General Astrology

New Moon in Libra, October 4/5th 2013

Once a year, we have a New Moon in Libra. This is a wonderful opportunity to look at all your relationships and see how you can achieve more balance and harmony. This includes not only your relationships with other people, but also your relationship with yourself, your money, your health, your work, your spirituality.

This New Moon at 11 degrees of Libra is extremely intense because it is activating a Grand Cross in the heavens.

Added to this mix, Mercury is now in Scorpio, and we are seeing the stubbornness of opposing factions in US politics who couldn’t come to an agreement. This resulted in the shutdown of the US government. The US is building up towards a crisis. If the parties cannot come to an agreement before October 17th about the debt ceiling, we will see shock waves reverberate around the world that will undoubtedly affect the global economy.

With oppositions and squares in cardinal signs, we’re going to see actions that stimulate a crisis.

The polarisation in the heavens is playing out in US politics.

Where is this polarisation occurring in your life? What parts of yourself do you need to accept and love and stop fighting with them? What needs to be integrated?

Out of every crisis can be the seeds of an opportunity.

The square from this New Moon to Pluto will probably trigger some intense emotions within you and this is a great time to examine your relationships and see if anything is out of balance. What or whom to you need to let go of in order to start afresh?

With this New Moon, this is a great time to plant intentions in your relationships. Because Libra is ruled by Venus there will be an increased desire for love, harmony and peace in your life at this time.

Good questions to ask yourself are: How can I have more balance in my relationships?
How can I find more beauty in the world around me?
How do I nurture, love, give and receive love?

Some of your relationships may be tested.  Some may drift away, with others you may make stronger bonds. If this New Moon is occurring in your 7th house of relationships, you might have to be blunt, more direct with someone. Libra doesn’t like conflict and much prefers nicey nicey, but you may have to risk the relationship and say what is on your mind.

We are in the build-up to the eclipse season when on October 18th and November 3rd we’ll have a lunar eclipse in Aries and a solar eclipse in Scorpio, so events are accelerating and picking up speed. I’ll go into more detail about the eclipses over the next few months, but with the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse coming up in 2 weeks in Aries, both Libra and Aries will be activated in your chart.

Look at them as a pair. For example, if your 1st and 7th houses are being stimulated, your identity and how you relate to others will be the main theme.

In my chart, my 2nd and 8th houses are being triggered, so I’m looking at my values and my priorities. I am looking at enhancing the one room that I am living in. For the last several months, instead of curtains, I have used some pieces of material that I hang up every night on nails on the window frames. The lighting in the room isn’t really sufficient for long periods of work and study, and I would really like a carpet to take the chill off the floor. These are things that will improve the way I feel in my room and are a priority for me now. They won’t cost much, but they will make a difference in the way I feel, so they are worth doing. They haven’t been a priority before, but with this New Moon in Libra coming up, they are now!

If it’s activating your 3rd and 9th houses, it will relate to communication, local events, anything having to do with the law and court cases.

If it’s activating your 4th and 10th houses, you will have an opportunity to re-evaluate your home life, your stability, the people close to you and balance this with your career and your work.

In your 5th and 11th houses, it could affect your children, your business if you are self employed, dealing with large groups of people or on a team.

For your 6th and 12 houses, it could affect your health, your work, anything on a subconscious plane, your dreams, and any unresolved inner conflicts.

Libra craves beauty and harmony. Do something uplifting. It’s a good time to do anything artistic, creative, go to the movies, the theatre, a concert, make something beautiful, give someone a flower.

Reach out and make eye contact with as many people as you can. Smile from your heart at them and give them a feeling of appreciation and love. It really doesn’t matter whether you get a smile back, what’s most important is that you are reaching out to others and connecting, no matter who they are. In this process, you will feel much better inside of yourself.

Even though it may not always seem like it, we are all connected. Each day, as I go about my business, I try to see that spark of divinity in everyone I meet. No matter who I am interacting with, I am looking for the best in them and am sending them positive energy and love. This has made such a huge difference to my relationships.

And at the end of every day, just before I go to sleep, I evaluate my day and go over every single encounter. I ask myself, what could I have done better? What would I have done differently? By doing this before sleep, I find that I wake up with an increased awareness of my surroundings and the people I meet.

See what would work for you to connect more with people and to feel that spark of love for each and every person. It feels so good! We need more positive energy on our planet to see us through these turbulent times. If we can go viral with this, together we have the power to turn things around.

New Moon in Virgo, September 5th, 2013

New Moon in Virgo September 5th at 13 degrees – time to clean out your closets!

Once a month at each New Moon we get another chance to start afresh, to get rid of the old and to make a new beginning. The house in which the New Moon falls in your chart will show which life area has the focus for this new start, where you should be willing to discard what is not working for you, and where you have the opportunity to start anew.

I find that whenever I discard something that I no longer need or haven’t used in a long time, something better and more appropriate for me soon comes into my life. I let go of owning a house and a car when I left NZ, and now I feel much freer just renting a very small room and owning no car. It’s cheaper, less responsibility and if I really need a car, there are several car-sharing schemes where I can either get one for a few hours or a few days very inexpensively. It’s much less hassle than having to maintain the whole thing.

In fact, I think sharing resources is the way of the future. We don’t need to own everything ourselves. When we come into this world, we don’t own anything, but gradually we acquire things that we think are indispensable to our well-being. What a wonderful surprise it is when these so-called important things are taken away from us, or we choose to get rid of them, and we find that our lives are better as a result. This has certainly happened to me with my move from New Zealand to Austria.

Where does this New Moon in Virgo fall in your chart?
(If you are unsure or you don’t have your chart, get a free one from my website: https://yourastrologysigns.com/free-chart and look for 13 degrees of Virgo.)

This New Moon falls in my 8th house which means I need to take a fresh look at my financial situation, especially anything relating to banks and financial institutions. I had quite a shock this morning when I went to pay a couple of bills with cash at the bank, and their fee for the privilege was 9 Euros! (USD$12.00). I had no idea that my bank charged me such a large sum for paying a bill in cash.

So I went across the road to another bank, and they wanted an even bigger fee!
If this New Moon is falling in your 8th house, you might want to check all your outgoings and see if there are ways of reducing the fees you are paying to financial organisations. This could relate to your insurance, stocks and shares, taxes, banking, mortgage payments, savings you have in a bank.

If it falls in your 1st or 7th house, this will involve you taking a fresh look at your relationships. If it’s in your 1st house, then it’s about your relationship with yourself, and if it’s in the 7th house, then it’s your relationships with other people. If it’s in your 4th house, it could mean having a heart-to-heart with your friends or family and clearing the air, or it could mean decluttering and having a good sort out. Maybe you want to have a garage sale, or give things to charity or recycle them? If it’s in your 6th house, this is a clean sweep for your physical health giving you the opportunity to create new daily habits that support your well-being.

With the New Moon in Virgo, this is an opportunity to analyse each detail of your life. Look at every part and ask yourself – is this in balance? E.g. your health, your family and close relationships, your finances, your work and career, your spiritual growth. Virgo likes the details and this is a good time to bring everything into the open and look at it from a practical angle.

Keep in mind that Virgo is the nitpicker of the zodiac. Are you nitpicking at the same things again and again and going round in circles? Are you trying to be too much of a perfectionist about every single minute detail of your life? Wherever this New Moon is falling in your chart, think about this, and remember that you don’t have to be perfect!

Impromptu Trip to Budapest! Lunar Eclipse in Aries

The last time the Moon was in Aries, I went on an impromptu trip to Budapest. I had no idea how long I was going to stay, I had no idea where I was going to stay, but I hopped on a train in Vienna and took my chances.

It was a huge leap outside my comfort zone as I still prefer to have everything planned out in advance, but I realised that I was getting into yet another rut and I had to push myself out of it. There are always excuses that the mind comes up with for not making a move, for not doing something you’ve never done before, from giving up some kind of security……for me it’s usually my bowels that get stuck because I am worried about eating foreign food, drinking dodgy water, and the general stress of travelling. But it’s all nonsense and just another way of stopping myself from moving forward and having new experiences.  

So, I braced myself, took my tiny overnight bag and stepped onto the train for Budapest, Keleti!  

Three hours later, I arrived in Budapest with hundreds of other people pouring off the train. I had no idea where to go and when I asked a couple of people whether they spoke English, all I got in return were blank looks. Hungary is not like Austria where most people speak at least a little English. In Hungary, most people don’t speak any English!  

The next lady I asked did speak some English and she wanted to know where I wanted to go. I said I’d like to get to the centre of Budapest. But she then said, but where do you want to go? I said I had no idea….Then she asked me, where is your accommodation? And again, with my heart in my mouth, I said I had no idea! She told me that the area around the station was not the best place to get a hotel and asked me how long I would be staying. At that point I said, maybe just one night, and she said to me, “let me phone my husband. We have a spare room and you could stay with us in our big family home with pleasure!”  

Her husband readily agreed to my staying, so I took pot luck, and decided that I needed to go with the flow.  

Then I realised that Hungary wasn’t in the Euro, and I hadn’t got any local currency. So she took me to the exchange place and I got some Hungarian Forints. They did look rather like monopoly money, especially as you get nearly 300 Forints for just 1 Euro.  

As in every foreign country, finding out how to use the public transportation system can be a challenge to say the least. Luckily I had Katarin with me who was my interpreter and helped me to get a batch of bus tickets.  

We then hopped on a bus heaving with people to her house in the suburbs. This was a real adventure. Going with a lady I had never met before, to her home and family in a place I had never been in before, and staying the night!

She asked me what was the most important thing I wanted to do while in Budapest and I told her I really wanted to visit one of the spas that Hungary is so famous for. She said, “no problem at all”. We got to her house and then I dropped my bag and she drove me all the way to the oldest and most beautiful spa in Budapest. I had a glorious few hours there swimming and the soaking in the health giving baths. There were a few locals playing chess with their bodies half immersed in the water and the chess board at the corner on one of the huge stones at the entry steps into the hot pools. It was hilarious watching them getting very animated about their next moves.

Katarin came and picked me up with her husband, Laszlo, and he drove while she was my private tour guide showing me round Budapest at night! They took me to all the sights, Hero square, Parliament building on the Danube, the Citadella panoramic point, the Freedom Statue……it was just amazing!!

There would have be no way in the world I could have planned all these experiences, but in just going with the flow I had the time of my life.

The fact that this is a difficult thing for me to do meant that finding an opportune time with a Full Moon in Aries would give me that extra push to be braver and more courageous. And it did help me.

I just stayed the couple of days and then headed back to Vienna for the Moon in Taurus which is good for getting down to business and working again.  

It’s amazing how you can work with the astrological energies to your advantage. You can break through barriers that initially seem insurmountable. I hope this will inspire you to do the same!

Venus Retrograde in Capricorn – Love, Money and Happiness

Venus rules your money, your relationships and above all, what makes you happy. One of the best things you can do during a Venus retrograde is to think carefully about what makes you happy, what brings love and joy into your life.

It’s a great time to complete any unfinished business you have around finances and relationships. For example, you may come up with a new plan for getting out of debt, you may be in an unhealthy business partnership that needs to be redefined or ended, you might have a great new business idea that needs more planning and structure before you can proceed.

In your relationships, people from the past may come back into your life so that you can resolve any unfinished business that might be preventing you from moving on with your life. Have you learned the lessons associated with this relationship? If you have been having challenges in a relationship, this could be a good time for a reconciliation.

Venus retrograde tends to slow everything connected with money and love giving you enough time to think about things and to see the bigger picture more clearly.

With Venus retrograde in Capricorn, it’s likely to be focused on money and business as Capricorn rules big business, debts, financial institutions, banking and insurance. Capricorn is also ruled by Saturn so you may need to restructure your finances and your relationships or anything that is not working for you in these areas. There could be endings and completions in order to make way for something new and more satisfying to come into your life.

Do you have enough balance in your relationships? Are you giving too much? Are you taking too much?

It is a good time to examine your spending habits, and with Venus retrograde in Capricorn, you may have to tighten your belt and only spend on what you need rather than what you want.

As this retrograde occurs over the holidays and the New Year, I would suggest waiting until after 20th December before buying any luxury or large items because you will probably find that there are huge price reductions and bargains galore to be had once Venus goes retrograde. I anticipate finding lots of great deals in the majority of the retail stores.

If you do buy anything during this time, make sure you keep all the receipts, warranties and guarantees as things can get lost during a retrograde. I once bought a coat during the Venus retrograde for$150.00 and I returned it to the store as it didn’t fit very well. Instead of refunding $150.00 onto my credit card, they refunded just $15.00! It took me months to get the rest of the money out of them.

On the personal front, you may meet someone and you may feel as though you are falling in love with them. Try to go slowly during the retrograde, take your time, because when Venus goes direct on January 31st 2014, this person may not be quite who you thought they were and you could end up being very disappointed. As long as you have gone slowly and you haven’t gotten yourself too emotionally embroiled, then you are not going to feel devastated if things don’t turn out as well as you had hoped.

Venus also rules the currency of a country, its money.

Around the world our economy is changing and crumbling and during this retrograde I wouldn’t be surprised if we see even more bankruptcies on a global scale and also on a personal level where people have just overloaded themselves with financial commitments that they are unable to keep.

If you have been working hard, you have no debts and your relationships are healthy and are founded on integrity and trust, then this Venus retrograde in Capricorn won’t affect you adversely. If however, you have been overspending and your relationships are toxic, then this may be a time of disruption giving you the opportunity to get your finances and relationships into balance once more.

Full Moon in Scorpio May 17th, 2011

It’s a very psychic, powerful time and you may find yourself having dramas play out around you. It could be your own dramas or it could be other peoples. Expect extreme emotions and behaviours and be ready to face your fears and try to welcome any changes. The intensity of this Full Moon in Scorpio which is very passionate and emotional may cause explosions in your relationships, especially those that have got into a rut or are not nourishing any more. Although the emotions may be intense for a few days, try to become aware of them so that you are in a position to respond rather than react. If a situation arises that you hadn’t expected, allow yourself to feel the emotions.  Anything in your life that is no longer serving you has to go. This is a time of regeneration and rebirth.

Scorpio gives you the opportunity to examine a situation in your life that really needs to change. Maybe you have been unwilling to look at a toxic relationship or a job situation that is no longer working for you. Perhaps you need to give in your notice and start your own business that you have been meaning to do for a long time. Maybe you need to let go of a lover or a friend, or you might be prepared to look at the relationship anew and fire it up with passion once again.

Scorpio demands depth and fearlessness and you must be ready to be brutally honest. If your goals require a change of direction, this is the time to successfully tackle any fears you have that could impede your ability to fully embrace change. With this Full Moon it’s time to see things as they truly are, not as you would like them to be. You can turn over a new leaf by releasing any negative energies and inviting positive and uplifting experiences into your life.

This Moon highlights your creativity. It’s a good time for writers, artists, musicians, film-makers, designers, and anyone who has a creative streak.

Good things to do during this Full Moon in Scorpio:

–        meditate and listen to your intuition

–        share your secrets with people or a person who you feel safe with

–        get in touch with your passion and go for it!

–        become aware of your own power

–        think about ways in which you use power and how you might become more independent. For example, you may wish to investigate different ways in which you can generate electricity. What if the power went down in your city or town, how would you survive?

–        make your home more green and find out how you can save energy

–        recycle things rather than throw them out

–        become aware of how you use other people’s resources – are you respectful of them?

–        do what you love, develop your unique talents and you will be much happier and more prosperous

–        take time out to be alone, turn off your phone and computer and find some inner peace

–        if you need focus and concentration for a project, this would be the time for accomplishing good results

–        clean out your limiting beliefs and fears that are holding you back

–        get rid of all the things you no longer need – be ruthless, if you haven’t worn it for two years, you probably won’t wear it again so sell it, give it away or take it to a charity shop

–        connect with your own power and don’t give away your power to others

–        if you have been desiring someone sexually for a while, you may just get some satisfaction during this time

–        take charge of your finances – don’t allow others to manipulate you

–        use the intensity of this Full Moon to recharge your feelings and your passions into more creative endeavours

 

Things to think about:

–        what part of you have you cut yourself off from?

–        are you avoiding an unpleasant confrontation?

–        releasing any fears that have been holding you back

–        where are you being too obsessive in your life?

–        are you creating unnecessary crises in your life just to feel intensity?

–        is someone else pulling you into their dramas?

–        are you being inflexible? Where do you need to let go?

Where does this Full Moon fall in your chart? For me, it’s in my fourth house of home and family. I am going to be moving soon, so I have to assess honestly what I need and what I really need to let go of. Scorpio demands that you only take what is really necessary and let go of your old things that no longer serve you. It’s a lesson in discernment and in letting go, but it can be very liberating as you learn that you don’t need to take everything with you. Once something has served its purpose, you may wish to transform it, release it, sell it, recycle it or give it away. There are many permutations, but Scorpio balances out the acquisitiveness of Taurus. Taurus likes its home comforts and luxuries. Scorpio discards what is no longer useful and makes space for a whole new start.

Does Wikileaks Affect You?

Over the last couple of years we have been seeing greater transparency in all of our structures from our governments to our banks to our corporations. Take a look at WikiLeaks. Amazon Europe’s website went down last weekend for over half an hour. Amazon was one of the first U.S. firms to pull the plug on WikiLeaks since it began publishing thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables, withdrawing hosting services last week after being questioned by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee. They said it was a hardware issue – but was it?…