Full Cold Moon First Full Moon of 2011 January 18-19, 2011

The concentration of human emotion follows the monthly full moon cycles which span a time of 29-30 days. The Full Moon in January is the "Cold" moon, and intensifies the dynamic between Cancer, where the moon will be, as a sign of summer, abundance, warmth, beauty and ease, and Capricorn, where the sun is, as a sign of winter, barrenness,frost, starkness, and hardship. These two signs are the north and south, the father and the mother. The qualities we attribute to fathers are synonymous with Capricorn: authority, protection and status, as well as the qualities of winter. Then we assume that mothers are like Cancer, nurturing, sheltering, and receptive, added to the qualities of summer. In these two archetypal signs of the Zodiac and of the seasons are the hopes and expectations of every child. If the qualities of either one are missing or skewed in any sense we are lost, or hurt. If they are extreme and over-done we are spoiled or ruined. Whether we are born to parents who survive our beginning and thrive, or not, is said to rule our destiny, and our personalities.
In times like our own, with a swelling population greater than our planet has ever spawned, and having the powers to observe our effect, we feel deeply the mother/father relationship to life itself. Have we killed our mother? or wounded our father? In the full moon of mid-January emotions of a primary intensity arrive. The opposition of the sun and moon in Cancer/Capricorn are squared by the Saturn/Jupiter opposition in Aries/Libra. This is the grand Cardinal square. It captures all of the big four worries, house, job, marriage, and self. oh my. Or the four great achievements, home-making, career, harmony, and fulfillment.
Since the moon is our emotional barometer, feelings of the negative sort are likely to be acute. The sprees of spending that full moons normally bring about won't be in the hands of the mass of people. But the deep money, the kind that is the father of the world, the authority that runs at the fundamental level will be making important moves. Libra is where history is being made, and that will be alliances, partnerships and deals. Pluto in Capricorn indicates what resources are now at the most desired level. These are the core substances, metal, minerals, rock, and the nurturing earth itself. See if we can find out who really owns what. We would be amazed.
In your Full Cold Moon meditations, ask what you would care about at the ultimate trial. What would nurture you from depths of your needs? This full moon is the archetype of God, especially the one we have invented, who looks back at us. In awe and wonder. Pray for your water sources to be sacred forever.

About Starwoman in 2011

Dear Stargazers,
Followers of my blog may be victims of a virus that hacked my msn hotmail email. I can no longer access this email, and the dramatic lie that was sent to everyone (ten years of addresses..) has, for some reason been very widely believed. Contact me through my gmail account and change your passwords, and run your security scans if you got that email with my name unfortunately linked to it. In the hundreds of calls and discussions I have had as a result of this incident, many others have gotten the same device with other countries listed. I repeat, change your passwords.

2011 Jupiter in Aries, opposite Saturn, A year of action and conflict

What a year is in front of us, with Jupiter moving into Aries on January 23rd where it will oppose Saturn's orbit through Libra. The most intense focus of these two great lights, and bringers of destiny, will be in March with the exact opposition at the end of the month. Then Jupiter will streak out of Aries into Taurus, oh the banks, the money, the gold....
and finish the year retrograding in the early degrees of Taurus. This is your money. Real estate will begin its climb again. Investments in early 2011, will pay off big and quickly, and land, gold, and real, that is, real things will become more valuable. This Jupiter cycle in real estate and money always peaks when the planet reaches mid-zodiac, in Cancer and Leo. This will take five years. By that time, the value is topped and it will be a poor time to buy as prices will be maxed.
The disturbing month for 2011 is April, when the Sun, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter AND Uranus will be in Aries. We are only dealing with nine planets, and so all but three of them will occupy the sign of beginnings. Aries also rules war, aggression, creation, fire and initiative. Everyone will be feeling change this year, wanting something new, different, and more alive.
The Mercury retrogrades for 2011 are all in fire signs, signaling that our emotions are high, and our feelings are whipping into a lust for action, and awareness that pioneering into the world's needs is our only way through. This is not a safe year, or a stable one, but it is a year of immense motion. Every person will feel this drive to create and start something, and all projects that are new are favored. In the most staid situations, try the unexpected, and say the thing that makes it all new again, and interesting.
Year of the Rabbit will start in February, and is a most interesting sign to combine with the violence of the Aries group. Notice the opportunism everywhere, and who gets lucky. Many will get lucky in year of the Rabbit, but not by holding still. Throw me in that briar patch, brother fox, and see what the Rabbit can do.

Winter Solstice Full Moon is a total Eclipse of the Moon

Among omens in the celestial world, eclipses are the most profound. They are the moment when the light that we regard as eternal leaves us, and unless you are an almanac reader, the departure is sudden and strange. Remember the daring rescue described by Mark Twain in the Prince and the Pauper?, In this story the modern time traveler dupes the illiterate populace of an earlier era by predicting the total eclipse of the sun, in the middle of the day. This ruse has been repeated in many fables, and capitalizes on the necessity of knowing your cycles and keeping up with the cycles of the sun and moon.
Already this year, a full moon has coincided with the cardinal point of the Autumn Equinox, a coordinate of remarkable rarity. Now with the next quarter point of the year, the Winter Solstice, the most important one in the human archive, we have another perfectly placed full moon, and this time the full moon will be eclipsed by the earth's shadow passing between the sun and the moon.
Eclipses are the reminder that the dimensions of our earth, moon, and sun are more perfectly aligned than we can comprehend. In one of the coincidences of staggering proportions, our proportions are aligned so that at these moments the yearly orbits of earth and moon, all three bodies are the same size.
The Winter solstice will be December 21st at 6:38pm EST. This event is the most celebrated in human culture, being the time of the return of light. Christianity has deposited its whole iconic history on this date, making puns of the sun and the son, and the birth of light, as the return of the solar cycle.
Lunar energy is emotional and the Moon is the indicator of the soul. An eclipse of the Moon is always the astrologer's judgment of emotional change, or elimination of a level of feeling that won't be returning in the same way. On the winter solstice of 2010, our very souls will be touched, and we are going to be welcoming the return of the sun's light from a place that lies too deep for ordinary understanding.
Refer to the article on the Autumn equinox full moon Jupiter conjunction of September, 22nd, 2010.

Mercury retrogrades as the Meteor Shower pops

In the grand cosmic design, there is included a rest period. All nature appreciates this, but humans who are trying to evolve out of the design find these a nuisance, and manage to get it wrong, most of the time. Seriously, it is good for us to crash the hard drive, stall the battery, and get summonses that we had hoped were all forgotten. It is dearly, the time to slow down and catch up. But when we can't, of our free will do that, well, as we say, cosmic design is greater than us.
This winter retrograde of Mercury began to roll backwards on December 9th, but us observers always notice that the whole week before the retro date is full of stops, blunders and signs of niggling might. In Capricorn, on the same degree as Pluto, Mercury slowed to a virtual stop, and all kinds of things also crashed, viraled, and hacked where no hackers have gone before.
The exciting thing about these three week episodes that happen three times a year and cross a place in space three times,is that the unexpected always happens.
Capricorn rules the rules, and since Pluto was so close, the bigger impact under all our foundations, is that the rules are changing. As if you hadn't noticed. Deep in the disturbances that are the fairly minor ones of Mercury (communication & trade) just met the thunderous ones of the mighty god itself, Pluto smasher of atoms, bringer of the nuclear age. hmm. No itchy trigger fingers (hands are ruled by Mercury)on the uranium have bothered us yet, but watch for what is not being said.
And lest we forget, the most exciting Meteor shower of the winter, starting the week of December 13th is of Mercury's sign, Gemini. The Geminid Meteor shower this year will last all week, peaking on Monday night. Look at great Orion in the east and notice the two equally bright twin stars to the left and down: there is Gemini, and that is the direction of the brightest part of the meteors. Make your wishes on these falling stars be a Mercury retrograde kind of wish, that all our mistakes become enlightenment, and all our crashes be healed in better ways than we knew.

How to experience this joyfully? Well. Act natural. Be Cool.
Watch your traveling, expect all the usual discomforts, prepare for them, like take your food that would sustain you on a desert island, or O'Hare, and relax. The best you can do, is go with the disasters, enjoy them, have a real hot toddy, learn from them and above all, don't buy technology until after the direct dates. Like is natural, they are, of course, after Christmas.
True dates: December 8-9th until December 29-30th. Mercury started its retrograde motion in the early degrees of Capricorn, and will finish in the late degrees of Sagittarius, oh dear, the sign of travel... say your aves, our fathers, and all the other appeals to nature that you know, and then the only way through, is to enjoy yourself. Long lost communication in people and in devices will appear, some to thrill you and others to amaze. Be hearty, and look for the humor in all things. Mercury is the trickster, the joker, and the thief.

Venus Retrograde, everything is re-evaluated

The new moon on October 7th coincided with a remarkable other kind of consideration, the beginning of the retrograde phase of beautiful Venus. This occurs every other year, bringing Venus issues, love, value, money and beauty into a backwards review. Now is a time period where values are being reconsidered. Losses of love and value may occur. Most of all, it is a deepening of the ability to look at love and money, your love, your money. You will understand even through pain and deprivation, what love and beauty mean. It is a rare event, causing your intuition to rise with insistence. A part of your emotional self is demanding that you consider it, immerse in it, and ponder this unusual perspective.

Venus is making her retrograde in Scorpio this time, adding a profound and wonderful level to the already obligatory deepening of perspective. Scorpio rules sex, death, and the mutually held values of everyone, and partners especially. This retrograde, being in the sign of power is a loss of power, and re-vamping of power, and a treacherous time to trust other people's intention. Everyone is changing, willingly or not. Venus has nothing to do with will, only the values and desires that drive the will. Will is Mars, the action based on what Venus wants. It is true, Venus is interior to Earth, like Mercury. Those planets carry what is inside us, what we think and care about from birth to forever.
Venus retrogrades happen every 18 months, when Venus crosses either behind or in front of the Sun, from Earth's view. In an 8 year perfect diagram, Venus will make 5 retrogrades, which from space form a perfect pentagram. This means that the signs of the Zodiac which will carry the Venus retrograde are in a formation within the 12 signs, that skips through in a five-fold rhythm. Study the formation of the Rose, it is in a five petaled formation, and so is the Venus cycle when drawn geometrically, and repeatedly.
Your task through this period of Venus-- October 7th through November 18th-- is to look at your worth. What is valuable about you, who loves you? What do you care about that is important? Is it money? Safety? Freedom? Rest? Power? Sex? Admiration? All of these values are eternal, and they come in large and small portions. The proportion of everything is also shifting. The day Venus goes direct, on November 18th, so will Jupiter finish its retrograde phase for this year. Both of them are in late degrees of their signs. Venus will be at 27 Libra. Ah, Libra, balancer, the sign of others, marriage, partnership, and how we connect. Jupiter is finishing its year in Pisces, watery, vague, idealistic, treacherous, and yearning. Making making a very interesting angle to Venus, the 150 degree angle. Not a true piece of the circle but an off-kilter one, called comically enough, a Quinqux.
It is an aspect of adjustment, bringing definite, black and white Libra into a consideration of Pisces, which uses all the possibilities, the dreads, fears, and hopes and dreams. Truth comes in many forms. November is showing us just how many.
The moon will be waxing to full also in that week. The Full Little Bear Moon. Huge shifts will be felt as the Sun leaves Scorpio and moves into Sagittarius. Venus will dust her pretty hands of all these deep, deep, feelings, and begin to lure us back to the surface world, where everyone's face will look different. And you should SEE yours!

Mercury Retrograde for Spring!!!

Every 88 days is a phase of Mercury that causes the planet to retrace degrees already passed in its orbit. The phase lasts 21 days in retrograde. Since Mercury retrogrades 3 to 4 times each year, the phases often go with the changes in the seasons. More aptly put, our mood to change the seasons of the year follows more closely with Mercury than with the actual cardinal shifts into the Equinoxes and Solstices. This spring retrograde is in Taurus. Right on the 12th degree of Taurus, which is a degree of beauty. All our earthy affairs will go backwards for a while, and the past week, while Mercury was slowing down brought some fabulous earthly phenomena. Like the Iceland Volcano upsetting travel, a Mercury function, all over the world. Hmm. Values will be discussed much during this retrograde, and one of those values is money. All our money is going backward for a while, unless we can find a deeper earthy resource. Do not rush in this cycle, and do not expect the general to become actual. This is a time of intuition, deep reflection, and fine tuning of subtle wonders. Chill deeply and long, this retrograde of Mercury has material threads going all the way into the earth.