Astrological update - a short newsletter

From my friend, Lark....

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW… Aquarius Astrological Newsletter

Hello my Friend,

The fields around my house have been roaring with the sound of heavy machinery, making it impossible to forget that it’s harvest time. It gives me cause to consider the quiet simplicity of a human hand-picked food versus the work of a mechanical monster that devours four entire rows of plants in one “bite,” swallowing them into its steel belly and spitting out the “chewed up” leaves all over the field again. These crops are organically grown (for whatever that word has come to mean exactly…) so I’m happy to eat them versus plants sprayed with chemicals and pumped up on artificial fertilizers; but the plants, naked and flattened row on row are a freakish sight — strange thanks for the gift of food!

But for better and for worse, it is harvest time and Virgo, grain sheaves in arm, still presides over this season of the year when the fields reach perfection. I find myself with more green beans than I can process in a reasonable amount of time, as well as pears that I just managed to salvage before they were fit for fruit flies only. Ah, the responsibilities of the harvest! And Virgo’s metaphor of accepting duties and responsibilities, of developing skills and taking on the hard work that’s required to bring our own natures to perfection.

Who we are, is reflected in the way that we do these things and they in turn become a way to work on ourselves. There’s always a moment of divine relief that sweeps through you as you finally get down to some difficult task that you’ve been putting off for a long time. It feels good to work on your self no matter how hard it might be… and there’s Virgo’s blind spot. That good feeling can become addictive, driving her to endlessly over-refine. Then guilt becomes the Blood hound at her heels driving her endlessly forward when standing still to simply relax and enjoy, or meditate on the perfection of life itself would be the better course.

Three planetary events are worth taking note of at the moment. I’ll try to give you a brief perspective on each.

1. Transiting Mercury is retrograde from September 6-29, from 6 degrees Libra back to 22 Virgo. During the times when this “Messenger of the gods” appears to go backward in the sky, we seem to get mixed signals from the universe as to what’s going on. Mercury is associated with communication of all kinds — learning, teaching, reporting etc. It’s about how our minds work and how we see the world. It’s associated as well with devices we use for work, particularly those used for communication or transportation. With Mercury retrograde, it’s a good time to edit and review or gather information rather than coming to direct conclusions, doing your best to stay in an unbiased frame of mind if things look quirky. Unexpected bits of information tend to pop up that can really change the way you see something. It’s good to double, double-check dates and times. Mercury Retro gets blamed for delays, which do seem to happen but I’ve seen the opposite happen as well. Things arrived or happened sooner than expected. Whenever Mercury’s involved, it’s always good to keep a hawk’s eye on any tendency toward bias—but especially now!

2. Saturn and Uranus are standing opposite each other right now, facing off in the great cosmic “debate” as to power structure and integrity (or corruption), duties and responsibilities versus what you might call spiritual freedom (or spiritual deception). The aspect was exact on the 15th but we’ll continue to feel the influence of these two heavy weights up through 2010 as they form two more oppositions. The first partile, or exact opposition, was at 19 Virgo-Pisces on November 4th last year. (That was a pretty interesting day in US politics!) The second was on February 5th this year at 20 Virgo-Pisces. The third was exact on the 15th at 25 Virgo-Pisces, the fourth will be February 24, 2010 at 29 Virgo Pisces and the fifth will be on July 26, 2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn. (For an in depth discussion of the Saturn-Uranus opposition, check out the archives on my website, www.aquariusastrological.com, the Spring ’09 newsletter. (Note: curently, the link will take you to the current newsletter, but it may migrate to archives shortly.)

3. Pluto came to a station or an “apparent” stand still at 2 Capricorn on September 11th. We’ve been feeling the effects of this since August 5th and we’ll continue to feel it up to October 17 because Pluto is a very slow-moving planet. When a planet is stationary, its effect as especially heightened. If it’s touching a sensitive point in your chart you’ll really feel it! Pluto, being the “god of the Underworld” represents the shadow side of our natures. It symbolizes evil and catastrophe, our deepest subconscious wounds as well as our ability to heal and transform. When we’ve done the necessary work on ourselves we find that we can offer altruistic service and follow our high destiny.

Soon the days and nights in the northern and southern hemispheres will be equal in length. When the Sun steps into Libra at the fall equinox (or the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere) on September 22, Virgos’ busy spell will give way to Libra’s more relaxed and sociable events.

Warm regards,

Lark

(604) 940-8940
lark@aquariusastrological.com
www.aquariusastrological.com