Do you ever think of this life like a waking dream? When we do dreamwork (with sleeping dreams), we are curious about the symbolism of what is happening in our dreams. If we have the same dream over and over again, or encounter monsters, we try to understand why and perhaps make different choices in the dream to reach a different result. When the waking life is the dream we are analyzing and exploring, we are effectually increasing our spiritual lucidity. The world is awake and alive with meaning and we begin to notice the power of our own consciousness to shift the appearances in the dream. The Pisces mysteries guide us through the path of spiritual awakening in life, which is in no way a clearcut or linear path. Like the dream, appearances morph and are not always what they seem. No one is spared this process, regardless of if they are choosing to be on a spiritual path or not. We all have the capacity to be confused and to access clarity. The choice we do have is how curious we are about the truth, and how willing we are to make changes that reflect a deeper alignment with our Soul and our connection to the universe around us.
For background for this week’s mutable-heavy astrology, it may be useful to understand what the mutable signs have in common. Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces are the mutable signs and they represent the transitions from one season to another. The mutable signs always follow fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius) and the mutable work to break apart and loosen up whatever was solidly formed in the fixed signs – the fixed signs have qualities of endurance, focus, tenacity, and manifestation. Mutable signs relate to agility, open-mindedness, and shiftiness. We tend to experience the joy of mutable energy when we see the world in a new way, when we try something new, or when we receive information that shifts our perspectives. But mutable energy can also be challenging as it relates to confusion. It is as though we are playing a game of musical chairs and we’re not sure where we are going to land. When the transits are heavy in mutable energy, it is easier to shake up old routines and access visionary thinking, but harder to steady the compass arrow to point in just one direction. Lately, building up to this Full Moon in Pisces, it may feel as though you are having trouble making up your mind and your dreams are changing as quickly as the wind. When things are up in the air like this, they will eventually come down. But how will you relate to this moment of vast possibility and openness, first?
Before we dive in I want to share with you the latest episode of the Magic of the Spheres podcast. You may remember Cici from the #uranusintauruschallenge we hosted together on Instagram this last spring, where we asked you guys to get outside everyday for one lunar cycle, talk to the non-human world and receive downloads from nature, and then share your findings on Instagram. We got a lot of voices to show up! And often it was people who weren’t used to broadcasting their spiritual insights from nature onto the internet. I loved hearing from some of you how you started thinking of trees differently because of the posts you were seeing. The social conditioning that plants are not conscious beyond being biological and alive is something worth seeing past, especially if we want to inspire new culture on the planet around being in harmony with the Earth. We talk about deepening a connection with the natural world through plant communication in this episode. Cici is so beautifully walking her truth in this life and is a pollinator – someone who helps make connections. She is a Gemini after all! If you listen to this episode or stay connected with her work, you may just find yourself making new connections with the non-human world around you! Find her on @abundant_la on instagram. You can listen to the podcast on your web browser here, or where you tune into podcasts.
Mars in 16 Virgo square Jupiter in 16 Sagittarius: 2:06 AM PDT
Jupiter in its home sign of Sagittarius (since November of 2018) correlates with a certain visionary quality – to look out into the distance of space and time to project an overarching plan or quest. At this time, Mars in Virgo squaring Jupiter presents a necessary tension between our daily, micro, modus operandi (our methods) and the eventual results we would like to see manifesting in our lives. This tension is dynamic, helping us to see results that come from our alignment as well as feeling the feedback that something is quite off or graining on our nerves.
Teachings about “following your highest excitement” contain the logic that the more we act in alignment with excitement (which is an emotion very connected to the higher self), the accumulated result over time is that we quite simply live a more exciting life. One elevated decision leads to upgraded circumstances and a new array of options that only came through this particular avenue of the choose-your-own-adventure story we’ve begun to live out.
In an individual’s natal chart who has a Mars-Jupiter contact, one of the associations is that they tend to overdo things, especially early in life. It’s like overusing the gas pedal and wanting to do things fast and in a very big way. As a collective transit, this theme can be in the air. Specially in these signs, and at this turning point, we may be experiencing the lesson that just a little push on the gas pedal goes a long way – or just a little shift in the sail navigates the ship to the destination over time (whereas a larger shift in the sail would have taken the ship off track to its destination). So… vehicle metaphors aside, Mars in Virgo square Jupiter in Sagittarius can help teach us when and how a little goes a long way.
Integrating “a little goes a long way” with “following your highest excitement” can be a fun experiment for the week – I invite you to try it. This isn’t about making yourself small or holding back – there is a true time and place for big choices. Rather, it’s about slowing down and noticing how very small actions can have huge results and ramifications. How might we otherwise be overlooking these abundantly supportive details?
September 13, 2019
Mercury in 28 Virgo conjunct Venus in 28 Virgo: 8:10 AM PDT
One image for this alignment could be someone looking into the mirror and having an excruciating awareness of one’s own flaws and imperfections. These judgements are never happening in an isolated way. They are comparisons to beauty ideals that one falls short of. This kind of self-perception is toxic and painful, so consider the following. (This can be about ANY quality that is under scrutiny, not just physical appearance.) There is careful, loving, prudent engagement to be discovered in shifting the quality and direction of one’s thoughts.
Rather than focusing upon an ideal and seeing it as far away (such that you are in a fallen place in comparison), this can be a time to get very intimate with where we are at and discovering ways to love and be grateful for what is as much as possible. This shift in focus – giving the mind the job to seek and be aware of beauty – will resource us and shift us in a far more powerful and enjoyable way than being hyper-vigilant around themes of imperfection.
Once we make this potent shift (or get back into alignment with this shift if this is already a place we go to often – and I think we all need reminders!), the landscape of what we are grateful for or what we think is beautiful will expand in texture and complexity at a degree that is in the inverse of the image of the person criticizing themselves before the mirror. And herein lies a following crucial adjustment: affirming to ourselves that it is *safe* for life to be beautiful and wonderful. It is true that nothing lasts. But not allowing ourselves to fully inhabit the stream of life because we fear losing it isn’t worth the cost. Inhabit the ever-shifting moment with the affirmation that it is safe. Bring your conscientious love and eye for beauty and gratitude to all moments.
Sun in 20 Virgo trine Pluto in 20 Capricorn: 12:42 PM PDT
This transit can highlight the creative momentum made possible by letting go. One of the highest Pluto medicines is letting go. Destruction does not always have to create crisis. Often, letting go that is long procrastinated is what results in a more explosive situation. Consider where it would be prudent for you to practice some letting go. Even the humility that it takes to consider what we need to release is a good step. I’m sure a lot of us don’t think of ourselves as Gollum-like…but there are usually places in the deep psyche that we behave in this way. It may feel painful or scary to let go, but it’s painful to hold on. Resourcing the humility that nothing belongs to us, but we are in relationship to things for a time, can help us make gentler choices in the arena of letting go.
The other side of letting go is choosing to surrender to forming a bond. Part of Virgo’s whole thing is that she is virginal, unattached, “one in herself”. Empowered, this is a force that helps us to not settle for less. But if we become attached to the identity of this kind of independence or virginal quality, it will also become something to let go of someday.
Remember rituals and ceremony are allies in the letting go and calling in process. They don’t have to be elaborate or fancy, either. Sincerity will go a long way.
Full Moon in 21 Pisces: 9:33 PM PDT
The Moon will be conjunct Neptune in Pisces, and the Full Moon axis creates a t-square with the ongoing Jupiter-Neptune square. The Sun is still part of a Virgo stellium (along with Mars, Venus, and Mercury in Virgo).
Building up to this Full Moon, parts of our identity can be dissolving, which can be both painful or blissful depending on our relationship to the loss we are experiencing. If you are not actively experiencing this, you can ride this wave by identifying parts of yourself that you would like to let go – the Full Moon will help carry it off.
Loss creates a liminal space. We may not have an immediate replacement, or even an immediate vision of what we would like to be the replacement. Sink into this for a moment – this is what is so spiritually challenging about loss. Where is the security if there is nothing to grip onto? We sometimes obstruct the loss process by trying to find a replacement prematurely instead of being with the emptiness. Think of a fertile void – a place where old forms have died and a new form is soon to gestate. If you can, don’t skip over this liminal space. It’s okay if you have ideas for what is coming next, too – but be open to them shifting. They may or may not. The new energy that is filling our lives can take on many different costumes as they develop further.
There is also the loss of the “small self”, as well as the “fake self”. The small self being egocentric consciousness, identifying with who we are in a very limited sense. The fake self is a mask we have developed to protect ourselves, perhaps from some prior trauma. Jupiter squaring this Moon can inspire us to think bigger. We do not have to give up the ego entirely – the ego is a helpful membrane that enables us to have a specific identity. But the membrane can shift and change, to support different visions and agendas. What if we have been spending a lot of energy on something petty when we are really capable of so much more?
Some of our small-self and fake-self agendas may be exaggerated during this time *so that we can see them*. It’s easier to let go of something that we can see. When the message is very clear, thank it. It doesn’t mean that you’re off-track. It means you just became lucid in the dream that you’ve long been dreaming.
Mars in 17 Virgo opposite Neptune in 17 Pisces: 10:25 PM PDT
We are in the Jupiter-Neptune square – an active transit which Mars further activates and energizes this week. Consider what was written in the above section on Mars square Jupiter as part of the same storyline of the themes in this section.
Mars-Neptune contacts can bring confusion into our sense of direction or purpose. It feels as though we are moving through a fog, or adrift somehow. The dual side of Neptune contains confusion vs. lucidity. It is like the quality of an ever-changing sky, sometimes cloudy, sometimes clear, but always shifting. To a cartesian or linear ego, this is supremely frustrating. But the reality is that there is a lot more to the picture of this life than we know in each moment or could even comprehend if we knew.
So, just as we may feel confusion, there may be moments where we feel extreme clarity, and then back to confusion or doubt again.
At this time we may be identifying what feels in our realm of agency and control, versus what is up to the forces that surround us and that we are embedded in. We are at risk of being delusional as we make these approximations, and we are also capable of resolving previous delusions.
A majority of the people I meet as an astrology teacher (people who take my courses or attend workshops I’ve given) have Mars-Jupiter or Mars-Neptune contacts. I think this is because of a willingness and courage (Mars) to explore knowledge (Jupiter) and the mysteries (Neptune). I meet people who also don’t really care about spirituality or finding the answers to life, and that is not a very Mars-Jupiter/Mars-Neptune quality. Mars activates and energizes the quest (Jupiter) and the spiritual experience (Neptune). There is also a spirit of athleticism that Mars brings – the courage to realize that one is wrong and try again, the courage to interact with unseen forces, the courage to follow our dreams and intuitive hunches, and so on. While this transit is active, it may highlight the courage necessary to follow a dream or to believe that our intuition is worth acting upon. Acting on the intuition does contain the danger of being ‘wrong’, or misinterpreting the message and making a mistake. That is why acting on the intuition can be seen as an athletic practice – the more we do it, the stronger our spiritual coordination and precision.
September 14, 2019
Mercury enters Libra: 12:14 AM PDT
Mercury will be in Libra until October 3.
Mercury in Libra brings in a quality of balanced thinking – the desire perhaps, to think and communicate in ways that take into account both or multiple sides of an issue. Rather than making extreme statements that put all logic or validity into one side of an issue, Libra possesses the diplomacy to present a more balanced account. This does not mean that we or others may not pick a side or have an idea of what is the most fair/just, but we are less likely to be one-sided about it.
We can be invited or challenged to be better listeners, and things may open up in our lives as we do so. As an astrologer who I admire says, Mercury’s job is “to keep the story going” (Jason Holley – listen to our conversation about this on episode of the Magic of the Spheres podcast). See if certain ruts are broken this week just by listening better.
Listening does mean listening to others, but it is also the quality of listening to ourselves, listening to life, listening to plants. We are not at all removed from the conversation – it is a dialogue. With that in mind, if you wanted to listen to a tree, you could start by talking to that tree and asking questions. And then listening. See how listening is not at all a passive activity – one must discover how to listen to a tree in the first place. With other people, we learn how to listen without projecting judgements or assumptions but to really at a deeper level feel and hear the other. And so on.
Venus enters Libra: 6:43 AM PDT
Venus will stay in Libra until October 8. She will make dynamic contacts to Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, as well as the lunar nodes, during her stay in Libra. With that in mind, here are some possibilities:
Venus in Libra enhances our capacity to be in relationship. At an extreme, other-ship is a form of negating the self by being so focused on the other, such that we make sacrifices or compromises that we later regret or were not totally authentic. Being in relationship requires the self, and that means we will have boundaries and preferences. We will be transformed and changed by relationship, but we don’t have to negotiate things that are very core to us or what feels right to us. We better gift the people we relate to by being ourselves, also, even if that means saying no and having boundaries.
Reversing the tendency to be controlling or manipulative – if we are working with those themes – we can cultivate safety in our relationships for people to show up as they are, and not just what we would want them to be. Sometimes doing this implies we have to learn skillsets that we were not brought up with in our family or culture, by directly studying relationship through books, workshops, counselors/coaches, and of course people who we are in relationship with who model healthy relationship. If we have long been in toxic patterns and don’t actually see healthy modeling around us, sometimes it is the help of a quality coach or therapist who can be the most reliable guide into a new way of relating.
The vibe shift from Venus in Virgo to Venus in Libra may simply be enjoyable – like an opening up, even at the most elemental level of moving from earth (Virgo) to air (Libra) which is a lightening of density. Some of the work we do in Virgo is private and internal, like self-improvement done in faith that it will have some result (and hopefully also feel integral in the moment). By the time we get to Libra, more feedback opens up in the field – meaning, there is more mirroring. The hermit leaves the cave and meets the other.
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!
Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are tribe to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have.
I meditate on charts before the reading and combine my knowledge of astrology with my clairvoyant abilities to offer you some insights about themes you are working with in this life based on prior lives, and what is the evolutionary purpose of this lifetime. I recorded an episode on my podcast recently titled Befriending your Intuition and Clairvoyance if you’d like to learn more about my relationship with clairvoyance along with tips for increasing yours!
I can work with your specific questions and shed light on ongoing issues or patterns you would like to shift, as well! Book with me here.
I’m also becoming increasingly expressive on instagram and love connecting with people there, so go find me there @sabrinamonarch and say hello! I’m posting a lot of content there that I don’t share anywhere else.
With love,
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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