Newsletters

Hello, and welcome to our newsletter. We're closing in on the winter solstice, with shorter days and longer nights, and the desert nights are more clear and starry than ever.

As we've mentioned here before, we are 3/5ths of the way through a pattern of five oppositions of Saturn and Uranus:

* on 11/04/08 at 19 Virgo (Saturn) -Pisces (Uranus)
* on 2/5/09 at 20 Virgo-Pisces
* on 09/15/09 at 25 Virgo-Pisces
* on 4/24/2010 at 29 Virgo-Pisces
* on 7/26/2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn

Transiting Uranus galvanizes whatever planet or point it is aspecting, and whatever house it is passing through in your birthchart. It asks you to overhaul and transform these areas, particularly where you may have been clinging to traditions, habits, fears and restrictive conservatism about them.

The more "trapped" you have felt here, the more acutely you may feel this Uranian call to progress and freedom. To work well with these transits, you must use the Uranian virtue of *being fully yourself*--not someone else's idea of you, and not a living symbol of "the Revolution" at the expense of your own identity. Transiting Saturn asks you for a realistic and objective assessment of what is and is not working about whatever planet or point it is aspecting, and about whatever house it is passing through in your birthchart. It asks you to use the Saturnian virtues of good reality-testing and shrewd consistent effort to make a concrete, practical change of whatever isn't working for you.

Read more: December 2009 Newsletter

Hello, and welcome to our September 2009 newsletter. Can you believe it's September already? I'm back from speaking at the ISAR conference in Chicago in late August. My lecture was well received, and I was glad to see some of you there.

It's gradually getting a bit cooler here in the desert, and the cats are correspondingly friskier in the mornings when I let them out into our small walled-in back patio. Cato has even decided to start practicing a basic feline skill:

There are only two trees out there, both palms, and a cat's gotta do what a cat's gotta do!

The planets are fittingly busy in solar Virgo, the sign of personal growth, wholeness, and craftsmanship:

1. Transiting Mercury is retrograde from Sept. 6-29, from 6 Libra back to 22 Virgo. For those of you new to astrology, Mercury rules communication of all kinds, learning, teaching, details, transportation, commerce, and devices we use to work with anything Mercury rules. It also rules how your mind works, what you notice, how you process information. When Mercury is retrograde, that which it rules tends to go "backwards." It's a good idea to double check all details, get tracking numbers, etc. It's also wise to review information or edit material rather than act upon it or begin a Mercury-ruled project.

2. There is an transiting Saturn-Uranus partile (exact) opposition on the 15th at 25 Virgo (Saturn) - Pisces (Uranus). We are in a pattern of five oppositions of these planets:
*on 11/04/08 at 19 Virgo (Saturn) -Pisces (Uranus)
* on 2/5/09 at 20 Virgo-Pisces
*the one mentioned above, on 09/15/09 at 25 Virgo-Pisces
*on 4/24/2010 at 29 Virgo-Pisces
* on 7/26/2010 at 1 Libra-Capricorn

Read more: September 2009 Newsletter

Hello, and welcome to our August 2009 newsletter. We are in the yearly transit of the Sun through Leo, the sign it rules. The Sun is always a Presence, here in the desert, and never more so than at this time of year. You know, intellectually, that the Sun is a star, but in the desert you truly experience it on a sensory level as a star. You can see and feel it blazing long before it looms above the horizon at dawn. The starkness and brilliance of the light is unmistakable, energizing, and commands so much attention that it's difficult to sleep past dawn if you're indoors, and all but impossible if you've slept outside, as though the Sun had summoned your consciousness back to the waking world, away from the realm of the night and the Moon. The force and heat of the Sun are so great that almost all creatures should take shelter from the open desert before mid-morning--the solar energy must be respected, and the inexperienced hiker who ventures out at the wrong hour is in serious danger. You can understand why people in whom the astrological Sun is strong can exert so much charisma and magnetism, and inspire so much loyalty or fear. You can understand why this vast fiery Presence was seen as an all-powerful god in so many cultures.

To tap into the energizing and centering power of the astrological Sun, consider its placement in your natal chart. Feed your Sun by following the journey of its sign through the path of its house, and it will strengthen and invigorate you, and help give your life meaning and purpose. A healthy Sun makes it easier to express all the rest of your chart in a healthy way.

Our solar oven taps into the energy of the astronomical Sun. The oven is light and portable, easily carried outside. Food takes about twice as long to cook, although you can leave the oven outside longer with no harm to the meal. Nothing burns or sticks to the pans. Food tastes juicier, more moist, and just plain better. The oven uses no electricity and does no harm to the environment. Interested? Check out The Solar Oven Society website

And that's just one very tiny example. We hope that the world's governments realize how much power is available overhead for going green.

-Jodie

Hello, and welcome to our July 2009 newsletter. An almost-full Moon is glowing in the desert sky and gazing in at me through our porch door I type these words, and Manda the Cat is stretched out at my feet (ready to edit on the laptop keyboard if I let her). The scene feels very Cancerian, particularly since parts of this desert are an ancient sea bed. Perhaps Saturn rules linear time, and the Moon is connected to cyclical time. Certainly our inner emotional lives, ruled by the Moon, aren't particularly bound to linear time. Consider how time behaves in your dreams -- there is, theoretically, no time in the unconscious.

I suspect these musings are fueled by the upcoming lunar eclipse--for more on that, see the third block of this newsletter.

We'll be home a bit more than usual this month, and are pleased that both of our in-person practices are picking up despite the desert's summer heat. It's very dry, and feels much better to us than NC's humid heat did. The night air is soft and nourishing and magical this time of year, and always full of stars.

Scroll down for our and workshop lecture schedule, and a bit about the eclipse.

Jodie