In the Midst of Winter

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

Albert Camus

 

This quote by Albert Camus – a Scorpio – made me think of Capricorn.  On January 11, 2013 we had five planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Pluto) in Capricorn, a beautiful Earth sign Stellium.  It was the night of the New Moon.  We have set our goals for the New Year and whether we keep up with these goals or not, fulfill these dreams or not, will be solely up to us.  For those of you that are born under the Zodiac sign of Capricorn and for those who have a strong Earth element in your chart, January 11^th was a good vibration day.  Although I am a Pisces, my Ascendant is in Taurus, I felt the comforting energy of the planets in Capricorn and felt the grounding of the Earth elements that once again proved to be so soothing. 

Sun in Capricorn is quiet.  Sun in Capricorn people do not crave praise, accolades and their spot in the limelight.  Sun in Capricorn people are trustworthy, dependable, hard-working, patient and persistent.  I sound like a Sunday Horoscope in a trashy magazine don’t I?  Sun sign description is very general but in many cases, it does apply if we keep an open mind.  One of the definite traits of Capricorn people is, that they are often the teachers of the Zodiac.  Their ruling planet is Saturn, the misunderstood “devil” in Astrology.  Yes, Saturn has been given many bad names and it has a bad rep.  If we look at Saturn as the planet that symbolizes the teacher, the one that does not let us fool around, the one that pushes us to thrive for better and climb higher – then, I think, we found the true meaning of Saturn.  Saturn is my worst and strictest math teacher.  Because of that I have always understood math and loved it.  Who is your Saturn?  

Capricorn people get younger with age.  As children they are serious and task oriented, as adults they are less rigid and as they get older, they play more.  They love life.   Often described as cold and calculating, task oriented and career hungry creatures, Capricorn people are serious, devoted and reliable but they are far from what the stereotypical old fashioned description of this sign is.  Reading in between the lines and opening our heart towards many possibilities, we see that as in the quote from Albert Camus, there is a great warmth that radiates from these people; there is an invincible summer, great passion and love.  No matter how the world pushes against them, the people with Sun Sign in Capricorn push right back.  Capricorn symbol is the sea goat.  It is a mythical mountain goat creature with dolphin like tail.  Therefore, Capricorn connects the highest of the mountains and the deepest of the seas.   It is an Earth sign that encompasses it all, our Mother Earth’s beauty from one spectrum to another.  Capricorn reaches from the highs of the Earth to its lows. 

The Full Moon in Capricorn represented out unfulfilled dreams.  Putting these dreams in a more concrete form was what we felt compelled to do.  Prioritizing our tasks and our dreams and plans is essential.  If we felt certain peace during the time of Capricorn Full Moon it is probably because we are on the right track.  If we felt out of balance it only means that we have a lot of catching up to do. 

Mercury in Capricorn reflected how we communicate with others.  Mercury was in Capricorn until January 18 and with Mercury in this sign there is a chance that we may feel old and tired when we talk to others, when we interact with people.  Perhaps it is the others that make us feeling worn out.  Some quiet time would be helpful to all of us so we can recharge and refresh.  Even socializing has its boundaries.  With Mercury in Capricorn it is time to make some serious commitments and plans whatever they might be.  Capricorn will sure keep us on task. 

Venus will stay in Capricorn until February 1.  Capricorn is a masculine sign and the sign of authority, Venus is the Divine Feminine.  Venus in Capricorn brings change to all women issues, to what women stand for and fight for.  Capricorn Venus is no longer going to be just an observer.  Women are taking the issues that affect them into their own hands.  In the United States of America, the 113th Congress has 20 female senators, the most ever in U.S. history.  And this is just the beginning.  The merging of the masculine symbolized by the Capricorn and the feminine that is represented by Venus has begun.  Feminine and masculine are just like yin and yang - two parts of one whole.

As I write this blog, it is January 11 and we have five planets in Capricorn – Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Pluto.  The energy around is grounded and still.  It is the beginning of a New Year, new hopes and a new start.  More people are set to stick with their new year’s resolutions.  Capricorn is the task maker of the Zodiac so get out your note pads, your planners or tablets and set out some goals to keep you on track this year.  Welcome to the New Year, the new future as we don’t know it. 

If you do lose sight somewhere along the way, if you begin to doubt yourself and feel like there is just too much of this “restricting” but calm energy and that it is pushing you down just remember the quote by Albert Camus.  It is an old one and maybe it has been overused by many, including me, but it is true.  I don’t know exactly why, but it has always reminded me of Capricorn.  

On a final note, Mercury and Sun left Capricorn on January 18.  Sun entered Aquarius.  So here we have it – as we are thinking about our future and future plans we are still grounded by a solid and calm energy of Capricorn.  What a perfect combination of dreaming and doing, future planning and being cautious and careful at the same time.  We all can allow both of these energies to gently flow through us and show us the way.  

Until next time.

Lonely Santa - What The Mayans Did Not See

There will be no Christmas in Newtown.  No Santa, no joy and yet, life goes on.  It has been almost a week since the school massacre in a peaceful town of Newtown.  It hit Americans and the rest of the world in the most vulnerable places.  Nothing ever happens in this town, this town is totally safe – and as we like to say – a great place to raise a family.  It did not happen in the slums of the city, the high crime area and no, the crime was not committed by a person of color, perhaps by a foreigner, a terrorist.  Crazy white guy did the dirty work – another surprise to some, sad, but let’s face it, no matter how we sugarcoat things we love to stereotype.  It hit us right before Christmas – the time of when being with our family is what we crave and the time of joy.  That is our special time.  Therefore I wonder; will there ever be Christmas in Newtown?  

 

Astrologically, there have been many discussions on the web – from analyzing Adam Lanza’s birth chart to looking at the date and time of the shootings.  I am not going to bore you with basically similar facts but I have depicted a couple of things I found interesting.  Pluto conjunct Uranus in the chart of the event points to the fact that  there can be anger unleashed against one’s mother.  Mercury opposite Jupiter is another one that quickly jumped at me.  During this time we can quickly fall into conclusions that have not been analyzed thoroughly, without knowing all the facts.  It  has been the case with this event – we have came to our conclusions way too fast and as the events and findings were unfolding, with each new addition, the whole picture of this horrific event has changed.  There are many different aspects of the astrology of this horrific moment and they are worth exploring.  

The shootings opened up another can of worms - maybe two or three.  There is now a heated debate on gun control laws in America.  I have studied here and I have lived here for some time now.  As a European and someone who traveled and lived in other places of the world the whole idea about gun laws here has been a puzzle to me.  In many European countries people can own guns too (unbeknownst to Americans), but the laws are stricter.  My question is why there is such an obsession with guns and weapons?  Why does one mother – in this case – Adam Lanza’s mother need to “protect” herself with AR-15, a semi-automatic assault weapon?  There is an article I have read about the person who was performing autopsies on the people that were shot.  The little bodies of the children were covered with multiple gun shots.  Believe me, an assault weapon and these little bodies, you can see the picture.  I am very familiar with the medical field, I grew up in in, I am very familiar with the work of the medics, firefighters, first responders – my husband works in the field.  I am also a part of this kind of work – blaming my Uranus and Pluto in the sixth house.  I feel that we have already forgotten, we did not experience anything through our free media – we are only told bits and pieces of the whole story, they want us to forget and move on – after all, isn’t it just another killing?  Would being graphic, seeing and experiencing something similar help us to understand?  Are we just hiding from the reality by casting false prayers, imagining these little children at the Heaven's gate being happy?  Believe me, I have read some of the crazy ideas people have, of the children that are with their Heavenly Father now.  Who the f... cares, right?  They are not among us anymore.  They have been murdered like many before them, this time however, it happened in a haven of safety.

America experiences way too many of these types of killings.  Yes, you may argue, how about Norway?  How about this and that?  Will the gun control change anything?  Well, in my opinion the gun lobby and the NRA is way too powerful.  So who knows?  Yes, who knows?

Not only it is our obsession with guns what we talk about, but the state of our mental health is in question.  Was Adam Lanza taking antidepressants?  Maybe?  We are a nation of pill poppers.  Are you sad?  Take Zoloft.  Is your child overactive?  There is Ritalin or Concerta - easy as that.  Do you read about the side effects?  It says it can cause suicidal thoughts, right.  Isn’t it just wonderful?  Well, just as the NRA has a powerful lobby so does the pharmaceutical industry.  So what do we do now?  Will Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn push us to change this?  Perhaps put an end to this?  Will there be blood?  There you have it, there is blood already, I am afraid.  

With this being said, how do we take care of our mentally ill people?  We don’t like to label them mentally ill, that is politically incorrect.  It is what it is.  I have no answers on how to solve this.  I am just puzzled why we can splurge fighting expensive wars around the world and yet, our people here are without mental, psychological and social help.  Another paradox.   How about our obsession with video games?  Death is not real, death is just made up, something that can be reversed by pushing a button – oh, did you know you have two more lives?  

So here you go.  You have a gun.  Not just a revolver, but an assault weapon, a crazy guy on antidepressants, people who believe the end of the world is coming (another piece of info that the US media did not talk about) and voila – you have a deadly bomb that explodes and hits us all right in our hearts.  

The end of the world - I am amazed how many people here take the end of the world literally.  As an astrologer, I get asked this question a lot.  I know that at some point, our planet will die.  That is a fact.  I also know that the Mayan used various different ways to measure their time.  Most ancient civilizations have used cyclical time and not linear.  We measure our time in a line.  Astrology measures time in cycles.  Life is a cycle.  December 21, 2012 on our calendar marks the end of the 13^th baktun of the Mayan Long Count Calendar.  That day the count will read 130000 and on December 22, the count will read 130001.  Each baktun is 144,000 days long which is approximately 400 years.  To the Mayans, the 13 baktuns represented a full cycle of creation.  There are no apocalyptic prophecies, however.  Mayans had also several units that were even larger than baktuns; they had the capacity to count millions of years into the future.  So really, we will wake up on December 22, and life will go on.  Some of us hope for a big leap in human consciousness, somehow we will get rid of evil, the good will prevail.  We can only wish.  Life will go on, we will move into the next baktun but the life has stopped for the 20 children in Newtown, and for the adults, the teachers, the role models life has stopped too.   Life ends for many children every day, in the Middle East, America, Africa, Europe - you name it.  That day is the day their world ends -the end day of their count.  Some lives vanish way too quickly.  My only observation is that they have been vanishing with a greater occurrence in the past few years, it is happening more often, more often than now we hear about the violence against the innocent beings.  The abuse of children by the priests, their coaches, their parents, and the relatives is way too common now.  We medicate our children, kill them with foods, manufacture toys that are toxic, we crush them, beat them and it is not pretty.  It is not the kind of violence where your tribe kills mine; where our soldiers fight against yours.  This is very sick kind of violence, the twisted kind.  If only the Mayans knew… or did they?  For those of you interested to watch in interesting documentary on the topic of time and the cycles of universe you can watch The Ancient Aliens – The Cygnus Mystery.  If you want to watch it, the link is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhgNXbahNrA  Good movie for December 21.

            

In the US, we are always looking for an enemy.  We are it.  We are looking for terrorists.  We are the terrorists.  We are fighting warfare on our children.  We created them, we are destroying them.  We see ourselves in a different light than the rest of the world sees us.  The rest of the world is watching.  Will we take a step in a different direction?  Will we place our children first and then our guns somewhere next on the list, perhaps in the middle or the bottom of the list?  Will we help the weak, will we feed the poor, and build a safety net for those who really need it since there is none?  Will we stand up against violence?  Or will it take more lives, more innocent children, and more people to die before we say – that’s enough?  

There have been twenty Christmas trees placed in front of the school in Sandy Hook.  They are decorated with Christmas ornaments and toys, there are gifts under the Christmas trees too.  There are also gifts for the children in their parents’ closet that were ready for them when Santa comes.  No one will open these gifts now; their children’s little hands will never touch them, these children will never hold their parents' hands.  This may seem out of place or weirdly trivial but I wonder, as a parent, what will the parents do with these toys, these gifts?  Keep them?  Go back to the store and exchange them?  Sorry, but this did not work out – that is what we say to the clerk at the store?  What will we say?  What will we do if anything? 

America, wake up!

Sagittarius New Moon

                                                  

Today, on the lovely day of December 13 we have Sagittarius New Moon.  Sagittarius is about hope and constant quest for truth!  Let's take time to meditate and visualize our dreams and hopes, write them down and project our dreams out there.  

It is interesting that this New Moon follows the auspicious day of December 12 of 2012 or simply

12-12-12.  How did you experience it?  Anything interesting has happened?

December has been pretty busy for all of us.  With the end of the year we tend to get so busy.  Have you lived your life as this year was the last?  Have you had time to think what it is that you want your future to be?  With the next interesting and probably the most talked about date, December 21, we can't help but to reflect on what was and what will be.  Perhaps it all is nothing but a new awakening, change in human consciousness, change for the better One would hope.

So here we have it, the day of December 12, the New Moon and the end of the Mayan Calendar.  What will astrologers talk about next?  Stay tuned and stay sane.

Until next time,

Andrea