Dissolving the Obstacles as we Dream: Astrology of 9/18 – 9/24

This week, Saturn stations direct in Capricorn and Jupiter in Sagittarius exacts a square to Neptune in Pisces for the third and last time this cycle. These are very different energies, but why they should happen at the same time is an interesting spiritual question to ask. The station in Saturn in Capricorn seems to slow things down and heighten the sense of weight that we feel on our shoulders or the heaviness we carry in our hearts. And yet, Saturn in Capricorn can also bring a robust sense of self-esteem and confidence where it is we feel we have risen to the challenge, applied grit, been successful, or truly did our best.

On the other hand, Jupiter square Neptune brings us in touch with the sense of infinite possibility – where Saturn was just teaching us about limitation. So what is real? That is the very question frontier-pushing Jupiter square oceanic, mystical Neptune poses. If I believe that I’m unworthy of love I more easily attract experiences that reflect that premise (not to say there is no place for grace in this reality).

This week I was reminded of how important visualization is to me, as a creative practice. That is, getting into a meditative state and dreaming up something new and feeling it as though it were already real. I let myself dream of the things I truly desire, that I may or may not believe I am worthy of having. That’s the interesting thing about this practice – at once creative, it is also a surefire way to meet your subconscious and psychological blocks. I’m just trying to deepen into a dreamy, tantric state and basically all the shame, guilt, and heaviness I’m holding comes up because that’s what’s guarding the gate of these dreams becoming possible – my own psychic structures of worthiness around being able to receive what it is I’m desiring. This week as I was getting into visualization states I more easily recognized my walls (Saturn) coming up, and recognized my agency in releasing them. I share this because I want to offer that in the same ways we might see gatekeepers coming up in our lives – blocks in the physical, manifest world – we also have an interior version of that. Working to dissolve some of those inner boundaries can actually do a lot to create movement in the manifest world.

Is it possible too that we stop ourselves from dreaming because it hurts too much to entertain a fantasy? How grim could our normal reality appear in comparison if we really dreamt up an alternative? I know this has stopped me before from even dreaming in the first place, and having a visualization practice is where I work through this. The trick with visualization is to ground the vision back into reality, and not just use visualization as escapism. Consider – if the mystic is freed up from believing that this reality is as real as most people seem to think – that what if this reality was simply a reflection of what had been dreamt up in the past – wouldn’t the formless, plasmic state of fantasy and visualization be just as real as what we can see physically manifest before us? As sleep restores us for the waking life, the fantasy life restores us for the commonly agreed upon as real life.

Learning how to take this formless space of creative possibility more seriously is a great potential this week. For me, visualization is not just a space for my own personal dreams. More and more, I want to dream of lush rainforests that are respected and honored, a thriving bee population, clean water on the planet, and waves of green, heart chakra energy flooding the entire planet. Just as in personal visualization, I always take concrete action to complete the magic (take actions to reflect the new energies I’ve contacted in the formless, plasmic, pure possibility dream state), I believe that if I dream up an inhabitable, thriving planet I will be more spiritually, mentally, and emotionally resourced to align my actions to support the planet.

Every time I want to practice visualization magic to radiate nourishing thoughts to the collective mind with visions of a thriving planet, I see a crowd of people literally shaming me for it. “That’s not real!” they say. “You’re not actually helping.” “You’re delusional.” “We don’t need your thoughts and prayers, we need your action!”

Why have I internalized these voices? I think on the one hand, these voices do remind me not to fall into a fantasy stupor where I completely leave this world. They remind me that I can marry my spiritual and visualization practices with real action in this world. However, these voices shouldn’t keep me from dreaming and doing my spiritual practices in the first place. I get my best, most inspired, and most compassionate ideas after I’ve dipped into the well of infinite spirit, unconditional love, and pure possibility. And just because that well is infinite, doesn’t mean I don’t feel the blockages, or the dams holding back the water. There is much work to do on this planet to bring harmony, and because we are also this planet, we can do this work in ourselves, too. We can do both.

This week I would invite us all to consider what blocks us from dreaming and how to work with this obstacle. I don’t bulldoze over the voices that I’ve internalized telling me not to be delusional. But I do heed those voices and allow them to help me engage with my spirituality more maturely. I also don’t bulldoze over the internal heaviness that comes up when I dream. I soften. I tell myself it is okay. I forgive and I let go. As we open up to deeper layers of union with our own higher self or our connection to Source that we gain new capacity to love and let go of anything that is ready to be released. And while there may be work to do to bring these dreams into manifest fruition, there is space to be made as well, and that comes from letting go.

Welcome back! In case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the vibe may feel like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox, sign up for my mailing list here. You’ll also be the first to know when my online astrology courses are open for enrollment.

A few announcements before we get into this week’s forecast:

1) On this week’s episode of Magic of the Spheres I had a conversation with Lucia Anaïs Satyagraha about how to create better relationships and wealth in our lives, and what we can work to unblock to do so. These are themes that obviously are universal in impact and influence every area of our lives, and Lucia’s words are so activating and rich in wisdom and empowerment. It’s really no exaggeration to say that this is a life-changing conversation. And I had a great time recording with her and got lots of chills – it was electric!

Lucia (www.love-in-action.us) is a Master EFT Practitioner, Oracular Tarot Consultant and certified Tapping Into Wealth Coach. Her genius and expertise reside in deep intuitive healing, nervous system reprogramming, and coaching that addresses the stories of what we think we know and what we believe is possible; bringing us back into the re-cognition and embodiment of how much power we actually have; and what it means for us to consciously remap and redesign our lives to make our contribution to the planet in massive ways.

Get ready to uplevel all things Venusian in your life (aka love and wealth) by listening to this episode. Tune in where you listen to podcasts. Part two of this conversation will come out next week! You can also listen on your web browser here.

2) A new article on the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 is available for mailing list subscribers. You’ll receive the article as soon as you sign up here.

(Top image: Maria Nguyen)

Here’s our week:

September 18, 2019

Saturn stations direct in 13 Capricorn: 1:47 AM PDT

(Image: Gravity by Michael Whelan)

Saturn has been retrograde since April 29, 2019. Keep in mind that while any planet stations direct or retrograde, it becomes more intensified or apparent in our experience. Saturn originally stationed retrograde conjunct the south node of the Moon in Capricorn, and again as Saturn stations direct there is a conjunction to the south node in Capricorn again.

• Our judgmental consciousness can be a lot louder or more visible than usual – sometimes in such an exaggerated way that we end up letting go or transforming as a result. Think about judgements which normally are unconscious or subterranean and what it would mean for them to see the light of day. It may burn off in the light.

• Not all judgements are bad or spiritually unwise, and not all judgements create suffering. Not all judgements are about condemnation. Some judgements bring immense clarity. Some judgements empower us to transform morally and hold stronger boundaries and ethics. Some judgements allow us to act more skillfully and accurately.

• We can be grappling with deep, moral or weighty questions. We are feeling the call toward a better or more purposeful life. We are questioning how we are to interact with an ongoing struggle perhaps, in a more responsible or successful way.

• While on the one hand Saturn relates to tradition and how things have been done before, Saturn also relates with the keen capacity to discern karma or cause and effect – to see how our actions or subtle actions are creating particular results. Making good choices in the realm of Saturn is not just about having good intentions and seeing where the chips land. It’s about deepening our capacity to truly anticipate and plan for results. At this time we may be growing more sensitive as to discovering how we would like to participate with reality in a more skillful way. This requires us to listen to the feedback we are receiving from life itself, and not just bulldozing on with a plan that worked in the past but is maladaptive to the current moment. As we grow personally and spiritually, we will always be updating our structures that need renovation, and fortifying the structures that are still working and supporting life.

September 19, 2019

Mars in 20 Virgo trine Pluto in 20 Capricorn: 8:53 AM PDT

• One of the both subtle and potent strengths of this combination is the capacity to be evasive. We can be very skillful at deflecting or evading a confrontation, but there is the question: does this serve? Perhaps in some situations, avoiding a conflict is simply survival. But in other situations, avoiding confrontation or side-stepping around it is holding us back from an initiation of transformation and courage.

• Along the path of mastery, many mistakes will be made. Part of mastery is learning from failure. There may be challenges we are facing at this time that confront us with a likelihood that we are going to make mistakes. Wherever we have knowledge and experience that empowers us to NOT make mistakes, to act in a highly attuned or accurate way, we probably had to stumble once to get there. The courage of Mars in Virgo is about trying. These do not have to be catastrophic mistakes made in the spirit of “fuck it, why not?” but often more subtle openings toward extending or leaving our comfort zone when the path takes us somewhere we simply haven’t been before.

September 21, 2019

Jupiter in 17 Sagittarius square Neptune in 17 Pisces: 9:44 AM PDT

(Image: René Magritte)

This is the third exact hit of this particular transit, and it will now begin to go out of orb/influence. But for now, it is potent. Since this is the third hit though, we may have developed some new affinities on this journey already. Here are some of the themes.

• There is a religiosity in the air. It may be traditional religion for those who are connected to that path. But for many, it is the energetic of religion that is coming out. This religion could be social justice, a tantric relationship with the Earth, or a fierce commitment to personal development, to name a few.

• More recently, as Mars has aspected both Jupiter and Neptune, we may have found ourselves fighting for our beliefs or feeling the need to defend them, or encountering people/situations which we found challenging to our beliefs, or us to theirs.

• Consider an ocean that holds within it all possibility, all possible truths (Neptune). The way that we participate and flow and interact with this ocean will take us to a particular shore, to some land where life reflects the spiritual path and the belief systems we’ve bonded with. A great illusion is to think that this shore we’ve arrived at is the only truth. Or that this shore even existed outside of our participation with it (the shore came into manifestation as we moved toward it). Beliefs are a spiritual and creative vehicle, some take us to destinations that support harmony and thriving of ourselves and the planet, and some not so much. If we are too caught up in trying to find a truth that is separate from our participation, we are operating off of precepts that don’t even align with nature. All of life is an interconnected system. Therefore, much of the creative possibility of this transit is learning how to shape a path from this boundless ocean, recognizing that we are happening to it as it is happening to us. 

• While this co-creative spirituality exists beyond a Jupiter-Neptune transit, the waves and currents can be dramatized or enlarged by this transit, such that we can feel alternating waves of lucidity, confusion, religiosity, illumination, disillusionment, or peak spiritual experience. The mystic easily shifts between moods of despair, laughter, connection with the divine, epiphany, heartbreak, joy. If the seas of our life are choppier than normal, we may be challenged to learn new navigation skills. How do you pull yourself out of whirlpools or anxious thought loops? How do you spiral kundalini or tantric energy? How do you ground amidst flux?

September 22, 2019

Mercury in 13 Libra square Saturn in 13 Capricorn: 9:19 AM PDT

• Are there places in your communication where it feels like good form to keep something unspoken? It’s not to say that we are wrong for being judicious. But perhaps there are times when the judgements or rules that keep us silent are a less elevated/apt choice than creating a bridge with our words to voice what has yet been unspoken.

• Some breakthrough in communication around this time may be learning ways to have difficult conversations (or conversations that have been historically difficult for us) in a more graceful way. We may have it modeled by someone else who enters our life as a skillful communicator. It may be something we overhear. Or yet, it may be our own tuning into our heart space, searching for the words which do not come immediately when we only scratch the surface.

September 23, 2019

Sun enters Libra: 12:50 AM PDT

This marks the Autumn Equinox as it marks the start of Libra Season.

• When the Sun rises in the morning, this is an Aries moment. The rise of the self, of the independent journey. Libra is connected to the Sun setting in the evening, and seasonally Libra is connected to the start of autumn in the northern hemisphere, when the leaves turn brown and fall. Symbolically, moving into other-ship and out of self-orientation is like this sunset. We may at times surrender our own direction for the other or for where the synergy of the connection is taking us. We “fall” in love after all. Libra’s capacity to tune into the cues from the other is what makes Libra such a charismatic, charming, and socially adept sign. Yet, true to Libra’s affinity with balancing as well, we know that relationship is a balance of the self and the other, and while Libra’s opposite sign of Aries is so adept at knowing the self and the self’s mission, Libra is incredibly skilled at knowing the other. Because of this, when we are in Libran experience we have to remember to check in with our own preferences and boundaries as we also check in with others. Sometimes the allure of relating is strong enough to inspire our deceit or manipulation, but a higher form of relating will occur if we are willing to be honest and to accept the consequences of our honesty – and if we are willing to invite honesty from others and relate to them from a place of respect.

• A quintessential Libran experience we may find ourselves having this season is the enjoyment of making a new social connection. Any relationship qualifies – a friendship, a working colleague relationship, a fling, a partnership, a mentoring relationship. When we are excited by another person, we are simultaneously getting to know a new dimension of the self that is created from the connection.

September 24, 2019

Mercury in 17 Libra sextile Jupiter in 17 Sagittarius: 2:01 PM PDT

A story – I am writing this forecast and these words now at a cafe in Bali. I was about to start on this section when I overheard someone at the end of the table I’m sitting at say that he is a photographer and means to be working here, and that he was for the first month and then it slowed down, so he’s putting it out there again. I laughed and said, “I couldn’t help but overhear, but I’m actually looking for a photographer!” Then he and I and the woman he was talking with started talking about manifestation and it was fun. So now I have a serendipitous (Jupiter) connection (Mercury), and more insight about what to write here. Which is the following:

• If we have a wish or an intention we would like to circulate into reality, one of the first steps is voicing it. Even saying it aloud as a mantra is powerful. But this is Mercury in Libra, and dialogue with others has a way of giving the wish greater circulation… or even wings, if you will.

• This transit can also be about bringing good spirit and liveliness into our communications with others. Libra relates too reciprocity. When there is a connection and we breathe enthusiasm into it, it is often reciprocated – and it begins to grow. We can meditate on what kind of energy we would like to bring with our interaction with others, and see what happens when we share!

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.

If you would like more personalized guidance, I would love to read your natal chart and transits for you! If you would like me to explore the themes in your chart, book a reading with me here. 

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.