The Sagittarius New Moon on Saturday at 7:32 am EST (12:32 UT) will NOT also be a solar eclipse. That’s the short of it. Even so, the New Moon this weekend will have a highly unusual correlation with the Scorpio New Moon and solar eclipse of last month, and also with the next two New Moons (of December and January), all of which is a slightly longer story.

Begin the story with what defines a New Moon, and in part what it represents. All New Moons are by definition a conjunction of the luminaries: the Sun and Moon. A conjunction by definition is any two celestial objects occupying the exact same degree of the same sign on the zodiac, and the same degree of celestial longitude in the sky.

As with any conjunction of two celestial bodies, a New Moon represents in part the beginning of a new cycle. In this case a cycle (called a lunation) that lasts about four weeks until the next New Moon.

One of the practical doctrines of astrology is that there is important information in how a cycle begins. It so happens that the Scorpio New Moon and solar eclipse of Oct. 23, the Sagittarius New Moon on Saturday, and the lunations initiating both next month and in January (which will also NOT be eclipses) all begin the same way.

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Coming up on Thursday is a square aspect from Venus in Sagittarius to Neptune in Pisces. It is not a rare event. Even so, in context with the rest of the sky, Venus square Neptune this time around is an opportune time to check your assumptions just as you would check to make sure you have your key before closing a door behind you.

A quick check can save a lot of grief, like getting locked out. Because Venus is moving pretty quickly right now (faster than any other sign rulers, save Mercury and the Moon), a quick check should be all you need.

As with anything to be checked quickly, you need to know where to look. Fortunately, the relationship between Venus and Neptune will help you you know. What Sagittarius and Pisces have in common will also help indicate how square aspects between those two signs are best resolved.

Interestingly, a lot of astrologers subscribe to the notion that Venus and Neptune represent different octaves of the same theme. In other words, the same same note or chord, at a different pitch.

Venus and Neptune as the same note or chord at different octaves is something to keep in mind when you check your assumptions over the next few days. Know where to look by asking where the assumptions come from. Do they come from personal experience? From your generation? Or from your gender orientation, ethnicity, nationality or beliefs?

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By Amanda Moreno

I never thought I’d say this, but I think I need a break from Scorpio.

Our dear friend Saturn, the lord of time and karma, has been moving slowly through my fourth house during his residency in Scorpio, dredging up fears and insecurities that seem to be resulting in some incredible determination, will, self-discipline, total confusion and complete exhaustion.

I’m also experiencing the euphoria that comes with facing my fears, and then finding all kinds of light and spaciousness on the other side.

The topic of this column is meant to be “spirituality,” and I dare say that from the perspective of someone whose spirituality is largely informed by astrology, the topic of conscious transits is absolutely relevant. I find myself in this weird place, however, because as Saturn dredges through my fourth house, issues of my family of origin have come to the forefront.

I’ve largely strayed from the topic because in so many ways it seems like the story of my family of origin has become surreal and nightmarish, turning into something I can’t quite grasp, let alone speak about to a largely anonymous audience. I’m fine sharing my personal travails about other fourth-house themes, but exposing my family feels unethical, especially with some of them reading. In addition, it seems like a dramatic heaviness takes over any time I start to talk about family.

When I think back on my life, I tend to focus on all the incredible, serendipitous and fortunate events. Every once in a while, however, I get a whiff of what feels like my own personal PTSD experience. Sudden death of the father and all kinds of drama and uncertainty surrounding his death, sudden changes in life due to unexpected injuries, a brother who committed suicide, and other traumatic events I’m just not comfortable putting into print.

I feel like I was fortunate to have a spiritual upbringing, even if it was predominantly Christian, because it gave me a sense of the importance of meaning and community. I was raised Catholic — well, at least until my dad died when I was six. After that, my mom tried taking me to a Methodist church. I promptly informed her that they were “doing it wrong,” leading her to decide that I wouldn’t be going back to a Catholic church again. Lucky for her, around the age of 10 I befriended some fundamentalist Christians who filled me in on the reality of the apocalypse and the massacres to come, alongside some really great Sunday morning sing-a-longs.

My mom’s family was always just regular old non-practicing ‘Christian’. In my teenage years, my mom veered off into the New Age movement, and I remember her telling me that the most important thing was to remember to be kind to people, and to explore religion as much as I could to figure out what made sense to me. Bless her for that.

It wasn’t until I was 25, at my brother’s funeral, that the Christianity card got played by my extended family. My brother, who had been living with schizophrenia for five years, had been working with a Buddhist nun, and so my mom and I felt it would be appropriate to have a Buddhist monk at his funeral. We were blessed with the opportunity to have two, one of whom actually led a ritual.

My grandparents pitched a fit, screaming that we were a Christian family with Christian values and blah blah blah… and I’ll never forget sitting next to my grandfather during the service as a Buddhist monk recited prayers, with my grandfather muttering under his breath all kinds of obscenities.

Buddhist explanations of the karmic effects of suicide were complex and realistic and comforting, however, and the rituals affirmed that complexity and helped my soul to feel lighter despite my grandparents’ disapproval. The rituals also helped me to feel like something was being done to help my brother’s soul transition. What I learned during this period of my life propelled me into the current phase, imprinting a basic understanding of the importance of living life to the fullest alongside a worldview that embraces love and connection.

Now, almost 9 years later, I’ve watched as a large portion of my family of origin has been decimated by physical, mental and emotional illness. My urge to separate from my ancestral lineage is huge, and I have to wonder sometimes about whether that’s because I’m avoiding or because that’s what I’m ‘supposed’ to do. I can look at my chart for some help here (Uranus in Scorpio in the fourth house), but paradoxes abound.

I’ve had revelations recently about wanting to keep my energetic field clear. Much of this has to do with a reoccurring bout of coming into contact with ancestors in my field who are not helping me. Not to say they are malicious, but they are definitely not serving my highest good. I’ve encountered them as “spirit attachments,” as cords, as daggers and spears, as muscle pain, as black smoke, and so on. I’ve come into contact with these energies on my own at times, but they’ve also been brought up by healers, and guides in regression work. It always seems to focus around the same area of my body.

These ancestral lingerers made their presence known again today in a session with an incredible, loving soul doing bodywork on me. I felt that one specific area of my body flare up, and waited to see whether he’d go there, and he did. And as he started to recount in his own super-sensitive and compassionate way his sense of these beings hanging out there, I knew I’d had enough. Almost my entire being said, “I’m done with this. I don’t want this anymore.”

But then there it was — a mental awareness of some sense of guilt that I don’t consciously understand. A sense of sticking with the ghosts, or the patterns, or the thought forms, or the family, because of some feeling of duty that I can’t quite comprehend. Maybe it’s the Catholic guilt. My guess is that it goes back much farther than that.

Perhaps it’s just fear of what happens if I truly let go. The question that’s up for review at the moment, in truly Saturnine fashion, seems to be: what am I responsible for? This brings to mind the questions I’ve seen on Planet Waves in the past few days — what do I value at the deepest levels of my being? Hopefully examining these questions can help us all to navigate authentically the intensity of the times.

By Sarah Taylor

This reading is as clear, clear, clear as the body of light that shines from the centre of the layout. You have a choice; and you are being guided towards the direction that serves you, and others, best.

Three of Wands, The Star, Three of Swords from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Before I turned the cards face-up, I was prompted to draw them in a different order from the one I am used to — and found myself laying them down, first centre, then right, then left. I pay close attention to any changes in how this happens, because it plays into the significance of the emphasis of the reading.

At the centre of the reading sits The Star. Or, rather, The Star radiates from the centre of the reading. I find it interesting that the card is related to the card at centre last week — Strength: corresponding to Aquarius and Leo respectively, the cards are complementary opposites. What you bring to yourself in Strength, you then extend to groups and others in The Star.

Flow, grace, inspiration, connection, touching the transpersonal: The Star (card 17 in the major arcana) is what you move into when the necessary destruction of The Tower (card 16) has done its job of clearing away the obstacles on your particular, singular Soul path. This is you, right now.

And what are you, as The Star, turning away from, and what is it that you’re looking towards? The order that the cards were drawn in — first right, then left — only emphasises the direction in which the figure in the central card is focussing her attention.

Two “Three” cards, placed symmetrically in the layout: this indicates the choice that The Star is clearly making (The Star = “clarity”). The Threes in tarot are associated with the state in which you find yourself when you have moved out of the binary and into complexity — where you find yourself when you are no longer looking in a single mirror, or at the other, but dealing with multiple reflections, or circumstances. Where, in short, you are no longer entirely accountable for, or able to direct, what is happening around you.

The Three of Swords represents a lack of mental/thought-based clarity caused by the presence of a “third” coming in — whether a conflicting idea inside you, or a conflicting idea introduced by someone or something outside you. They are really one and the same. What heretofore had seemed straightforward — hey, remember when you hand a handle on things, and you could guide your experience because you were the only one in the room? — now feels a little less so. Or a lot.

In the card, a big wooden door dwarfs you and bars the way. Or does it? Isn’t that simply your mental reaction to a set of circumstances where you have had no choice but to hand over some control to other/s — other/s who might have other ideas? The door is one you have closed — on possibility, on trust and co-operation, on being accountable for your own piece of the deal, and knowing which parts of the deal are not yours to handle. Sorrow.

Sorrow at a sense of feeling the limitations of something — but also the sorrow of feeling the limitations offered up by the human experience. But sorry is only one side of the story, as it is only one side of the door. Because on the other side of the door, if you look carefully, is a starry sky. The same starry sky that is the backdrop to The Star. And remember — she is looking somewhere else; the door is not part of her experience. She sees the other side so fully that she is looking somewhere entirely new.

You, too, have the potential to see the other side so fully that you are looking somewhere new.

The Three of Wands. Virtue.

“Integrity,” “Self-confident,” “No compromizes.” [sic]

What you are fully accountable for is you, your reactions and your actions. What you walk in the Three of Wands is your own path through the complexity — because that is the act of self-definition that shines out of you as a breath-taking beauty. You are a beacon of living, feathered light. And you are accompanied by the very elements of what could have, if you saw only the door, caused you pain — the very things, the very people, the very circumstances. It is you who has shifted this by changing your thoughts into self-defined, right action.

The possibility that you walk towards, by implication, is the Four of Wands — a threshold-crossing into a new state. An invitation extended to join something, or someone/s, through a conscious act of commitment. But that’s only the possibility, and it is not yet visible. For now, hold to your integrity and self-confidence — hold true to yourself and your vision — as you step away from conflict and keep the vision of The Star as your guiding light. Can you feel it? Exquisite!

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Three of Wands (Sun in Aries), The Star (Aquarius), Three of Swords (Saturn in Libra)

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.

‘Evil is relatively rare. Ignorance is epidemic’
-Jon Stewart:

The evidence is in. Turns out, what you don’t know CAN hurt you! I’d suggest that’s been proven, now, as it’s evident that most Americans neither understand how their government is currently working, nor how this republic was originally designed to work. The 2014 vote  — indicating an electorate largely liberal on issues and, counter-productively, conservative on leadership — hit that nail on the head.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

When I read about the leaked report that someone in the White House had said the American public was stupid, I had to smile: my sentiments exactly, at news of the nation’s stunning miscalculation on which political party has their back. The apparent inability of the public to sort out the difference between those who have an intent to govern as best they can and those who have no intention to even try has brought us to a pretty pass. That the attitude and rhetoric of the winning party in these few days shows a pathological disdain for the desire of the public is quickly proving to be the hammer that drives that nail of public pique and apathy into their coffin.

Mitch McConnell continues to sound as reasonable as possible while saying nothing much, giving the impression that he will (finally) moderate all difficulties to move the country ahead, although those of us on the left know he means into the last century and earlier. Meanwhile, his Bagger’s meet behind closed doors to skewer his plutocratic ambitions. The Baggers offer a cultural challenge, for sure, paranoid as a wild hare and breathless in anticipation of Armageddon but on the topic of corporatism, they align with progressives: they’re a’gin it. And they don’t like the Turtle Man cozying up with the administration on the possibility of ramming through the Pan-Pacific free trade treaty via fast track.

This is a Republican party schism that continues to widen, although not all schisms are created equally. The progressives have had their own problems getting their message into the halls of government but they might have done better had ANY Dem message made its way into those halls over the last few years. The progressive wing isn’t a new creation, like the Tea Party. Some might even say it’s the historical old Dem vanguard, at least since FDR picked up his veto pen, only more recently occulted by oligarchy. That it’s used as an equivalency for the radicalism of the Baggers would be funny, if not so broadly — and sadly — believed.

Harry Reid, in his pitch to be Minority Leader of the Senate, seems to understand that. This week he appointed Elizabeth Warren, who has become the face of progressivism, to a custom made position as a strategic policy adviser in the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, putting the Dem agenda on a more populist footing. Concerns that she will be hampered from speaking her mind didn’t shake Elizabeth’s commitment to look after the little guy. “Nobody’s clipping my wings,” she declared, and I believe her. Of the two parties, she’s aligned with the one that sees the corrupting power of big money as a gigantic problem, not a perk. So besides strengthening his own bone fides, Reid has fired a shot across the Republican’s bow.

And, although the Pub’s have already raised war whoops about Obama making no attempt to “meet them half way,” even gathering steam for (continually-threatened and truly obstructionist) impeachment if he uses presidential authority to impact immigration, the Prez has gone whistling past the graveyard with no intention of slowing down. I’m sure much of this weeks news has long been in the works, but it’s all bubbled up concurrent with a kind of loosening of restraint on the left.

First off, with the tick-tick-tick of this term running out, the President nominated Loretta Lynch, a black woman, to replace Eric Holder. The slight veneer of civility between the parties will likely shatter over her confirmation. Not long after that announcement, Obama came out in full support of net neutrality. His FCC appointee, Tom Wheeler, finds himself in a quandary over what the administration recommends and his lobbyist inclinations to give the edge to big money, but he’s tamped down the rhetoric in the last few days. If he decides not to go with the ‘hybrid’ plan that creates a second tier (faster network) for high rollers, he told Silicon Valley, he’ll need political cover from supporters. Those making book on this come down on the side of the administration. If you find petitions to sign and/or activist op’s, like this one, don’t hesitate.

This week, in order to ensure a livable air quality for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum hosted in Beijing, China has had to go to draconian measures: schools closed, driving forbidden, shops and government agencies closed, hospitals running half-time. This is a country that suffers much the same pollution this nation did as it came into its own after the industrial revolution. Many city-dwellers are regularly forced to mask themselves in order to protect from respiratory irritants. And let’s give the Chinese their due: they both recognized their problem earlier and began to do something about it more quickly than did we. For the first time this century, China’s use of coal is down, and check out this chart to see where they — and we — stand in terms of the (encouraging) solar boom.

So it should not come as a surprise that China’s President, Xi Jinping, and America’s President, Barack Obama, have found commonality as regards carbon emissions. Both are pledging large reductions in the next years, which is seen as a major turning point in the global effort to stem the climate crisis and a move Al Gore is calling a game change. It’s obviously not enough, and too far in the future to make the impact environmentalists deem necessary, but it’s a beginning — both to cooperation in conserving the planet and commitment to sound science. The fact that this represents a non-binding agreement is entirely the fault of Republicans, who would have refused such legislation out of hand.

The howl from the right is audible, given their lock on carbon-based industry. Boehner calls this agreement a job killer, which might be true, short-term, but ignores an uptick in the advancement of clean energy technologies. I suspect there was a howl from horse traders, blacksmiths and livery stables over Mr. Ford’s little project a century ago as well, but we made the necessary updates quickly enough. It should be noted that Chinese intransigence to curb their carbon footprint as the worlds largest polluter, in a race to catch up with western culture, has been the number one talking point the Pubs have leaned on in their argument against curbing our own gluttonous oil appetite. They’ll have to find a new excuse now, thanks to those darned tree-huggers and Commies, popping up everywhere!

Next, ordering changes in enforcement of immigration rules by executive order, Obama aims to step into the immigration fight, as he pledged to do, next week. Because Congress would not act, the Prez is set to allow illegal parents of legal residents to obtain work documents with no fear of deportation (3.3 million) and add protection for (a million) undocumented children. Rules for low-priority deportations will be reconfigured, as well as restrictions for those with high-tech skills. Obama will reportedly tighten up policy on convicted criminals, recent border-crossers and national security risks, as well, while increasing resources.

Flagship for all things xenophobic and racist, this immigration fight will likely shut down all pretense of “negotiation” or “bipartisanship,” as if we expected either. The GOP, despite Mitch’s demurring, has already threatened another budget shut-down along with the aforementioned impeachment as punishment for overstepping the Constitution. I doubt that Obama would go into this fight delusional on Constitutional law, but our High Court is no longer a trustworthy arbiter for the document they pledged to serve so only time will tell what happens next.

Not bad for a weeks work, eh? Pretty progressive. And yes, I know — there are all kinds of things the Prez has done that those of us on the left consider betrayal of liberal principal. For instance, ISIS and al Qaeda have shaken hands, partners again, and they’re toying with the idea of printing their own money for their nifty new Caliphate. I suspect you know the bad news — Obama doubled down on “advisers,” but they’re evidently walking on air because their boots are still NOT on the ground, while the Pentagon warns they may soon be. Jon Stewart gave UN Ambassador Samantha Power a hard time over this ISIS business, you’ll want to watch.

Will Pitt wrote a piece outlining much going on right now that those on the left can’t abide — Obama’s devotion to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Dem push for an XL Pipeline vote in order to help über-moderate Mary Landrieu keep her job in Louisiana, and deployment of 1500 more troops in Iraq — called Who Needs Republicans. It’s a “with friends like these, who needs enemies” essay and all of the things outlined are truly discouraging to those of us that have worked against these happenings to no avail. As he finishes his op/ed, he concludes, “So, to recap: in the ten days since the Republicans took full control of Congress, Democrats in the Senate, House and White House have flexed hard in favor of a ruinous “trade” deal, a poisonous oil pipeline, and an ongoing disaster of a war.”

I find myself agreeing with him in many ways but I won’t — can’t, if I’m to live up to the counsel of my higher angels — become cynical about what lies ahead. In those same ten days we’ve also elevated Elizabeth Warren to prominence, made net neutrality a national priority and named a black woman as candidate for Attorney General. We’ve established a working commitment with a fledgling world superpower to reign in our mutual carbon footprint, finally taking global leadership on climate change, and our immigrant population will gain some relief next week from a deportation policy that has devastated thousands of families.

This is not a perfect world and we don’t live in a perfect nation. Truly, we have yet to be self-reflective enough to discover the reason for our enormous imbalance. Look at the recent vote, with the lowest turn-out since the early 1940s. We had to BEG people to come out for it! How disconnected from our own good is that?

A writer I like very much, Richard Powers, has much the same understanding of politics as does Mr. Pitt but processes a bit differently, through a spiritual filter. In advance of the dismal projections on mid-term votes, he wrote to encourage participation, citing the differences between the parties:

For example, there’s the difference between President Bush and President Gore. If Gore were President we would NOT have invaded Iraq. And I say that with utter certainty. Indeed, the slaughter of innocents on 9/11 might well have been thwarted. And I say that with great confidence (even if you ascribe to the view that 9/11 was an “inside job”). That means that we could have been spared all the madness that has flown from those twin abominations.

The difference between another Scalia and another Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the difference between President Bush and President Gore, just as the difference between another Alito and another Sonia Sotomayor is the difference between sanity and a system in which corporations are persons and ‪filthy lucre‬ is speech. Do you get it yet? If Romney had been elected in 2012, we would have gone to war with Iran, and Syria. And if the Zombie Cult had controlled the Senate in 2013, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not have passed. (Our health care system is still an immoral racket, but we are, as a whole, better off now than we were before this bill became law. Tens of millions of previously uninsured citizens have been covered, and health insurance racketeers can no longer deny coverage because of “pre-existing conditions.” ) Oh yeah, and if it weren’t for the Zombie Cult and its Death Eater Overlords, we could have had an Ebola vaccine already. Seriously.

Seriously. The difference, whether we see it or not, is the difference between a culture of life and a culture of death.

There is another challenge this week that needs mentioning, one that’s making the GOP’s grinchy little heart flutter faster. The Supreme Court of the United States — or rather, four of its Justices: Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy — have decided to take a case based on the mandate clause of the Affordable Care Act.

As a follower of all things SCOTUS, I have a couple of people I look up to. One is author of The Nine, Jeffrey Toobin. He often shows up on CNN when they need a SCOTUS expert. Another is Linda Greenhouse, long time SCOTUS observer and reporter, who is both even-handed and academic in her review of their decisions. I read a New York Times article this week by Linda, Law in the Raw, that began:

Nearly a week has gone by since the Supreme Court’s unexpected decision to enlist in the latest effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act, and the shock remains unabated. “This is Bush v. Gore all over again,” one friend said as we struggled to absorb the news last Friday afternoon. “No,” I replied. “It’s worse.”

What I meant was this: In the inconclusive aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, a growing sense of urgency, even crisis, gave rise to a plausible argument that someone had better do something soon to find out who would be the next president. True, a federal statute on the books defined the “someone” as Congress, but the Bush forces got to the Supreme Court first with a case that fell within the court’s jurisdiction. The 5-to-4 decision to stop the Florida recount had the effect of calling the election for the governor of Texas, George W. Bush. I disagreed with the decision and considered the contorted way the majority deployed the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee to be ludicrous. But in the years since, I’ve often felt like the last progressive willing to defend the court for getting involved when it did.

That’s not the case here. There was no urgency. There was no crisis of governance, not even a potential one. There is, rather, a politically manufactured argument over how to interpret several sections of the Affordable Care Act that admittedly fit awkwardly together in defining how the tax credits are supposed to work for people who buy their health insurance on the exchanges set up under the law.

This argument against the ACA rests on a clerical error. It seems almost impossible that some 10+ million people might be denied health care because of something like that, but we only have to look back to 1866, where — in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company — “corporate personhood” was established, not by ruling of the court but by a precedent set within a court reporters transcription. It still holds today.

In the Greenhouse piece, she finishes:

So this case is rich in almost every possible dimension. Its arrival on the Supreme Court’s docket is also profoundly depressing. In decades of court-watching, I have struggled — sometimes it has seemed against all odds — to maintain the belief that the Supreme Court really is a court and not just a collection of politicians in robes. This past week, I’ve found myself struggling against the impulse to say two words: I surrender.

It would surely make a good many business concerns jubilant to return medical insurance to its previous state of usury but it would do very little for the public at large, and even less for the poor. The Republicans think they have a mandate to run the board with planned gains for corporate America, now that they’ve swept the election and there’s no doubt that they will make life tough for many of us that are efforting toward a less repressive and diminished future for mainstream citizens. They’ll do it with gusto.

Unless the Dems can get a handful of candidates through Congress in the next few weeks, appointments will likely cease for this president’s cabinet, as well as dozens of outstanding openings in the judicial. For you readers that love populism, that want to see oversight and the kind of ‘level playing field’ Ms. Warren speaks of, pray for the health of the two liberal SCOTUS elders, who are helping to hold up an assaulted Constitution by sheer strength of will. And while you’re asking the Universe for boon, you might cover the hearts and minds of a confused and stressed American public, learning about politics the hard way.

Standing back as far as I can, my concern is for those in need, those who require kindness and assistance. The Pubs can scream mandate as much as they want but the real mandate comes from deep within the soul of those whose hearts are open, pliable, available. We are here for one another, we are here not to simply tend our own nest but to create a loving circle of comfort and inclusion from one to another; even enfolding those who do not know their own good or where to look for it. Challenged by our very soul, then, the only mandate worth a moment of our precious time — yesterday, today or tomorrow — comes straight from the heart.

Venus enters tropical Sagittarius at 2:03 pm EST (19:03 UT) on Sunday to begin what promises to be a revealing tour of mutable fire that lasts until Dec. 10. Venus traverses Sagittarius once a year, so it’s not a big deal all by itself. This year, however, the transit has auspicious implications.

There will be no attempt at prediction here. Divination is not the highest, best use of astrology. Rather, astrology reveals itself best as a tool for awareness. The most important awareness astrology can provide is a revelation that you are not alone, but rather part of something really grand: our solar system.

Additionally, astrology indicates that your part is important — that you are important. Your presence here makes a difference. What’s more, the sort of difference you make is for you to choose. Astrology, therefore, helps you choose with awareness.

The options and choices probably about to be revealed for you as Venus moves through Sagittarius this year are implicitly propitious on several levels. The first being the difference between how Venus expresses itself through Scorpio (where it is winding up more than three weeks of intense focus that began with a concurrent solar eclipse), versus Sagittarius.

Venus in Scorpio suggests going deep within yourself to feel and appreciate your values, a good thing to do. While Venus is not particularly dignified nor debilitated in Sagittarius, it is inherently more buoyant in comparison to what astrologers call its “detriment” in Scorpio, which is defined by the fact that Scorpio opposes Taurus. Taurus is one of two signs (along with Libra) where Venus is the ruler.

Amanda eloquently hinted at as much in her blog earlier today where she wrote “It really comes down to empathy, or being willing to see things from another’s point of view, to avoid abusing power. Come Sunday, Venus will help with that as it leaves Scorpio and enters Sagittarius.”

Yet, the shift from a deep dive within to a more buoyant empathy informed by taking others into account is part of every more-or-less annual ingress of Venus to Sagittarius. This year, astrology indicates there is a sense of even more to be revealed as a result.

The sense is how a deeper consciousness of your own values can reveal something of your wider value to others. It’s about understanding that you are valuable beyond price, and how behaving as if you are (because you are) can make a huge difference in both the quality of your life and outcomes for the rest of world.

The astrology behind the quality of Venus in mutable fire this year involves a great quantity of aspects, from the very first day. Those aspects continue through the entire transit of Sagittarius, where Jupiter is the ruler.

But this is where awareness comes in. Both Venus and Jupiter inherently offer choices between quantity and quality. In nearly every case, choosing quantity reveals excess. Whereas choosing quality offers discernment.

So, just as with predictions, the complex set of aspects Venus will make on Sunday and for the three-plus weeks to follow will not be enumerated here today. Rather, you are encouraged here to hold a bigger picture in your heart and a greater vision in your mind going into the weekend.

Begin with Amanda’s adroit and cogent perception of how these next few days are about generosity and empathy, and let the options and choices you face next week reveal themselves if you will but follow her advice. Suffice to say you are being given options and choices in the near future to be more important than even those you consider most exalted.

Indeed, if Venus in Sagittarius this particular time around means anything, it’s that the most conventionally powerful people and entities in the world are steadily losing power. Furthermore, through some sort of conservation, that power is not simply evaporating. Instead, it’s being conferred upon you.

Hence, while this has not been an easy year to live through, we need your will to live. We need you to be living consciously. We need you at your best. Up for it? Please begin to reveal your own highest potential by simply saying yes.

Offered In Service

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