“Disease is inertia. Healing is movement. If you put the body in motion, you will change.” — Gabrielle Roth

By Amanda Painter

How often have you tried to think your way into a new state of being or belief, or tried to think yourself into feeling healed? Thoughts are amazing tools for many things in life: planning, research, analysis. But often, when it comes to fully shifting our experience of ourselves, they are only part of the process — and sometimes not even the place to start.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

For example, years ago I was really struggling with hearing any kind of career calling; I was at a job that used my talents only marginally, though its grassroots focus aligned with my values.

I remember speaking to an older, wiser friend about how I had no idea what I was meant to do, no idea what would be ‘perfect’. I was afraid of getting just stuck again.

This loop of ‘I don’t know’ felt like a permanent glitch in my psyche. My friend said to me, “You can’t think yourself into knowing what will fit; you have to actually try things. They don’t have to be forever; you can always look for something else. But until you actually try the jobs that interest you, you can never know if they’re right or not.”

To heal my career-calling inertia, my stalled creativity, my fear of ‘getting stuck for the rest of my life’, I had to move out of the realm of thought. Because my thoughts about how stuck I felt were not helping me. My imagination was not even helping much, since any fantasy jobs came with a sense of being too far from my reality, and were therefore too ‘risky’. I had to move into the realm of ‘applied science’, or actually, tangibly trying things, to heal my perception of stuckness, and to heal my beliefs about creativity’s place in my life.

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Dear Madame,

All this Virgo stuff is making me a little crazy. I feel it shouldn’t, but it does. You know my chart already, so you can see my North Node’s in Virgo, and as you’ve explained, this is an area where I’ll need to put a little more effort and consciously cultivate those qualities in my life.

But I gotta tell you, after watching a couple of those organizer videos you posted, I broke out into a cold sweat! All those little bits — the papers and the color systems, and the million tabs and boxes! I know I’m a sensitive person, but I had no clue how watching Filofax demonstrations could produced that level of anxiety! So please help me. This is a little embarrassing. I really want to conquer that North Node.

— Planning to Plan

Dear Planning,

I have good news for you. And then still more good news.

The first piece of good news is that no human need conquer their North Node all in one season. Give yourself the rest of your life to get that baby down. Your North Node vision will evolve over time.

The second piece of good news is that the universe is soon gonna give you a solid bump up: first, next week’s solar eclipse will shine up your Virgo zone; and second, come November we’ll all be doing the Virgo North Node shimmy for two years. We’ll all become pickier, or if you prefer, more discriminating, together.

You won’t be alone. With Jupiter in Virgo for the next 11 months, you’ll likely find others attempting to get their Virgoan act together. Just look around. Honestly. It’s in the air! And because your natal Virgo North Node is in its natural home (the 6th House) all those classically Virgo things will be easier to spot and apply in your life.

Hate to use a cliché, but it’s true: you need to think of this season as less of a challenge and more of an opportunity.

Remember that when we looked at your chart, we saw major new movements on all four fundamental fronts in your life: health, home, partners and profession. You got it all goin’, babe! And you’ve just begun to get a taste of big changes in your life. Thus, all this comes at the right time: you really do need added value to your Virgo sort-and-process zone. Imagine it like an old fashioned mailroom: the Big Boss at the top can’t execute her executive self without someone delivering timely data to her desk. And you need “executables” on four fronts!

Don’t panic, though! Give yourself permission to window shop options for your data delivery. One woman’s methods might be another woman’s madness. Find the method or madness that best suits your needs and check out that option. Then check out another option.

The key here is options. You have them, and you’re not stuck with one answer.

Give yourself time, too. Anxiety is real. It has real and potentially lasting effects on your nervous system and body. To mitigate the approach-avoidance dance of anxiety, try the exposure treatment. The exposure approach allows you to experience little doses of change so you can acclimate to the idea that this new whatever-thing isn’t so bad after all. This takes a little time, but giving yourself TIME is a gift you need now to grow into your Virgo mode.

Depending on how challenged you feel, you may start with a tiny step, like buying a nice pen. Doesn’t need to be expensive. A small purchase toward a little Stabilo or gel pen will do. Sit with the pen; write with it; draw. Notice how much or how little you enjoy that feeling of it in your hand as it moves against the paper.

Like it? Keep it. Not so much? Move on. No judgments on YOU. But notice how every single detail in your pen observation is Virgoan in nature — the attention to quality, experience, flow, output. The little things that actually do mean a lot.

Was that so scary? Not really. And you got a bonus — a good pen!

Now move to the next step, keeping the stakes low. Watch a new video, or take out a book from the library about your growth zone. Educate yourself about something new. Or buy an inexpensive little calendar or journal. A small investment. Repeat the process above, with attention to quality, experience, flow, output. Get comfortable with the new thing. Observe and breathe through it. You got it.

And so on. Baby steps, observe, breathe.

Practice conscientious attention to details in the privacy of your own place before taking this Virgo show on the road. Begin writing plans for personal goals, things that matter only to you. Make charts for home chores that no one else will see. If you keep at it, by November you’ll feel confident enough to make that holiday gift list and formulate a strategic attack on your baking, knitting, purchasing and traveling goals that would be worthy of any armed services logistical central command. You might even get half of it done!

Speaking of, Santa-lady, put me down for a new Moleskine.

Yours in the struggle,

Madame Z

Most of us know our way around the concept of quantity. You know ‘bigger’ when you see it, ‘smaller’ too. Many (but not all) athletic contests are won by those who move faster and jump higher or farther. Finances are usually a matter of quantity. One of the oldest sales enticements is to offer more in exchange for less.

Quality is another matter. Sometimes quality is actually just quantity in fact (such as 14 karat gold versus 24 karat gold). In other contexts, quality can also be so highly subjective that no two people will agree on what it means.

Yet, you know much of what constitutes a quality of life cannot be measured in dollars, pounds, hours or square feet. Love, for example is without price. The quality of service, to cite another example, is more about intent and spirit than amount.

Another one of the things that eludes quantitative measurement most of the time is astrology. You know a Full Moon when you feel it, even if you cannot put a meter on the experience. Even the Moon changing signs, which will happen when the Moon moves from Cancer to Leo shortly before 10:36 pm EDT tonight (or 02:35:48 UTC tomorrow), is usually something you can sense even if it is not something you cannot objectively assay.

Of all the qualitative experiences astrology has to offer, Mercury retrogrades are probably among the best known. Seeking to understand what goes along with Mercury passing between Earth and the Sun (making Mercury appear to slow down and go into reverse from our perspective) is the gateway to astrology for many.

As it so happens, now is a good time to begin improving the quality of your understanding of both Mercury retrogrades and astrology. No measurements will be required. You won’t have to remember anything farther back than the first month of this year, and your own judgment will be all you need to make what will almost certainly be some useful, albeit subjective observations.

That’s because Mercury has been in its first echo (or ‘shadow’) phase of its third and last retrograde of 2015 since Aug. 28. Mercury echo/shadow is when Mercury enters the degrees where it will be soon be retrograde. This happens again when Mercury goes back over the territory where it was retrograde.

Since you are in a process that has repeated twice before and recently, you have some grounds for qualitative comparison. This is especially true because there is a constant: air.

Mercury’s actual retrograde period will begin on Sept. 17 at 15+ Libra, and end on Oct. 9 in Libra’s first degree. The second shadow phase will then continue until Mercury reaches and passes 15+ Libra again on Oct. 24.

Libra is an air sign. The two previous retrogrades of 2015 also took place entirely in air signs. Counting the echo/shadow phases, Mercury moved back and forth three times between 1+ and 17+ Aquarius from Jan. 5 to March 3. Subsequently, Mercury tacked between 4+ and 13+ Gemini for nearly all of May and June. Indeed, by the time this year is over, Mercury will have spent about half of it in three signs all distinguished by the same element.

This is not to say all three of the Mercury retrogrades this year will be the same. They will not be the same. However, there should be a qualitative through-line you can sense and subjectively discern, which will provide some useful (if un-quantifiable) information.

Of the four elements (fire, earth, air and water) that contribute to distinguishing one sign from another, air might fairly be said to be the most qualitative. After all, the earthen element implies both material as well as metaphorical substance, and material substance can be weighed. Similarly, the watery elements correspond with literal and figurative volume, and literal volumes can be measured. Fire, for its part, is often a matter of time and temperature (or temper, as the case may be).

Air, on the other hand, is as elusive as it is essential. You are continually and necessarily immersed in actual air, which is not the case with the most familiar and tangible forms of earth, water and fire. Additionally, when something is said to have an ‘air’, it’s understood to be a quality, not a quantity.

Hence, this is the year and now is the time to pull together a qualitative sense of what the experience of Mercury retrogrades mean for you. You can start by comparing your two previous periods of reference. January and February would be the first period. May and June would be the second. Look for some qualities in common. Recall experiences rather than acquisitions or losses. Disregard that which can have a price, and emphasize value.

Once you have made some qualitative connections between the two previous Mercury retrogrades of 2015, sniff the air you are moving in now. See if you can find a corresponding scent. Keep in mind that history does not repeat, but history does tend to rhyme. Disregard the differences for the time being. Feel for correlations. Then, experiment based on what you experienced during the two previous Mercury retrogrades this year and what you feel (not what you can prove) now.

No hurry. You have time. Even so, give yourself a start in qualifying the qualitative now. If you can do just that, by this time next month you should have gleaned a quality of information that only the conscious practice of astrology can provide.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Sarah Taylor

Once again, this week’s reading has a tie-in with last week’s three cards, given the similarity of cards in the two spreads, albeit in a slightly different order.

Last week, from left to right:

1) Court (Prince of Disks)
2) Major Arcana (The Magus)
3) Ace (Wands).

This week, from left to right:

1) Major Arcana (The Moon)
2) Court (Princess of Swords)
3) Ace (Swords).

The Moon, Princess of Swords, Ace of Swords from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

The difference is in the order of the major and court cards, which this week suggests a shift away from the influence of The Moon — as opposed to a shift into the influence of The Magus last week. This is emphasized by the Princess’s (Page in the Rider-Waite Smith deck) body-language, turned as she is towards the Ace of Swords, her right arm closing off a chapter that has been marked by the Moon’s Piscean qualities: watery, and associated with the collective unconscious — a deep-water place where all is connected, which our surface-water, conscious minds can sense but are not able to look at directly.

And what have we all been connected by recently but the Full Moon in Pisces, which happened on Aug. 29, a little over a week ago.

Something that you may not have been able to identify directly — or fully, anyway — moved you into and through a period where you were probably thinking, “What gives?!” Up was indecipherable from down; things may have felt decidedly weird. Shadows loomed, distorted. You were thrust into the potential for introspection — even if you weren’t quite sure just what you were supposed to be inspecting in there.

A word and a phrase from The Moon stand out: “Illusions,” and “End of Karma.”

This metaphorical hall of mirrors, full of its own grotesqueries, served to sever something that had run its course. Dues were paid; time to move on. In that moment of dues paid, you liberated yourself. It might not have felt quite so clean and decisive. It has quite possibly been a process of stilted, back-and-forth fraying of ropes and bending open of chains — frequently frustrating, leaving you wondering whether you were making much progress at all. Leaving you wondering just what the hell you were being freed from, anyway.

But here you are, the Princess of Swords. You’ve come through and there is a new aspect to your experience. You’ve achieved something, even if you can’t quite yet believe it’s happened. Yep. That’s you. You’ve demonstrated your chops and earned your stripes.

Own it, baby.

You’re not going to get mystified by that one again — your eye-woven headdress will make sure of that. You may step towards it, you may step into it. You won’t stay there for long. It will no longer be tolerable, and you’ll be inclined to speak out, strike out, refuse to take that shit anymore.

That take-no-prisoners clarity is the gift that’s offered to you today. It’s all yours. Reach up and grasp it. Can you feel its beautiful, balanced heft in your hands? The sword of insight that is the Ace has been forged in this particular instance just for you. It stands in front of you, and in its presence the clouds part, the road clears, and the horizon beckons. Something new and better-suited to you lies up ahead.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Moon (Pisces), Princess of Swords (the earthy aspect of air), Ace of Wands (the pure, limitless potential of air)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.