Jupiter into Libra | beauty, partnership, balance and fairness - part I

tree of libra by fishbot1337

We've had Jupiter, the planet of expansion and 'good luck', in the persnickety sign of Virgo for the last 13 months. We have expanded through the details - gotten bigger by going smaller.

Jupiter is big - larger than all the other planets combined. She rules the sign of Sagittarius (and was the ruler of Pisces before the discovery of Neptune). She is Saturday after a hard week at work. She is the Sun after a week of rain. She is faith and this isn't so much a religious faith (although it can be) - this is a faith that 'things are going to be alright' - that life is worth living, that things will get better. I used to see Jupiter as growth but now I see her more clearly as unfolding. You can decide what you think or if there is even a difference (since we and everything is all connected).

Jupiter is never happy in Virgo. She has had to cram herself into too small a space - the way a woman (or man - this behavior feels more typically feminine) shrinks herself into a job or a conversation or a marriage.

Jupiter wants/needs to go big and Virgo is happiest attending to the small details of things. With Virgo's propensity to notice the tiniest of flaws - remember the word Virgo comes from Virgin which means whole and the Virgo space is in our charts is where we are whole already and often do our best work alone - and Virgo's propensity to want just what it wants, it's been difficult for Jupiter to work her magic.

We still have our North Node (collective way forward) in Virgo until May 2017. So we are still moving forward by taking care of what is right in front of us; the little details of things, our health, service to others, etc.

Our expansion (Jupiter unfoldment - growth?- and good luck) is going to come through Libra now.

Libra is an air sign, ruled by Venus, and all about beauty and fairness and balance and harmony. Libra rules the 7th house of partnership. We can see how Jupiter's expansive qualities can move more easily in a space like this!

Jupiter will travel through Libra rather quickly. She gets to 23 degrees of Libra by February 7th when she retrogrades until June 10th at 13 degrees. She backtracks over old ground for a while (10-23 degrees - do you have planets at 10-23 degrees of Libra - they will get a triple dose of expansion and good luck!) and then begins to cover new ground on September 7th, 2017, finishing up the sign of Libra on October 10th, 2017.

All Libras and Libra risings will benefit from this transit and everyone with planets in Libra. Even those with a barren Libra house will benefit! This can be a breath of fresh air for cardinal signs - Libra, Aries, Cancer and Capricorn who have been dealing with Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn as well as all of us with planets in cardinal signs. This will also, to a lesser extent, benefit air signs. And of course, if you were born with Jupiter in Libra you will have your, once every 12 years, Jupiter return and kick off a whole new Jupiter book (not just a new chapter!). For everyone, think back to 2004-2005, and you can move backward through your  life in 12 year increments - what was happening then? what expanded/unfolded?

Jupiter in Libra is wonderful energy. We get more beauty, harmony, balance and fairness in our Libra houses and our lives. The house itself unfolds. The world has access to this energy and we can have more civility and 'come together'. Partnerships can unfold in new and beautiful ways (and yes, I mean romantic partnerships, but also that flock we've been talking about). We'll expand through our interactions with other people and they will expand through us. Opportunities for lessons around the appreciation of true beauty (nature?) and partnership and balance and fairness will come to us.

The shadow to all of this is that the lucky Libra is lazy. And those scales of balance can get wobbly fairly easily. Libra energy (mental/air) can hold onto some crazy ideal fantasy in such a way that it encounters harsh lessons of reality to loosen its grip. There is a youthfulness and sometimes almost a recklessness to Libra that can shift it out of balance. Libra can also focus too much on their partners and partnerships (although this is also the area in which they are intended to shine).

Libra's opposite sign of Aries has been housing Uranus (rebellion, things happening out of the blue, radical change) for the past few years and while Jupiter is in Libra she will oppose Uranus a few times - these times will be tricky. We'll talk about them as we move through them.

If we are responsible and pull our own weight, if we collaborate and compromise, if we don't get too extravagant, this will be a good transit. There is kind of a feast or famine energy to Jupiter in Libra and it could bring some extreme experiences with comfort, and we'll deal with that, too.

Libra is about beauty - real beauty - not the photo-shopped images forced upon our optic nerves and carried to our weary brains everyday.

Do you know which house holds Libra in your natal chart? Do you know what part of your life that house represents? This space will unfold as well as the universal themes Libra rules - beauty, partnership, harmony, balance and fairness.

How do we feel now about this area of our life and about these themes? What would make us feel better? Can we trust an unfolding here? Can we grow into more of ourselves, even if it is noisy and complex and not so pretty? Or will we shut all this shit down so we fit in / stay comfortable / keep the peace?

I'll be back tomorrow with part II and what this means for each sign/Libra house - time to make the lockets! xo all

Astrology Forecast for Creatives | Week of September 5th - in between eclipses

seed by laura makabresku

This is another big week!

We are in the middle of Eclipse season and Mercury is retrograde. We've got our Sun trining (brakes off) Pluto (in Capricorn), Jupiter making his move (after about 13 months in Virgo) into Libra (YAY) and the FINAL exact Saturn/Neptune square that we have been dealing with since the end of November 2015.

Let's break this down - 1. we had a Solar eclipse (New Moon) last week in Virgo and we have a Lunar eclipse (Full Moon) in Pisces next week. A little background - from our perspective here on Earth, the Earth is going around the Sun once a year and the Moon is going around the Earth once a month. If you can imagine the earth revolving around the Sun at the same time the Moon is revolving around the Earth - there will be a point during their travels that they will intersect in a line (and this line/plane is what astrologers are talking about when we talk about the Moon's Nodes - North and South Node). Now usually when they meet up, the Moon will be either higher or lower than the Earth and the Sun and we get a regular New Moon or a regular Full Moon. But sometimes, usually twice a year the New Moon and Full Moon are close enough to the North Node or the South Node (the plane where everything is intersecting) and either the Sun (Solar Eclipse/New Moon) is blocked, partially or fully, or the Moon is (Lunar eclipse, Full Moon). I hope this makes sense - not that's it's something you need to know, but it might help to picture this in your head.

So because last week's New Moon was in the plane/line of the North Node and because the effects of a Solar Eclipse can be felt for the next 6 months - this will bring changes, as a collective and individually, with Virgo things. Most people will have some changes in their lives from this energy - maybe move into a new line of work, take better care of their health, master the tiny details of their lives, get a new pet or have a change of relationship with an existing pet, get on a better day to day schedule, start something new that serves other people, etc and the area of life that houses Virgo is your natal (and progressed chart) will experience changes and fresh starts, too. Often with eclipses fresh starts begin with something else being eclipsed out. They can change our course and get us back on 'chart'. If we don't have major things happen with this energy this is probably not an area of life we need to make a major change right now to stay on course with our life purpose (remember eclipses are all about the Nodes of fate), but we will always be impacted by other people who are affected - we are all in this together! I sometimes have eclipse situations hit me one month to the day after the eclipse.

Next week's Lunar Eclipse will be about releasing Piscean themes, so this week, sitting in between two major energetic shifts can leave many people feeling off-balance and over-loaded. Others will be chomping at the bit for something else.

2. Mercury is moving backward through, you guessed it, Virgo. Mercury retrograde is about looking backward - what can we release? what are we re-thinking? what did we miss? what needs to re-done? who or what is back?  This is about those same Virgo themes and the area of life ruled by our Virgo natal (and progressed house) - so something has to be re-done or re-looked at here before we can move forward.

This is the time to be re-leasing, re-doing, re-thinking.

We spend about a third of the year with Mercury retrograde or in shadow, so it is natural to spend a third of our life "re-making" - isn't that interesting for all of us always trying to plow ahead and getting nowhere?! If we really did the re-thinking and most especially the 're-leasing' (think - new lease on life) our life would be much smoother. I've lived through how many Mercury retrogrades and am still like those awful gun bumper stickers and need things pried from my cold, dead fingers. Ack!

3. The Sun (in Virgo, and yes, I'm tired of typing Virgo week after week - ha!) trines Pluto (retrograde in Capricorn). This is exact on Wednesday. This is a good day for dealing with authority figures, your elders and people in power. This transit can give us more power over our own life. This is good energy for stepping into a new position now with more power or responsibility. If we are trying to avoid something with a person in power, the trine could release whatever brakes we have keeping the situation from evolving/resolving. Something karmic (Pluto) may come to light (Sun).

Pluto (slow and deepest transformation) has been moving through Capricorn since 2008. Sun Capricorns and risings very identities are being evolved. The Pluto generation born 1971-1984 with Pluto in Libra have had Pluto squaring their natal Pluto. It is pretty exact right now for people born in 1978. This is the generation (1971-1984) charged with transforming relationship (and our relationship to what is beautiful and the karmic lesson of it being ok to be flawed). This is about the karmic misuse of power within relationships. It started with their birth families, then through all their personal relationships and particularly their partnerships they are learning the ways they use power instead of love. They probably need to be overpowered and to overpower to transform this.

Venus is going to square Pluto next week and then Jupiter will square Pluto in November - people dealing with these issues will feel the pressure in their relationships. This will also affect all of us through Capricorn (business, banking, power structures) as foundations get rocked and lots of hidden stuff gets unleashed (the Pluto in us is not afraid of the dark) we'll talk about this next week.

4. On Friday, September 9th Jupiter moves into Libra. This one is big and it will be about connection and cooperation and balance! I'll do a post this week and we'll look at this transit through the houses.

5. On Saturday, September 10th, we have the FINAL exact square between Saturn in Sagittarius and Neptune in Pisces. What have we learned since last November about our dreams vs reality? about what we really believe? about how we relate to what is foreign? what fantasy are we separating from reality? The last two exact squares saw the Paris shooting and the Orlando shooting (also Britain leaving the EU and the alligator attack - this stuff and whatever else was happening then, will probably all be back in the news, too) - hopefully we don't have any more violence with this transit or natural disasters. We'll see during this time period how this energy has evolved - limits overcome, dreams coming true or dissolved, feet more firmly planted in some area of life. Eyes wide open now. Rose colored glasses in the trash can. Last July we had a focus on what was real vs pie in the sky, now we can see more clearly where this way of thinking/being/doing has brought us. Maybe something is solidifying?

There are no void Moons during working hours this week. I'll post some dailies as we move through the week.

Monday - Wednesday's Scorpio Moon is a good time to focus on Scorpio themes - money, taxes, loans, power, life, death, reproduction, surgery, sex, maybe something 3rd party, good time to be cutting though the crap and seeing what can be eliminated. We might meet someone important on Monday or have a pattern made visible to us. If something partnership related ends on Thursday before Jupiter moves into Libra on Friday - know it's for the best, we'll just move on. If someone waffles on doing something now then I would assume it's not going to happen later. Don't worry. Jupiter in Libra (ruled by Venus) will offer us plenty of opportunities for connection, collaboration and yes, LOVE, in the year ahead!

xo all

Sun conjunct North Node | a light on the path

the birthday boy

The Sun (in Virgo at 12 degrees) conjuncts (meets up with) the North Node (our collective way forward) today.

A light will be thrown on our path forward. Something/someone confirms we are on the right track or a course correction is visible. This will probably not be a big spotlight. Through the lens of Virgo even monster sized stage lighting can be reduced to the size of a penlight - what is our next small step .....

Synchronicities are common. So are repeating numbers and patterns. We could be more confident. There can also be a reminder to just be who we are - when it comes to our soul purpose, in many ways we are our own way forward since we were born with all the energetic patterns we will ever need to manifest! It could be a good day to get clear (re: clearing a space, making time or a plan) on practical ways (Virgo) we can move toward or forward on our best, most heartfelt, path.

xo all (the birthday boy, Sully, turns 3 today - the energies at play when your natal Sun meets the degree of the transitting Sun called your solar return, play a big role in your year ahead - and today's energy is very fortunate to build his confidence this year and guide him toward his destiny - lucky fellow!)

situations already in play ....

photo by Katarzyna Kos

A couple of the transits I wrote about in yesterday's eclipse post tighten up today.

The Sun (in Virgo) opposing Neptune (in Pisces) - this shines a light/focus on something ruled by Neptune/Pisces - illusion, deception, compassion, imagination, something hidden or put away, hospitals, prisons. If it sounds too good to be true though, it probably is. Resist the temptation to escape whatever the Sun illuminates with drugs, alcohol or Netflix. This is good energy to edit (Virgo) imaginative (Neptune) work. If a decision needs to be made today, keep a clear head. It is also easy to get a little too self-absorbed with this influence and create resentment in others - stay tuned in, but not boundary-less .....

Mercury is conjunct Jupiter (28 degrees Virgo) - this can bring good (Jupiter) news (Mercury). It can also make communications, conversations, news and ideas over the top and overblown or just BIG in some way. Jupiter is larger than all the other planets combined, but it has no surface - it's all gases. Maybe we could say he's full of hot air (ha!) - couple this with that Neptune opposition and it will be important to keep our heads with any news we hear. This would be a good day for some positive conversations and to have a BIG idea - write things down! This could be a good day for a talk that leads to BIG things, just be sure both parties are clear with what is being said/offered and know there could be some hot air thrown about .....

The Sun and Moon are still in Virgo for a few more hours. If you haven't done your New Moon intentions you still have time to take advantage of Jupiter. With Mercury retrograde and ruling yesterday's eclipse and ruling this New Moon - setting intentions that work with energies and situations already in play, or with a connection to the past, can be very powerful and effective.

Not that we can't make something from nothing here

(seeds planted in the dark earth, especially during an earthy New Moon like this one, can certainly take root),

but I have found I sometimes get the best results working with what I already have going on.

For example say we are going to make something for dinner. We can make whatever we want, but we are limited by what we have in the house. Or we want to buy a new camera. We can buy whatever we want within the limits of our budget.

Even with the excellent manifesting energy we have available right now - we are working with situations already in play. Our previous beliefs, thoughts and actions have supplied us with the food in our kitchen or dollars in our budget. I'm sure if we could see all the stuff we have in play at any given moment all lain out before us we would be exhausted and need a nap!

So, if one of your intentions is to be more organized (Virgo) - get specific about something you have in play that needs more organization. Set the intention for it to be accurate and organized and for this to lead to X (a satisfied feeling of completion, an increased bank balance, etc).

Our new chapter is starting to take shape in September, and yes it is new, and yes, it also builds on all the preceding chapters.

Some of us may be starting a whole new book, but most of us will have characters and storylines that carry over and impact this next section.

And something else to think about - Jupiter is preparing to leave Virgo. How have we expanded by shrinking over the last year? How have we grown by staying small ... or humble ... or focused on the tiniest detail .... or focused on someone else  ... or focused on our health. 

There is a rainbow at the end of September for EVERYONE, stay flexible and focused. xo all