Willpower Astrology

Oh hey,

So the new moon in Libra signifies a time for renewing relationships. It occurred Monday night around 19° (it’s Wednesday now and the moon is in my natal Scorpio, maybe why I feel like I am getting caught up enough to catch up).

Libra is the first sign of the zodiac to say “we are” rather than “I am.” Democracy and diplomacy are Libran ideals. Unlike Aries, who has a one-track mind in ramming down their own goals, Libra looks to the ‘other’ to get things done. This is connected to Jung’s idea of shadow, what is “you” and not “me.”

Libra is an air sign, having to do with mental energy and communication. It’s cardinal, or an initiator. Unlike Gemini, which is about expression and interplay between people and Aquarius, which is about relating to groups and mankind at large, Libra is about personal relationships. Any bond you enter one-on-one is Libra energy.

The symbol of Libra is the Scales, the only inanimate representation in the zodiac. It has to do with balance and harmony. They are very aware of the people around them, and can be artfully diplomatic and tactful. It also has to do with aesthetics and beauty, being ruled by the planet Venus. Its opposite sign of Aries can be much more ascetic, not necessarily caring what things look like, as long as they’re functional. Libra is definitely form over function. It’s the sign of the arts and inspiration from Apollo and the muses. Apollo is not the god of the sun, but rather of light itself, and what Libra touches becomes beautiful. When Apollo danced with the muses, he took on a more feminine form, and Libras of both sexes can be quite intriguingly androgynous, though always rather stunning. They have great smiles. As Starsky and Cox point out in their book Sextrology, Libra men are trying to balance the scales within, while Libra women are balancing the scales of the world around them.

Other shoe dropping, Libra can be quite shallow, only caring about what the light touches, staying on the surface. Deep, dark scary investigation falls under the following sign of Scorpio, which wants to get to the bottom, the core of any issue, while Libra would rather keep the peace. They can also be waaay indecisive, teetotaling everything placed on the scales. I’ve noticed there are two kinds of Libra: the peacekeepers and the shitstorms. They have to find balance, even if that means throwing you off of yours.

So what does this new moon mean? It means planting seeds within our relationships that will develop into personal value during the next full moon in Taurus. This lunation is significant especially coming out of the lunar eclipse in Aries (last of the Blood Moon tetrad) and the recent Mercury retrograde in Libra because it’s a fresh start, a reset button within our personal relationships. We’ve had the chance to reevaluate how we communicate and express ourselves within our relationships, and now we are seeing things with fresh eyes. This new moon gives new light, and the next month will be a revelation to many of us who expect things to be a certain way between us and our others.

The new moon happens opposite Uranus in Aries, where we are waking up to who we are as individuals. This Libra energy could be quite different for us, because who we are within ourselves is radically changing. So it’s the pull between “F#<! off, I gotta do me" and "We got this." It can be shocking, with electric Uranus shaking things up. Uranus can make us uncomfortable because the changes he brings are so jarring. But when we realize that those molds breaking are in our favor, it's easier to lean into the changes. Just another dynamic of the Aries (self) and Libra (other) axis that's been playing out over the last two years with the Blood Moon Tetrad. We are electric, and our relationships are renewed. The next chapter is up to you!

Libra kicks off the fall season in the northern hemisphere. The time of reaping the Virgoan harvest, the earth preparing for its Scorpion sleep. My goals within this new moon are finding the balance of personal needs and the needs of others. I'm also invested in surrounding myself with pleasing environs, noticing the leaves change color and all the nuances of the beauty of fall. This is a time for appreciation, taking note of what, and especially WHO, contributes to my world and to my sense of self. 'Working on relationships' seems too broad, so I'll be making phone calls and checking up in a more mindful way than I normally do. And I might just start those gym and nutrition goals from the last new moon in Virgo;)

Please get in touch for a reading to find out where these events play out in your chart.

Cheers!

Will

Why astrology?

It’s much less arbitrary than a lot of other practices. The astronomy involved is science, astrology is its poetry.

You can see cycles and patterns unfolding in your life. Nature’s clockwork.

One of the phrases you hear a lot in astrology is ‘as above, so below.’ This implies that what goes on in the heavens is reflected here on earth, that the unfolding of the relationships of the stars and planets impacts mundane life. Like I say in the video, we know the moon affects the tide, how do we know the stars don’t influence our lives? And on the other hand, what if by associating meaning to the stars, we can gain insight to the patterns and passage of time we experience? As below, so above?

When you look at the systems and layers it makes a complicated, contradictory mess of sense. Just like us.

Cheers,
Will

Hello,

     Mercury slowing down over the last couple of days has really put me out of it. I’ve just been bumming around the house, and I’m not complaining, but I was getting a lot of stuff done before!

     Made a video yesterday about this Mercury rx, and since I was trying to be of the cuff while he was slowing down, I skipped Caps in there and had to go back. This is exactly the kind of stuff that will happen during a retrograde, especially Mercury, because our communication, our expression, our way of thinking and processing changes direction. Usually we live in the waking world, thinking from the inside out. We are here, living our lives in the world we share with everyone else, rational and logical and whatnot. But when those energies change direction, the energy goes outside in. We internalize it a lot more. With it being in the sign of Libra, we are internalizing what our relationships are bringing out in the area of our lives the rx falls. I talk about it (a lot) in this video:

     (Sorry Caps and Sag folk.)

     So while this energy is internal, we might feel very different than we do the rest of the time. This is why they say don’t sign new contracts, don’t travel, don’t leave the house, all that stuff. We are not thinking like we normally do! If you were born during a retrograde and enjoy these times when everyone else is falling apart, even you are now only thinking in a way that happens for a couple of weeks out of the year. Live it up!

     I think in general this will be a very verbose Mercury rx, from September 17-October 9. We will be constantly weighing the scales inside ourselves, and will probably need everyone in our lives to talk us through it. We might have some choice words of our own, and have half a mind to let anyone in our way to have all of them! But I think it will be less directly confrontational, that any particularly egregious shit-talking will be left for after the rx, when we are in the shadow zone (the area where Mercury backed up) from about October 9-23. We’ll be more concerned with our feelings and how the people in our lives are making us feel, and was it my fault and what were they thinking and why why why is everyone all up in my business?

Just knowing how real the struggle is – for everyone – might make this a little more manageable.

Good luck!

Will

Hey everybody,

I’ve made a video talking about ideas that might be tested and challenged as Saturn (Father Time, life lessons, karmic debt, trials and restrictions, boundaries, reality) goes through Sagittarius (higher learning and consciousness, foreign countries, travel, the world outside your comfort zone/neighborhood/area of influence).  The first thing you should know is that I’m obviously an ingenious political pundit, and the second is that I always know what’s going to happen because astrology. Or actually, I’m just looking at the symbols and their meanings and relating them to current events. My purpose here, much like the theme of the video, is not to pick a side but rather to talk about the ideas themselves. Check out the video here:

So I put this up a couple of days ago. I noticed that I fall into the trap of putting things into a negative connotation, which is easy to do because Saturn generally sucks. Wherever Saturn is in the chart, those areas are rife with conflict. So in talking about the ideas and belief systems that will be challenged by this transit, it seems like it could be an epidemic or a medical breakthrough, like I said. Where we learn Saturn’s lessons, we get great rewards. So likewise, if it seems like war (or rumors of war, ha), conversely we could also see a great shift forward in diplomacy. If we are questioning our sovereignty and leadership, maybe we become united under that banner. Everything exists on a spectrum, so how the Lord of Time challenges our higher thinking will be something to see.

Also falling into the trap of dichotomies, I mention ‘dark’ things happening within religious organizations. What I mean here is not ‘evil,’ what I mean here is ‘secret.’ The secrets that have been unearthed during Saturn in Scorpio are now coming out into the light. Again, light does not mean good. Dark does not mean evil. Sagittarius encourages us to find a new way of thinking. Look for a broader view, a higher vista, a path that can include multiple world views.

My assertion remains that we will have new perspectives on old ways of thinking. If we work through Saturn’s challenges, we will transcend the old narrative of us v. them, good v. evil, etc. This will be alarming for a lot of folks, because those kinds of ideas run rampant in our world. People that consciously try to think outside of that paradigm are weirdos, right? At the very least, incredibly pretentious. Well this is the kind of thinking we are now being asked to employ. The answers will not be as simple as they once were. We may find the good guys doing things for the very worst of reasons, and we might see that the bad guys have a compelling argument that we’ve never heard before. We need to be able to have minds that are open enough to be able to move some ideas around. If we hold on too tightly to our old worldviews, this time is likely to be very frustrating for us.

I think control of information will be a big thing. Who has access to what and when. We’re already seeing a consolidation of things like internet providers. Net neutrality was a thing we haven’t heard about in a minute, we might be looking at it during Saturn in Sag.

Now I just wanted to see if I could fit the word dichotomy in one more time. Oh, look, I did.

These next couple years Saturn will be tough-loving us through getting our beliefs and ideas about the world hella challenged.

Are you ready to change your mind?

Cheers,

Will

Astro Post: Venus has now stationed direct, she’s no longer retrograde. Great! What does that mean? It means that she is reborn! We’ve been able to see her in the morning sky already, but now all of that deep, inward soul-searching that we’ve had going on over the last few weeks, especially when it comes to love and values and relating, will start to become expressed in the real world. If you read my last post on Venus, I’ve been personally taking another look at my work and what really makes me happy, what is really getting my creative juices flowing. Well, now we enter what’s called the shadow zone. This is the area from where she’s at now, at 14° Leo thru where she started backing up at 0° Virgo. Anything in this part of your chart (for me, Mars and the Sun) will be visited by Venus AGAIN, for the third time this summer. Any planets you have along this path will once again be blessed with grace and charm and a feeling of beauty, this time with a hint of youthful inpetuousness, since she is the reborn warrior maiden. This allows us to explore this new energy we’ve gone through the underworld to find. We’re going back over what we backed up over! Where the retrograde energy is intense and internalized, now we can manifest it into the waking world. What changes have we made in regards to our values (Venus), in the deepest corners of our hearts (in the sign of Leo)?
Venus and Mars will also be making another conjunction, once again coming together (ha), the feminine and masculine energies within us joining in the waking world. Their unions, again, taking place in the sign of noble feelings, the sign of the heart. If we’ve been out of touch with our creative energies, how can we use this time to better integrate the male and female within us? And yes, guys, we do have have that feminine side to us. And yes, ladies, there is that masculine part of you as well. We’re in the sign of Virgo at the moment, considered the sign of the soul meeting the body, now we can use our HEARTS to blend these new energetic impulses within ourselves.
These energies are still trine Uranus in Aries, so embracing your own individualistic power is key. Even breaking out of set ideas you have for yourself, allowing yourself to break out of WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE is a part of this Venus rebirth. Rebel against any outside influence trying to let you know how or who to be, the energies at this time won’t allow for it. The Awakener Uranus still casts his electricity into our sense of SELF.

Mercury in the sign of Libra is directly opposite Uranus at the moment. So where we are having this awakening within ourselves, our minds and communication are in the sign of other people. We are having to balance the scales every time we speak, weighing everything out to make sure it’s fair and balanced and just. This could cause some friction, if other people are not as permissive of your awakenings as they are of their own. We might be different than we’ve ever been, and other folks might not know how to handle it. Luckily Mars and Venus are both sextile Mercury, which means we’ll have an easier time if we stop trying to be so logical and SPEAK FROM THE HEART. If we try to get too in our heads or try to aggressively assert this new individuality we feel, we might muddy up the message, but when we come from the heart center right now, others are likely to feel it in their hearts.
The opposition of Mercury and Uranus also creates another T-Square with Pluto, the sign of collective consciousness, mass movements, power struggles and deep transformation. These aspects are calling to attention the need for change! We may have been feeling unduly suppressed by people in our lives, and the energy now is asking us to look at that, to balance our new selves with how we communicate with the world and to TRANSFORM accordingly.

The nice thing about Pluto here, because he can be quite daunting, is he’s offering relief to the long standing T-Square of Jupiter/Virgo (physical reality, expanding the details) opposite Neptune/Pisces (dissolving the boundaries in the spiritual realm), both square Saturn/Scorpio (karmic tests of deep bonding, grounding of shared values, restriction in the underworld).
He’s trine the Sun and Jupiter, giving an easy exchange to the work that we need to do in the physical world. At the moment we feel like we can transform the world around us to our will, especially when it comes to work and how we are carrying ourselves in the public sphere. Take advantage of this, it seems easy until we move on into Libra.
He’s also sextile Neptune, which means we’ve already been reaping the benefits of our spiritual transformation. The deep soul-searching of Saturn in Scorpio has already put in motion the changes we need to make the most of this.

The next couple of days, the moon will be moving through her domicile in the sign of Cancer. While she was in Taurus, I said what makes you feel grounded, what do you value? While she was in Gemini, I said how are we relating, how are we expressing our feelings?
As she moves through her home base, I encourage us all to trust our gut reactions. Trust the feelings that come bubbling up from under the surface, even if they don’t make practical Virgo sense. She’s going to be making trines with the other water signs, which means we’ll have deeper access to our intuition (Moon in Cancer), spirituality (Neptune in Pisces) and healing (Chiron), as well as a gut-level knowing of how to handle the last stages, the master degree of Saturn 29° Scorpio. Any feelings, any intutions you have over the next couple of days will not lead you astray.
Even if other folk tell you otherwise.

Cheers!
Will

Astro Post: Today the quarter moon is urging us to wrap up what started at the new moon on August 14 in Leo! We got about another week before the new moon in Virgo, so start thinking about new intentions to manifest.

Today we have a nice minor grand trine between Venus and Mars in Leo trine Uranus in Aries,both sextile the moon in Gemini. Let your feelings guide you, because the stirrings in your heart are in alignment with the new discoveries you’re making about yourself. Use your words to bridge the gap, and let everyone know about the new you.

T-square in effect still, but some major shifts coming up. Venus is almost done backing up, Saturn is almost out of Scorpio, and we’ve got some eclipses coming up. But that’s not today. Enjoy the people around you, enjoy the day!

Cheers,
Will