love & Sex: The Complete User’s Guide for Women. But remember ladies, knowing your own fighting style (instead of blaming your man) is the best offense you’ve got going. As within, so without. Here’s my astrological stab at the red guy (shown in bold) with quotes from Zinczenko’s Fighting Style:

The D.A.
Personality Type: Competitive. Mars in Aries, Mars in Scorpio

“…About 20 percent of men in this survey admit that they say they fight like lawyers - trying to demolish a woman’s arguments with logical, rational reasoning to catch her in a lie or make her confess. This tactic may mean that the guy wins the logical side of the disagreement, but his battering-ram style won’t win him any emotional points in the long run.”

The Surfer, Personality Type: Lllllaaaaaaaid Back. Mars in Pisces

“…Goes with the flow, dude. This kind of guy lets life roll off his back - he understands the woman’s point of view, and he tries to make her happy, even at his own expense. Works well in many cases, but not all the time - especially for the woman who subconsciously may want a fight, just to make sure he’s as emotionally invested in the relationship as she is.”

The Old-School Patriarch Mars in Taurus
Personality Type: Stuffy

“…Silent treatment. No words, no confession, no way you’re going to trip him up into seeing it your way, because he’s not saying a word. The passive-aggressive move - the most frustrating of all fighting tactics - only works to infuriate, which is exactly why he does it. The short-term satisfaction of making her madder usually doesn’t pay long-term dividends.”

The Salesman Mars in Leo, Mars in Sag
Personality Type: Smooth

“…About a quarter of men admitted in the survey that they will say “I love you” to get themselves out of arguments. It’s a good, charming move -one that can work, and one that he most likely uses when he knows he’s wrong. He uses adoration to substitute for confession.”

The Poet Mars in Libra
Personality Type: Stubborn and Soft

“…He does something wrong, he knows it, he tries to explain why he did it, she doesn’t buy it, he backs off. Now, he reverts to his preferred method of communication: email. The carefully crafted message - complete with confession, explanation, compliments, and a dash of humor - allows him a chance to speak without conflict. It’s safe, though a smidge cowardly. But he uses it to control his feelings and the message - and to end the argument as soon as possible.”

“Let the sunshine in, Let the sunshine in…” - Hair soundtrack

I wasn’t around in 1967. So I don’t know what it was actually like at that first Human be-in, Golden Gate Park, January of 1967. But I’ve seen pictures of the Summer of Love. The Summer of Love was the consummation of a full scale social revolutionary marriage. True to Aquarian form, hippies weren’t capitulating with one another, but an ideal. It’s free love, man. The love was free that summer, so was food, drink and drugs. Everyone who danced to the beat of a different tribal drum came to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury to follow their rainbow future. The style icon of the 21st century was born – a “hippie” in flamboyant costume and long uni-sex hair (as a nod to individualist and image-conscious Leo).

The Summer of Love was more than the passing patchouli whiff or bong hit of a social fad. It was outright war. On the Government, the Enemy. Summer Lovers rejected institutional values, practiced sexual liberation and started revolutions in art and spirituality. Eastern philosophy liberated minds, communal living liberated family units and non-traditional relationships liberated the missionary position. Truth to self reigned supreme. No one wanted to fight a war they didn’t believe in. Parents, government, almost every institution limited individual freedoms. For Aquarius, the rights of the individual needed to matter more than the popular Group think. This new Group had a manifesto everyone could agree on: love, peace and happiness, which gave free rein to a new kind of individual. Power to the people. A distinct shift was beginning; the equinox was precessing into the constellation of Aquarius.

So this all bubbled up on my way to a doctor’s appointment when to avoid the certain wait, I popped into a San Francisco art gallery. I viewed photos of the Summer of Love, families, friends, neighbors and children holding hands. In their solidarity, I saw people joined together in a journey. Their faces wore that certain recognizable look of purpose, a sense of mission. Barefoot and diverse, youthful, strong and confident. They were united by a common cause close to their hearts. I was struck by the passage of time, how much and little has changed. So much for progress. Are we any better off now than we were then?

I was also struck by the way people from a different slice of history, resembled people today. People are people. The effects of disease prevention and longer life-spans are negligible; we look little different from our ancestors. I felt deeply connected to the truth of my ancestral human lineage and proud to be apart of something so grand, exciting and true. An eerie feeling passed over me when the gallery director who kindly gave me le’ grand tour commented, “Look at them. The young and old, joined together taking to the streets in the name of love. Beautiful. Can you imagine? And with our government, the corruption and war…”

But the Summer of Love, the Sun in Leo, the Full Moon in Aquarius is about L-O-V-E. Or is it…Leo Sun puts sunshine in our hearts, our willpower shines bright and fun, times of easy self-esteem, play and leisure activities. Huh? Opposite to Leo, Aquarius balances Leo. Leo rips our hearts wide open with childlike joy and Aquarius challenges us to keep it open by throwing some real zingers of a Truth in there, like: P.S. we are collectively suffering. There are people dying from a war we don’t believe in. Our healthcare system has failed. There’s overwhelming poverty and a government who looks out for The Man. If, as a society we are judged by the way we treat our weakest members, we are failing. Love, Aquarius

Chiron is in Aquarius, near this Full Moon. We’ve got collective wounds and it’s time to heal them. If not now, please Goddess let’s heal before we end up battling our personal human rights with an uncaring HMO claim agent who denies our right to heal. Because after seeing Sicko last night, getting sick just isn’t an option. Over and over, the film prompted the Leo/Aquarius question: Does anyone care at all? Will we watch out for each other, or only ourselves? And (in America) how will we change things?

It’s the Leo-Aquarius dilemma, the axis of Love and Humanity. When we fall in love with Leo, we learn personal love. Loving one another well is rightly good. Falling in love starts heart revolutions. The romance and energy of Leo sets off soul/spirit firecrackers, and those electrical displays CAN travel through our chakras and out into the world where they can accomplish a world of good. But when we’re constantly “frightened and demoralized” by our cultural institutions, we’re fed fear, not love. How can we fall in love with our own strength and beauty when we’re in piles of debt? Beauracracy and lip service and disease are forms of government control. How can we even think about living in our luster (and so threaten toppling party powers) when we’re living in a culture of overload, overwork, stress and burned out adrenal glands?

Upon wondering on which country I’ll be relocating, this morning I had my own epiphany. The pivotal karmic lesson of my early life story was learning how to care for my physical and emotional body. During this time, I had no clue where to begin. I figured I must’ve been missing a chromosome: no one had taught me how to do this! As a Cancer Sun sign, self-care is a physical/spiritual work. My personal revolution, long story short, goes something like “before you can be good for another, you’ve got to be good to you.” It’s been a long road, but this manifesto continues to serve me well, as I’m sure it’s well served others. Then it struck me: a revolution starts with one wickedly powerful good intention. Then we let it do the inworking of a lifetime.

So the hippies of the Summer of Love started a revolution and it was ignited from within each person. That’s the fire of intent, the burning heart of Leo. Like any good social movement, their common intentionality drew them together. Their common purpose made them stronger, more powerful, lustrous individuals and that’s the meaning of strength in numbers. Passion without heart is heart-less (also known as obsessive, greedy). In my opinion, without heart, we’re swept up in a lost cause. So here’s my Full Moon prayer: May the strong-hearted geniuses be provoked and called forth this Aquarius Full Moon. And may we find the promise of love behind all injury. Help us find the strength in our solidarity. And be gentle on us (a literary nod to Eat, Pray, Love). If we do find a way out of this mess, it will be because we’ve learned to love ourselves despite the odds. And of course, learned to love others as we do ourselves.

Sera Beak is just like you and me. And if she’s not, basically you want to be her after your done reading The Red Book.

“I want to find God in my own way, in my own time, and essentially, by my own self. And I have. She beats deep inside my chest. I see her reflected everywhere. She grows with me.”

“Yep, I’m a true modern devotee. I love the mystics, The Matrix, yoga and the White Stripes, meditation and designer jeans. In terms of cultural dialects, I am mulitlingual. I speak New Age and Aveda Skin care, Eastern philosophy and Elle magazine, Metaphysics and Hitachi vibrators. I love modern art and dinner parites, lavender chocolate and dirty maritinis, dancing and random road trips and hanging out with my girlfriends. My spirituality is real, alive and active, funky and fresh. It’s not separate from my daily life; rather, it’s so integrated and infused I can no longer separate the two.”

Sera Beak is a Harvard graduate scholar of mysticism and comparative religion and all around cool chick. Don’t let that intimidate you. She’s also a “Spiritual Cowgirl” who suggests you might not want to gorge yourself at the Spiritual Buffet, but carefully graze (so you don’t get a stomach ache). Her loose, free approach to laying out different philosophies (Goddess, Tao, Sufi, Buddhism etc.) with scholarly ingenue guarantees to fire up your personal Divine Spark.

But that’s not even the gem of this book. She’s funny and hip. This smart chick has a sense of humor making this an easy read. Dvine signs, energy, synchronicity, lucky numbers, colors, self-acceptance…are relevant and necessary tools for the spiritual life of any Spiritual Cowgirl.

Try ”Ritualize Yourself”  - burn your bedsheets to banish negative energy from your bed and invite good energy in. And her wild suggestions aren’t half-baked, they’re backed up by hard facts (Native Americans, Buddhists, Wiccans and Hindus have rituals to “burn” away negativity).

I love this book! The Red Book is On My Bookshelf indefinitely…

Mick Jagger: 26 July 1943

Speaking of pants, Mick Jagger’s skintight leather ones (and infamously lush lips) makes the ladies sing “start me up, Mick!” Yet this strong stage presence arose from humble beginnings, as is sometimes the case with Leo. In early Rolling Stones days, Mick was awkward in front of a crowd and imitated other performers to find his own unique style. But find style he must; self-expression is sunshine to Leo’s creative garden, and these souls bloom by shining their individuality for the world. How does a creative person see reflections of himself in the world? By populating it with their offspring! Leo is a virile sign, so whether Leo has creative babies or real live bundles of joy, so much of Leo’s happiness and joy comes from being a proud parent. In his professional life, Mick’s populated the music world with copious albums, live performances - and he’s still going strong at sixty-four years young. In his private life, he’s a dad of seven! And was the song “You’re so Vain” by Carly Simon really about Mick? Sometimes we call Leo vain, but Leo’s journey is to be the brightest light in the sky… the Sun.

Who is this lusty lady? Do we really know her at all? As Venus moves retrograde in Virgo today (through September 8 ) she begs our kindness and our modesty. But to really know her we must first defrock her. Yes, take off her clothes.

My college art teacher once distinguished the difference between nude and naked. Nude implies self-consciousness, the awareness of being looked at, being watched. And the nude model’s poses are rehearsed or posed, from that perspective. We’re trained at nude, in art, magazines, advertising as nude naughtily seduces us into thinking she’s naked. But she’s not. No, nude will always double check her reflection in the mirror, angling for someone else. Meanwhile, naked is naked. As in: the buff. There’s no best angle to get because there’s no trying to “get”. Experiencing naked is happening upon a sleeping beauty in the buff, or a diaper-less baby playing on the beach. We’re so exquisitely surprised when we stumble upon that moment, that accidental naked moment (or any naked moment for that matter) –spontaneous beauty takes our breath away. Stripped of self-awareness, our inhibitions lift and for a moment, we’re just human beings, being naked. When we escape nude, naked is a taste of pure freedom.

Oh, to experience the vulnerability of naked – ouch, the criticism and judgment, (usually our own) to our blessed imperfections. We’ve got to be comfortable in our own skin. To brave our own naked reflection.  Better run for the concealer and hide those sleep-deprived eyes girls! Retouch our color and pluck those grey hairs. To be brutally honest, Venus won’t travel anywhere without her make-up bag. Goddess knows what artifice can do for a woman…

Hmmm, to capture Venus naked, in her unawares - c’est possible? Surely, it’s not an easy task, although her retrograde motion means she’s unloading her old garb in preparation for a major makeover. Nude and naked, perhaps she’s a walking, talking paradox? The idyllic Venus, a Maxfield Parrish picture with wisps of clouds floating between sea and mountain scapes, a lovely lady with a flowing gown, swinging as a young buck leaning on a Roman column pops grapes and chocolate into her mouth clearly clashes with the reality of the planet, barren, waterless, with lethal levels of sulfuric acid. Ah, love hurts. We get it. Venus has a built in illusion clause, true to love’s form, a degree in prettying up for the camera. She has that pesky habit of glamorizing her own self-image just a wee bit, a little air-brush over here, nip and tuck there. She allows us to keep our precious illusions until we’re ready to part with them, one by one…

Will the real Venus please stand up?

Here’s the skinny on our girl: Ancient civilizations feared Venus. When the Aztecs saw Venus rise with the Sun, they took to their houses in fright. “And when it [Venus] newly emerged, much fear came over them; all were frightened. Everywhere the outlets and openings of [houses] were closed up. It was said that perchance [the light] might bring a cause of sickness, something evil when it came to emerge.” The Mayans timed their wars to Venus’ cycle. They made sacrifices to her so she wouldn’t destroy valuables, or worse, steal the Sun, sending the world into eternal darkness. What made Venus - to whom astrology attributes the beloved concepts of relatedness, values, feelings, pleasure and love - so fearsome and wrathful? Is it a case of mistaken identity or a question of seeing what we want to see? (By the way, I call Venus a “she” because she’s the only feminine planet in the solar system. We all know Love isn’t gender-identified)

Happy New Year, Venus!

The cycle of Venus is 584 days. Approximately 1 ½ calendar years equals one Venus year. As the planet travels through these 584 days, she elegantly patterns a five-fold star, or pentagram, tracing backward and forward to complete. At the inferior conjunction, she’s at her closest point to the Sun, initiating a new Venus life cycle AND at the superior conjunction, she’s furthest from the Sun, holding a balance for awareness. Right now in the retrograde cycle, we’re rounding the final lap of this past Venus year. When she meets with the Sun on August 17 she forms a sort of Venus New Moon. If you’ve moonwatched, you know that New Moons seed new cycles. So it goes for Venus. 7 days later in the morning sky (around August 22) we can see her rise with the Sun and it’s a whole new day for love! We’re starting anew in relationship, and the intentions we carry in our hearts we carry to the future. Yay! First, you know the story: darkness before light. In the 7 days before “New” Venus emerges from the underworld she appears her “darkest.” She’s invisible from the night sky and she’s not on holiday. She’s in the underworld. This lady’s going down.

Yes, underworld. Don’t let it scare you, dears. Like any story it’s symbolic, not literal. Sumeria has this wonderful myth of Innana or Ashtar, their personal Venus, aka goddess of sexuality, fertility AND warfare. According to legend, Innana could be found at the local pub bagging hot men OR picking a fight, not necessarily in that order. Innana had this dark sister named Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld, whose brother had died so she decided to pop on in for the funeral. Being Venus (ahem), she had to look the part so dressed in her finest jewelry, wearing lapis lazuli, mascara and even a wig. She just so happened to ask several Gods to search for her if she went missing, you know just in case something went wrong. Was she going down to start a war – or as an act of love toward her sister? The legend is unclear here, pointing to Venus’ uncertain motives. So down she goes passing 7 gates removing pieces of her costume, one by one. By the time she passes the final gate, she is stripped, naked before the Queen. Ereshkigal is openly hostile toward her worldly sister. After all, in Innana’s world of sex and war, death has no place. Without her fighting gear, naked Innana is vulnerable to attack. Ereshkigal kills her sister and grotesquely hangs her from a meat hook.

So when the God’s Enlil, Nanna and Enki were recruited to save our Venus, the first two refused to help, claiming it was her own selfish mess. (Ironically, Innana’s own husband Dumuzi was unmoved to action on his wife’s behalf. Myth makes the point that he was not wearing mourning clothes and was otherwise pleasantly enjoying life, his pleasures undisturbed by his wife’s death.) So Enki went down south to fetch Innana, expressed deep concern over what was troubling Ereshkigal and with heart-to-heart conversation, some food and drink, Ereshkigal revived Innana. With baggage: demons. The demons would follow her until they found someone to take her place. Those demons were hungry for those shadow-y qualities of Venus, laziness, vanity, pursuit of self-interest. Surely her husband Dumuzi was an easy replacement. Heck, I’d deem him a necessary sacrifice, too. But we don’t need to sacrifice our partner during this retrograde period, do we ladies? That would be an evolutionary step backwards…

Innana’s symbolic descent into the underworld begins at Venus retrograde. We’re stripped of our superficial values and asked for our deeper ones. What are they? Are we bound by vanity and self-protection, or is there a place for bare bones death and transformation? There’s no point in posturing or posing, as Innana tragically discovered. Her inauthenticity led to her demise and indirectly, her huband’s. So mightn’t we strip ourselves of our illusions now or be stripped of them later? What do we need to relinquish? Maybe we need to relinquish the illusion of life over death, or our disregard for the natural cycles, the ups and downs of relationship (it’s not always up is it). Can you stand before your lover, naked? Holding an image of perfection - that is, never letting your lover see you without make-up for example or only showing your “best face” instead of your true one creates false illusions and suffering. The dark needs light, nude needs naked.

There are certain things Western Astrology advises against during Venus retrograde times (see below) and maybe for good reason, but a healthier and more empowering perspective suggests we strip down to our skivvies in heart matters. Really. When we’re nude, we’re participating in an illusion. On a physical level, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to appear our best. Beauty is magical. How wonderful to celebrate, relish and delight beauty! Yet, on a psychological level, hasn’t vanity destroyed enough relationships and started too many wars (hmmm…not just the Trojan War)? How far do we go with preserving our self-image, our pursuit of pleasure and at what cost? Let’s face it, when we’re naked, we’re honest. We’re defenseless and vulnerable. But oh, so powerful. Think of Lady Godiva horseback, long hair whipping against her naked body. Her singular naked act freed England from oppression.

And that’s the naked truth.

Standard notes on retrograde Venus:
Don’t make a major relationship decision, to marry or break-up – relationships make a 180 degree turn then correct at Venus’ direct
Avoid cosmetic surgery and beauty treatments
Don’t make big purchases
Social events may disappoint
Relationships require extra attention and care
Save your makeover until Venus moves direct
People pursue pleasure with more voracity – and criticize other’s aesthetic
Extreme differences in taste appear
Money and personal values clash

“Taking off my glasses
Sun pokes through my lashes
And somehow I know
There’s a time for every star to shine

Everybody got their something
Everybody got their something…”
-Everybody Got Their Something by Nikka Costa

As of last night, the Sun is in Leo, can you feel it? It’s the hottest season of the year – the season of Leo. The radiating heart of the solar system, the Sun, in his home sign, Leo is strong, pulsating, fixed heat. Leo times remind us that in order to be any good at anything at all – we must put our heart into it. No holding back.

I was gifted a wonderful image of Leo, two Leo’s talking at a coffee shop: one says to the other ‘I was in front of the class, giving my all and you want to know how I felt like? - like this.’ She mock rips her shirt open shirt and bares her chest ‘Raawhhhhrrr!’ It’s a powerful image and it’s stuck with me. Baring everything, honesty, truth, raw emotion – putting it all on the line, that’s the power of the roaring Lion. Leo lives from a raw place of strength and honesty. What we see is ferocity, courage and confidence. What the Lion feels is vulnerable.

So I was playing around with video clips this weekend, because of a recent work-related venture, casually wondering if I had the star power to be a Star. In the spirit of play, I played. Getting in front of a camera is a crash course in being Leo. First: the hair, the make-up, the clothes and don’t forget the lighting – it can make or break you. Basically you became totally preoccupied with how you look (vanity), with how you’ll be perceived (ego-image) and hope your talent will come across in the process (your uniqueness and creativity). Visions of fame dance like sugar plum fairies and I got totally caught up in the process – actually it felt a lot like the make believe I loved as a little girl. I tried my luck at librarian, restauranteur, teacher, roller skating dancer but never T.V. reporter or movie star – ooh, this was going to be fun. Sadly, my shooting star turned fallen star after I watched my first clip. It looked unnatural. I just wasn’t being myself. I was reading a script and even though I wrote it, it didn’t sound like me. Heck, it didn’t even look like me. As a grounded and fairly confident thirty-something lady, it was less the shock of seeing myself on camera, the gap between how-I-see-me and how-you-see-me, than the feeling of abject horror as aliens proceeded to possess my body and speak through me. I looked like I was channeling a really bad audition, the kind Entertainment Tonight pulls out of the gilded Hollywood vaults just to remind us how far Brad Pitt has come. I really got why I didn’t get that part in Scheherazade. Ironically, my best “take” was the most authentic one, a shot of me plainly listing all the reasons why I’d never be any good on camera… which were, “I was assigned an ‘extra’ in drama class…never given a speaking part” and ultimately ended with “I’ll never be able to do this. I’m not a Leo.”

(Clearly I have some work to do on the fact that I wasn’t chosen to be Scheherazade, but her handmaiden. With no speaking part - which by the way I changed when during my brief appearance onstage during the opening performance I giggled, quite loudly according to my then boyfriend.)

But I digress. My little camera experiment brought me back to Leo’s golden rule: you shine when you’re in your strength. Pretending to be someone you’re not won’t cut it – I gotta be me. And I really gotta practice, practice, practice to be a natural with the camera. And possibly even need a coach - as I’m now sure there must be such people now - someone who knows about ensuing self-consciousness, delusions of grandeur, those shocking falls from sky to earth, and practical dilemmas (ad lib or teleprompter?).

A lesson in living in the spotlight during the age of reality T.V., youtube.com and webcams-for-everyone land isn’t all that far-fetched. Interestingly, all of this came about during Saturn’s visit in Leo. Suddenly, anyone can be a star. And why not? Why wouldn’t we play with our talent and showcase what we do well? For Leo, the question is obvious. For the rest of us, Leo times are a lesson in honing our individual strengths, aligning it with our hearts – which strengthens and benefits our very self (in astrology, our Sun).

I may not be a Leo, but I can take inventory of my strengths and start there. What do I do best? What makes my heart leap for joy? What gives me that “I’ve just ripped open my chest and given you all I got…and it was so worth it because that’s really who I am” feeling? A girlfriend of mine described a recent metamorphosis, from trying to play someone else’s music to playing her own. When she stopped “experimenting” with marketable genres and owned her own, she grew in self-awareness, confidence and motivation. She’s now talking about becoming “successful” gaining “skill” and growing in “competence” for the first time - a more realistic path than the Icarus version she’d previously designed. It seems, by turning toward her own authentic song, she’s received a vision of her true potential.

Here’s a take home lesson, one we often forget: one path took effort and was painful while the other was natural, easy. Finding your luster is that simple. It’s what you do effortlessly. It’s what other people see as beautiful and talented in you (because we so often can’t recognize it ourselves). It’s your personal ace in the hole, the card up your sleeve you may not even realize you have.

Owning our luster, or strength, doesn’t mean we won’t suffer the excruciating vulnerability of baring all. On the contrary, truth to self works that way. We hone our chops when we live in our strengths precisely because we, more than anyone, have to believe in ourselves. People will probably reject us. And maybe we’ll suffer when they do. But we’ll also be living in our strength. And given that we’ve got enough maybes to deal with in this game of life, living in our strength is the most resilient position from which to play.

Astrological juju: Here’s your Leo theme song to be listened to daily July 22-August 22 (preferably in your car so you can sing it really loud and proud). 

My face to the sky
Dreaming about just how high
I could go and I’ll know
When I finally get there

Taking off my glasses
Sun pokes through my lashes
And somehow I know
There’s a time for every star to shine

Everybody got their something
Everybody got their something
Make you smile like an itty bitty child

People keeping score
Say better hurry up and get yours
Cause somebody else get your spot
Before you even dropped

Seek and you shall find
Everything in my own sweet time
I’ll take my chances
With what I believe is only mine

Busy holding on
So the roof don’t fly
Keep you from moving on
So get it right
Turn the tide over
Like a love song
Like a butterfly
Believe if you hand it over
You’ll come out all right

Everybody got their something
Everybody got their something
Make you smile like an itty bitty child

Illuminate the silly things
Shed some light on all that’s wrong
Everybody need it sometime
Sometimes the only thing you got
Is what makes you feel like
You’re something else altogether
You have everything don’t need
Another reason to be something
I’ve been on a ride
And caught up in the landslide
But I’m gonna spread my wings and fly…

Everybody got their something
Everybody got their something
Make you smile like an itty bitty child

There’s a time for every star
There’s a time for every star…

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“People equate sexy with promiscuous. They think that because I’m shaped this way, I must be scandalous - like running around and bringing men into my hotel room. But it’s just the opposite.” Jennifer Lopez – Venus in Virgo

If Venus in Leo is all about the woo-woo and bling, the Virgin sets the record straight. Virgo is a realist first, hardly diving into love affairs without considering how her potential paramour fits into the rest of her life. She is the busy bee, the worker bee who tirelessly gathers pollen for the Queen, not for herself, but because it connects to the endless stream of Divinity, where she belongs. She’s simply doing her part. No other sign can see her place in the plan so clearly. If her lover does not support her animal rescue volunteer hours on Saturday, working late at the office or time spent introspecting in solitary reflection – her blessed priorities - how can he ever understand her? It’s a question of practicality, one essential to this Venus who thrives on the myriad ways she can play conduit to the infinite. Unlike Leo’s need for largesse, she is one small grain of sand in the ocean and this role suits her. She doesn’t need praise or applause. A kernel of recognition will do now and then. Ultimately she’s searching for herself in the eyes of Divinity no less, and surely finds herself there. Divinity notoriously communicates in small, miniscule and unseen ways and Virgo is well versed in the infinitesimal. She wears humility so well - because there’s no better portal for Divinity to enter through than humility.

She’s a sexy beast, too. Oh, can you say contradiction? Behind that prim and proper presentable attire is a wildcat, a tempest of feminine energy who saves herself for her one and only. Her one and only is the spirit-made-flesh variety, aka her divine lover. She is the woman who throughout her-story practiced sacred prostitution as a service to mankind – uh, before the time man began viewing women’s sexuality as tempting and evil (for more on this subject see Demetra George’s book Mysteries of the Dark Moon). This feminine sign of Virgo ignites some of the hottest embers. Try Mick Jagger, Jennifer Lopez, Catherine Deneuve,Gwen Stefani, Julia Roberts, Melanie Griffith, Kate Winslet, Sean Penn, Charlize Theron, Mae West and John Lennon. Pure and chaste, sure– she’s no tease –she’s saving herself for her one and only. In courtship, Venus in Virgo first exhibits that Virginal impenetrable reserve…and then ultimate surrender.

During Venus in Virgo times we notice our particular aversions and preferences in earthy, practical ways. Last Sunday’s NYTimes article The Beautiful People, The Uglier the Better noted that in the age of tabloid information, we’re fascinated with capturing celebs in moments, in sweats, with pot bellies, looking generally unkempt and poor – an astute Venus in Virgo observation. Virgo dislikes the messy, smelly and crass. Sun in Leo/Venus in Virgo J.LO says:
“I judge people on how they smell, not how they look.”
-AND-
“[Men] really disgust me if they don’t have a nice smile, nice lips and nice teeth…They have too many disgusting habits - like scratching themselves all the time. And it’s really weird how guys think that passing gas is the funniest thing in the world. They love to do that thing in front of girls and laugh about it.”

Yes, cleanliness is goddessliness for Venus in Virgo. We’re attracted to purity, elegance, glamour and the beauty of crisp, clean white… She’s the harlot and the saint, a true womans woman.

Venus in Virgo always helps a sister out, and if there’s a choice, she’ll sacrifice her personal needs first. Maybe she’s a saint, but even Mother Teresa deserves recognition and appreciation. How? Notice the details. What may be superfluous information for other signs never goes unnoticed for this Love Goddess. How she spends her day to day, the new project she’s picked up, re-telling a conversation with a friend. Venus shares, and this Venus needs to share the mundane, ordinary hours of her day with someone who is genuinely interested in her well-being. Sure, every Venus wants you to notice her new hairstyle, but Venus in Virgo needs you to notice the deeper message of the new hairstyle - it speaks volumes about what she’s growing toward and moving away from. Oh, and by the way, she analyzes and analyzes and analyzes her relationships. Expect it. Love is in the details and by gosh she’ll find them, hence her reputation for being myopic or nit-picky in relationship which is only our shadowy way of devaluing her careful attention. For Venus in Virgo, Love is…careful attention.

Love Goddess entered Virgo last Saturday for a brief flirtation before she turns retrograde on July 27 to re-visit Leo beginning August 8.

In my recent confessional post about the cult of celebrity, I asked myself why I was feeling this topic so strongly. Was it just me? I guess I’d always considered celebrity watching a voyeuristic Neptunian escape – a cocktail of self-forgetfulness to indulge in here and there. But I’m considering this a Venus- worthy topic, too.

Upon reading a fellow blogger’s post whose thoughts were so conceptually close to my last post it was eerie (these thoughts travel collectively – see The Judgment of Paris) I thought about the way I’ve been questioning my own spirituality, poking it with a stick to see if it’s still around. It is. Connection to the Divine is unchanging – it’s all where you put your attention. My attention gets pulled into other things, but sometimes a simple acknowledgement is appropriate. As king of A-OK, Spirit is ready when I am. Actually make that I AM. Here’s my typical conversation lately with I AM:

“I should be more spiritual.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really like meditating. Maybe I should just take more walks.”
“But what is spiritual? What is God to you?”
“For me: living from the heart.”
“Isn’t that what you do?”
“Yes, but I haven’t done any cool spells or said any fabulous prayers or affirmations lately. But I know I can.”
“Maybe everything’s going good, then? Maybe Spirit’s got your back and you need to trust yourself enough to know where to look when you need it.”

Pan to my husband and I sitting at the dinner table last night on a delicious night alone. We lit candles; I turned off the light so we could appreciate the natural light of the sunset. I served organic squash (made like my grandmother’s), fresh green beans and tofu with our special almond dipping sauce. We held one another’s hand and paused to look in each other’s eyes lovingly, just as we’ve done since the first time we sat down to dinner together almost two years ago. We shared a moment of gratitude for one another’s presence, which for me, beamed from his deep eyes directly into my heart. This is everyday stuff around here. And our life together is absolutely the direct result of years of mantras, spells, affirmations and spiritual work on both of our parts. If you were looking for evidence of everyday spirituality, you could say we’re living proof.

So why question it?

A copy of Time Magazine lay between the bean and squash dishes on the table, and he asked me, “So, How Did the Democrats Get Religion?” which was the cover story about Democrat presidential candidates cultivating a faith-based image to get the vote. I really didn’t know I said sheepishly – as I had been of course waylaid by the entertainment page. Tori Spelling had become ordained as a minister so she could marry a gay couple at her B&B. The only thing we figured on this one was that there’s probably a Tori cult-like following in the gay community and getting married by Tori seemed so well, kitsch. I then launched into the one Tori loves Dean re-run I saw months ago (which I miraculously recited by heart) the one where Tori had to sell off her wardrobe to finance the B&B (because she frittered away her entire inheritance from dad, Aaron Spelling). “She lost all of it?” my husband asked. I shrugged. I described her off-site closet - it took a warehouse to store all of her clothes! And how she posted “Tori Spelling Yard Sale” signs all over Beverly Hills…and didn’t anticipate the hordes of fans to show up with lines around the block. And how she had “nothing to wear” to her own yard sale…at which she will sell her excessive wardrobe…so she went shopping! Spending tons’ o money, Tori whispered to the camera, ‘I’ll have to hide this from Dean’ as the camera panned to husband Dean, stressing over bills and genuinely worried about his wife’s whereabouts, who had promised to help get the house ready for the sale…and follow a budget.

So there we were having fun yakking it up at their expense. Then, suddenly sitting upright I said, “Shouldn’t we be talking about our spiritual studies right now, I dunno, maybe practicing our Sanskrit or something?” To which he replied in true Moon in Gemini form, “I was talking with my friend Ron outside Whole Foods today. You know he teaches Sanskrit, he wears that red thread around his neck, and showed me his new iPhone. I don’t know how he does it. He has that really nice convertible…”

The crux of the dilemma revealed as a conversation between spirituality and materialism, not mutually exclusive. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. We all need things - we want things to make our lives more comfortable. Its mindless consumption and the suffering caused that worries. Tori didn’t contribute to anyone’s suffering (but her own) by blowing her inheritance on truckloads of designer clothes. We’ve all got a right to learn from our mistakes. Celebrity is an easy sounding board for the “I learned the hard way…” dialogue. They are the Olympians if you will, whose fall from grace is just more fantastic and fabulous because it’s public. In reality, we all fall in different ways. And thinking that were we in their shoes -we wouldn’t make the same mistake they did – may be erroneous. If I were born into a Beverly Hills family, communal and collective culture, who’s to say I wouldn’t make the same mistake? As private citizens we get to learn our lessons on a smaller scale, and quietly, with that one thing we have that they don’t: privacy.

We wonder at them and ourselves. Our fascination is justified.

We’ve entered the shadow of Venus retrograde, and the ambivalence about celebrity-spirituality and pleasure seeking seem likely Venusian Leo-Virgo paradigms. If Venus in notice-me Leo shimmies in the luster of fame, Venus in Virgo wears the flame of Spirit. Virgo connects the dots, figuring out just exactly how we think and feel about what is pleasurable, exactly and precisely…and is it consistent with our image and our spirit. In other words, who do we think we are? As Venus visits only the first few degrees of Virgo for the next three weeks (before she re-visits Leo for round two in August) will we have the opportunity to evaluate our own judgments on what is good, right and true? Because if Venus holds sway over those things near and dear to our hearts, in Virgo might we take the opportunity to see how the fickle way we judge others as a just reflection on how we treat ourselves?

I’ve been wrestling with my love for pop culture lately. I’m sorry. I can’t help it: (here’s the part where I apologize for something I enjoy) I enjoy it. It Every time I go to the gym I pick up the Mag of the Moment and check out what’s going on with Lindsay, Brittany and Jen this week. In trying to label the mixed emotions I feel, I can pinpoint similarities to the emotions of guilt, shame and gluttony…until I look around me and realize I’m putting that same mojo on all my stair-stepping buddies. As a Libra rising with a strong sense of fairness, that doesn’t seem right of me. And neither do those “feelings” seem adequate descriptors. So being of a homeopathic mindset, having learnt symptoms tell more about the disease than the ego readily admits, I put the shell up to my ear and hear an ocean (walking into Saturday’s New Moon/Neptune quincunx is a little like that). Whereas the ego would prefer the pat label rather than sit down and dive into the “symptom” with a nice cup of tea (it keeps everything much more cleanly neurotic that way, ya know?) Cancer New Moon has way too much intuitive capacity to let the ego pull that one over on her. She’s just a simple gal who loves her celebs, so what’s the big dealio?

What’s your enigmatic mystery this New Moon? With Neptune opening up the etheric portal to heavenly, but quite pleasant tasting conundrums, there’s bound to be one. Here, you can have my guilty pleasure. Let’s lean into this so-called guilt. As defined by Webster.com feeling guilty is, (having) feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy: self-reproach. If my offenses are seemingly imagined, could I’ve even possibly conjured them up alone? Not to pass the buck, but soulful Cancer is notoriously psychic, sponging food unconsciously off her familial mother or mother country. Cancer’s umbilical cords reach deep into our collective family. Places, like people, have soul - you’ve felt that. And surely as America has a Collective Soul, she suffers from soullessness, too. Grief, trauma, unprocessed life events separating oneself from one’s Self has a way of detracting, nay, hi-jacking nourishing soul consciousness. Jung called this neglected self the Shadow. And when we cut it off from our bright and “acceptable” side it turns the most colorful, lively day a soulless grey. A strange malaise ensues in that disconnect between past personal (or collective) history – which if not carefully tended to - all sorts of strange demons threaten to dispossess the Soul of her natural beauty.

Even Tyra Banks knows this (I heard her say so while watching America’s Next Top Model at the gym). Tyra told a Model contestant that her pictures lacked soul. In her larger than life Olympian way (which magically sounds like the authoritative voice of Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty herself) Tyra said, ‘I’m concerned about you. There’s so much beauty in there, but I feel like you’re hiding it. You’re missing soul. And the camera won’t lie - people will see this.’ This earth shaking comment pulled a big brother confessional out of the young contestant. It turns out this budding flower had been through rough times. In pictures shown of her recent past, a partying, self-destructive girl raged out of control. Being on America’s Next Top Model was her chance to start over, she said, but to do this she had to hide this former self. Her honest self-awareness struck me, as well as her predetermined awareness of what’s beautiful to the beauty culture. There was no room for an anger-binging teenager on Top Model, she knew this. No, that would’ve been ugly and this is about beau-tay. But her shielded personality wore the slightest trace of rage, obvious to the camera, judges and viewers. And miraculously - maybe it was only me who saw it -once her hidden self was outed the young woman began to look more congruent, whole.

Here’s what also occurred to me: America and her people has and is, suffering loss of soul by disowning its violent nature. This model contestant is a mirror for where we are. We are all connected to one another’s plight, and to a deeper collective consciousness. How can we take personal responsibility for all of it? (We’re women, so we try.) It’s like our women sister souls are trapped in the static painting of a dollhouse and every once in awhile the window mysteriously lights up bright orange signaling the house is on fire. We’ve got to garner enough disbelief to reach for our magnifying glasses, to pull up a chair to look within…and discern the message behind the message “Help” written on the window pane.

I own that I am channeling some of America’s soullessness. There is a huge chasm between the monstrosities of America’s checkered rageaholic past and present - a country that runs for their guns every time the checkbook is threatened AND so happens to be the entertainment capital of the world. Gosh, no wonder I’m feeling so guilty. I’m partaking of that national sedative: celebrity, the elixir of youth and forgetfulness. In that awestruck seduction of Gisele Bundchen on the latest edition of my Victoria’s Secret Catalog (love her) or Angelina wearing mercurial silver satin sheets on the cover of GQ, I forget everything. Feels like a Martini, silky and dry, tastes just as intoxicating. Mmmm. Since I no longer drink, I’m considering that celebrity may have become my substitution.

But does the awareness that I’m swimming in it absolve me from my responsibility to the collective shadow? Our personal lives are an answer to it. I remember an assignment I had in art school, to create an Absolute Vodka ad (at my little South Carolinian private college, my art teacher was a set designer from L.A. no less). I penciled out 3 images: one was a woman crawling on the floor in high heels as a slimy looking guy in aviator glasses watched with a clear sense of ownership from behind her; second, a sad looking little boy with a golden crown on his head stood alone in a dark, thorny forest (I transposed creeping thorns into blood veins); third, my 84 year-old Grandmother’s open hands. A red bull’s eye/ spiral hypnotically unified the images, in front of which I photo-transferred a larger than life bottle of ABSOLUTION. The image speaks more directly to what I’m writing about now than I can express in words. The hypnotic beauty of desire, the self or selves violently left behind in the brambles and the blood and life force rushing through, threatening to encroach on everything growing and good. The power and energy bound up in self-forgetfulness, the passing of time and empty wisdom. Or the open hands of opportunity, to finally be forgiven, to be cared for in the full circle of time. To the addict, the bottle of ABSOLUTION and ABSOLUT are one and the same. To the lucid dreamer, the soul who honors her place in the circle no matter where she is within it knows, as John Malkovich said, “the ghosts you chase you never catch.” Just ask any artist.

So there you have it. Just like this New Moon’s quincunx, I don’t know how to “get over” or resolve the pop culture intoxication from whence I’m swimming. I may never be able to. But if you consider, as Andy Warhol did, pop culture, art, and in that art mirrors life, maybe celebrity and pop culture is just another mirror to bounce reflections off of. Or maybe that’s just a tricky quincunx excuse so I can hit the bottle again. If I am partaking in the national pastime of self-forgetfulness, I do have to trust my own capacity to integrate and weave the fragmented stories into something a little deeper, interesting and more contextually rich than what they’re giving me. Actually, as a soulful person, that’s my job and it’s yours too. I do have a few rules of operation: stay away from the dumb stuff (when I recognize it); regularly question whether I’m looking for missing pieces of myself in those slick, glossy lives or whether I’m replacing the urge to do something more valuable and productive with gossip rags. Occasionally I’ll make good art out of it all. Who knows? Maybe the spirit speaks to me through celebrity.

When I went to see my crush, Angelina Jolie, (by now you know I’m heterosexual, married and I have more crushes on beautiful women than men) in her new movie A Mighty Heart, it got me thinking about how this Cancer New Moon falls pretty close to the Ascendant of Angelina’s chart, and that right about now she’ll be experiencing a sort of absolution for her wild child self-image – fans may finally soften up and allow her to be the maternal, soft Cancer rising her soul needs to express. And thinking about the grace and grit she showed as pregnant Marianne Pearl, wife of kidnapped and beheaded Daniel Pearl, I contemplated life in the midst of tragedy, and just how many things can change during the term of nine months. It takes a mighty heart to keep your poise and your baby as you’re put through the grueling, public ordeal of losing a spouse. I noticed that Angelina/Marianne moved with elegance and grace, opening her home hospitably to all who came through to help, caring for the relationships that were in her here and now, taking care to dress and present herself well. Remarkably, (and from real-life accounts of the real Marianne Pearl) she was strong enough to not fall apart but tender enough to speak from the heart. As we enter this Cancer New Moon time of conception, I’m reminded of the soft privacy of pregnancy; it’s the conception point on the wheel, where soul quietly, secretly embodies. Nine Months. It’s the human gestation life cycle, and conception is particularly fertile during Cancer New Moon. And I’d imagine if you’ve got a little seed to plant right now, you might just walk over to your calendar and circle April 19, 2007 as your due date.

Okay folks, retrograde Mercury in Cancer has thoroughly reached a dead stop. The lord of ebb and flow, that cosmic administrative assistant who keeps the wheels of the brain turning, your computer’s RAM accessible and your appointment calendar straight has been at the same 3 degrees of Cancer since July 4th! And even though Mercury technically begins moving forward (from the earth’s perspective – Mercury never moves backwards literally) it won’t make it to 4 degrees until July13th. To elucidate this slow waltz, Mercury usually moves between 1 ½ to 3 degrees A DAY. Things aren’t only not moving forward, they’re in a holding pattern till next weekend. No, this isn’t your energetic can-can (we’ll see that when Mercury moves into Leo in August), this is a very dreamy trance dance.

Moving backwards. Where the planet moves backwards, the mind follows. Emotionally, fluidly, memories hold water. Thought resists form. Try holding a cup of water without a cup. Try paddling upstream. Time moves forward, but something’s frozen in there. It’s a memory. We have memories we don’t like and memories we do. Mercury in Cancer beams them down to earth as raw emotion. It’s a little confusing. First, rarely do we have control over what we remember. That the soul, in her mystery, attaches emotional importance to particular memories, we know. The smell of apple pie. The embrace of someone who loves you. The pain of having been hurt. Good memories are replayed. But, in the case of trauma, why, we wonder, are bad memories replayed? Mercury’s memories can bridge gaps in awareness at the right time, or the wrong time. Pick up tomatoes at the grocery; brush teeth; remember broken heart. Recall is great, but how great is remembering the same pain all the time, the same worry, or the same tragic scene replayed over and over and over…? If our consciousness is an email address for the universe to reach us, those memories are the kind we’d rather not accept. Return to sender. Do we have a choice?

Maybe we do have a choice. Remember the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? One of my all time favorite movies. Briefly, the main character played by brokenhearted Jim Carrey wanted to forget his ex-girlfriend Clem (Kate Winslet) so went to a shmuck who erased her from his memory. One by one, his memories were plucked away. Dissolved. To many, the idea of having one’s memory wiped is mildly to majorly terrifying. But for people who suffer a tragedy over and over, by reliving it in memory, it’s a hopeful thought. Personally, uncomfortable memories have been apart of my consciousness as long as I can remember. Ha! No, really, how many times (in my teens and 20’s) did I wish for release from the purgatory of memory? So many. Because I saw how memories of negative events had a way of controlling my ability to be fully present. Is this real, or is this a pattern of expectancy created from memory? Ask this question enough and you begin to feel like a hostage at your Aunt or Uncle’s house, forced to sit on the sofa and watch home movies and vacation slides… from two decades ago. (When life resembles history, it’s time to move on.) My natal Mercury is in Cancer so I have a pretty strong sense of how the body patterns itself through emotional memories. The body is so inextricably tied to memory that we can create disease, or years of walking around as an emotional cripple. Some people say our whole conscious self is built on a string of memories. We’re remembering ourselves every day…

Ahem, which reminds me why I’m writing…As so often happens with real-time astrology, I was listening to an NPR segment today on memory. The show began: where do you keep your memory? And can we locate it in your brain? Well, yes. Science says memories are proteins, quite visible in the human brain. And if we can see it, we can understand it and then change it right? Scientists experimented with a protein on lab rats and discovered if given another specific protein during the moment of associative memory recall (the kind of memory that hears a bell, feels a painful shock and then associates the bell with the shocking pain) the rats forgot the pain. In other words, whereas the bell once caused them to brace for the certain pain, after the memory-erasing protein, they forgot bell = pain. Bell could’ve meant “dinner.” So they tried the experiment on a human being: a woman who was tragically raped in her youth, and because of her mother’s disbelief, told no one. After keeping this haunting secret for so many years, she participated in the experiment, and as she recalled the abuse, the memory-eraser was administered. Result: while she didn’t completely forget the trauma, the emotional suffering associated with the trauma was greatly relieved. If fact, the emotional effect of the trauma was so greatly reduced that after telling no one for her entire life, she was now able to talk about it on television.

That lifetime memory? It was created in only a moment. But it’s the emotional interpretation of our experience combined with the fact that we keep repeating it that makes a negative event disabling. And by looping it through our minds, for better or worse, we relive the emotions and the memory for a lifetime. There are great memories worth holding onto, right? A baby’s first steps, a surprise birthday party. All in favor of memory say hurrah! But the funny thing is, scientists say the more we relive a memory, the less reliable it becomes. After the initial kiss or pain, every time we remember, we’re literally re-creating it. My husband and I have re-lived our first kiss a hundred times, and even though we retell the tale for strictly sentimental, feelgood reasons and not for accuracy, I’m certain I know less about how it really was today than I did on that romantic, moonlit evening under the stars… (Were there even stars?)

So every time we re-create the memory, we get further from the truth. That’s right, there is no such thing as a true memory. Scientists say that the purest memory is one that’s un-remembered. They say, only amnesiacs have a memory bank as pristine as an Alpine mountain stream. The amnesiacs are untouched by mythologizing, romanticizing and increasing loss of accuracy. The rest of us are revisionists, making up personal histories as we go along. (The nostalgic romantics among us have permission to sadly sigh now) What was, existed only in the moment - you can’t take it with you. And from this perspective, why would you want to? Apparently, by remembering, all you do is cloud and sully your pristine mountain spring with inaccuracies.

But wait, a beautifully reassuring thought arises: the remembrances I’m not aware of are qu