A lot of us are really going through it! Venus in Scorpio stations retrograde this week, as it squares the triple line-up of Mars, the South Node, and Black Moon Lilith in Aquarius. Pluto has just stationed direct. It is a very soulful time so I would like to share some passages with you from the book Soulcraft by Bill Plotkins:
“The call to adventure is the prologue to the journey of descent. The call comes when it’s time to inherit a greater life, to plunge yourself into the limitless expanse and depth the world affords. This is both a crisis and an unsurpassed opportunity. The old way of life has been outgrown. The familiar goals, attitudes, and patterns of relationships no longer fit your developing sense of who you truly are. The time has arrived to step over a threshold into a whole new way of being.”
“If you say yes to the call, you’ll feel, like Rilke, that you are standing a the window watching a great storm arrive. And you’ll know there’s no way to flee this storm; this one has your name written on it. You know you must open the door and walk straight into the tempest. In doing so, you fall increasingly under the influence of the soul, like the inexorable tug of the full moon on the tides, like the autumn wind tearing leaves from tree limbs. Your soul has been waiting for this moment, the moment your ego was ripe for the descent, developed well enough to withstand the experience of dissolution, yet still vulnerable enough to be dissolvable.
Opportunities like this are not commonplace. During childhood and early teen years, the ego is not sufficiently developed to survive a descent. The soul waits for an opening. Meanwhile, the ego is creating ways to avoid the underworld journey. (Resisting self-change is the way the ego understands its job before initiation.) All too often, the soul finds one day that the ego has become too hardened, too entrenched in its routines, so that nothing can budge it. In contemporary Western culture, our egos often develop in such a way that they are both underdeveloped and overly hardened. If, in our youth, there had been elders about, they would have provided initiatory experiences to soften us up or crack us open. Without elders, the soul waits for – or creates – a trauma, something extreme that will loosen the ego’s grip on its old way of belonging to the world.”
The soul relates to our own undercurrents, roots, security and power. It relates to our gems that are hidden in the swamplands of our unconscious, our shadow, our un-integrated parts. Traversing these inner territories is the interior version of exploring uncharted rainforests with mysterious lifeforms and dangerous creatures. It’s sticky. But it’s adventure and way to claim our unique gifts and potentials. Have heart as you’re going through it and pay attention to who your guides are as there are often lanterns and helpers in the underworld journey.
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My next course is coming in January 2019 – I’ll be teaching an Intro to Evolutionary Astrology Intensive, where you’ll gain foundations for approaching astrology and natal charts from the perspective of the soul. There is actually a way to analyze charts to look into the question if who you have been in prior lives – what have been your karmic patterns, and what is your journey/call this lifetime. It’s a transformative practice to study! Learn more about the course and register here.
Here’s our week:
October 5, 2018
Venus stations retrograde in 10 Scorpio: 12:04 PM PDT
(Image: Rach Pony Gold)
We find ourselves in Venus retrograde season once again – a particularly charged time for all things Venus. Though we might think of Venus as a planet of beauty, luxury, and peace (which it is), it is also a planet of explosive passions. To understand Venus and how Venus works through us is a deep psychospiritual process. It involves recognizing our own value and how we are to be in relationship to value. Venus retrogrades often bring transformations to our self-esteem and our relationships.
In honor of this astrological event, I’ve put together a free article for mailing list subscribers with some meditations on what might be arising during this time for your consideration and participation. Sign up for my mailing list to receive the article!
Three big questions that are up this retrograde cycle:
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What do I really value and do my life and my relationships reflect these values?
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What is my higher self here to do — and do my ego, my personality, and my life trajectory reflect my higher self’s path?
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If I am experiencing a split in my psyche (my desires versus my reality; my values versus my circumstances; etc.) how am I going to integrate this split?
October 8, 2018
New Moon in 15 Libra: 8:46 PM PDT
This New Moon in Libra is closely conjunct asteroid Ceres, is square to Pluto in Capricorn and quincunx Neptune in Pisces.
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A new relationship to existing grief processes may be emerging. As it unfolds we may radically reconnect to parts of ourselves we have felt cut off from. That is the potential promise! But the first part may not necessarily seem like it contains such a promise – that first rush of feeling that which has been previously frozen or repressed.
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The seeds for deepening friendships and intimacy with others may be sown at this time, and we might feel the ways in which these connections or even our budding desire for certain connections or deeper connections, is changing us.
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The various attractions and repulsions we feel at this time have an effect of helping us become closer to our souls and relating to our souls. Both attraction and repulsion give us information through which we can better understand ourselves and our positionality.
October 9, 2018
Mercury enters Scorpio: 5:41 PM PDT
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Mercury’s ingress into Scorpio may truly bring us in touch with the psychopomp characteristic of Mercury – our ability to mediate content from the underworld without belonging to it. On the other hand, if we are not so aware/detached, we might also become over-attached or over-enmeshed to our ideas, and this is certainly worth watching out for.
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Mercury, like Uranus and Venus, is now squaring the nodes as well. At this time some of our deeper thought processes and especially our conclusions (if we make them) really need to be in conversation with the heart. The mind can be sharp and compelling and still be out of touch with love. Is that really truth then, at that point? Even for a practical consideration, see if your mind and thoughts change if you tune into compassion and heart-centeredness.
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Mercury in Scorpio brings us in touch with the necessity for the mind to be a tool that empowers us, rather than cuts us and others. Are we enmeshed in addictive and toxic thought patterns? Are there ways we can detoxify the mind and nervous system or energetically bond with more life-enhancing kinds of thoughts? Mantra meditations, choosing empowering thoughts, or activities that change and detoxify the nervous system are pathways toward having more balanced, empowering mental faculties.
October 10, 2018
Mercury in 1 Scorpio opposite Uranus in 1 Taurus: 10:35 AM PDT
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A possibility exists here of exceeding mental habits and mental limitations (negative, addictive thoughts, etc.) by having a new relationship to the body or to radical forms of relaxation.
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Another possibility is encountering our most stubborn thought-patterns and being at odds with ourselves or another because of it; the challenge of considering another point of view beyond something we are so attached to or conditioned by.
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We may encounter the realization that our thoughts often reflect value judgements and ways we feel about ourselves; and there is the possibility of evolving our values, our self-talk, and our perceptions of reality by orienting ourselves to a safer, more grounded connection to life (“I belong”, “I am safe”, “I am loved”, etc.)
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you’re getting the itch to study astrology and you’d like to study directly with me and a group of likeminds, I’d love to have you in my upcoming intensive course in January. You’ll learn the foundations for understanding Evolutionary Astrology and learn how to read charts from the perspective of the soul. Looking at the chart this way means gaining a narrative for where a soul is coming from in prior lives and what they are working on in this life. Having this meditation for yourself is an amazing way to understand who you deeply are and how you are called to show up in this lifetime; how your very circumstances do support your path. Learn more and enroll here.
If you’d like to get a reading with me and get my take on your chart, I always approach natal chart readings from the perspective of the soul. Book a reading with me here.
~Sabrina Monarch
Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts, works with clients and teaches. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She is a novelist and is currently pursuing her masters in Philosophy. She also enjoys kundalini yoga, meditation and ashtanga yoga.
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