Colin Gel

“A thought is harmless until we believe it.  It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering.”  BYRON KATIE

Words are symbols that we use to facilitate communication, to help make ourselves understood, to define, to argue, to tell stories.  How would our lives be without language?  We can, perhaps, ‘think’ in images, but we then need words in order to communicate that thought to others.  A combination of words and images creates a very powerful message.

I’ve been musing on Mercury’s retrograde through Aquarius (21^st January – 11^th February, 2015 from 17Aquarius05 back to 01Aquarius18) and the energy of ‘fixed air’ (which is Aquarius).

Mercury in Aquarius is said to be in its exaltation – a strong and creative place from which to use our powers of thought, our words, our dexterity.  With Saturn as one of its rulers, this placement of Mercury can help us with definition and scientific, left-brain thinking.  Uranus as its other ruler gives us the capacity to take leaps of thought, brings those ‘aha’ moments and the ability to think ‘outside-the-box’.

Perhaps Mercury’s retrograde through this sign gives us an opportunity to rethink our definitions and allow more of the right-brain ‘knowing’ to inform our decisions.  It could be helpful in aiding our detachment from beliefs which no longer serve us – and bring new insights and perspectives on our interactions with others.  Nothing is ‘fixed in stone’!

What about using these qualities as we approach Tuesday’s full moon in Leo (23:10 GMT at 14Leo48 on 3^rd, February, 2015) and as we experience the building tension of the last exact Uranus/Pluto square in mid-March.  What does this lunation highlight for you (look to its house position and any planets around 15 degrees of the fixed signs – Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius)?  And what life shifts are needed to propel you into the next phase of your life?

My Imbolc has been full of synchronicities – unexpected passages in books relating to letting go of the past and awakening to a new future; dreams of old friends reassuring me that it’s time to move forward; a dream of finding rats in everything that I opened and then learning that Rat is associated with Ganesh (remover of obstacles)!

May we find that within us which enables the next step!

Love and blessings,

Helen x

P.S.  Don’t forget the workshops I have on offer if you’d like to explore your own natal blueprint: Feb 14^th is approaching quickly… and the others are 11^th, April, 13^th June, 8^th August, 10^th October and 12^th December, 2015 (I’m attaching a flyer with details of times and prices).  Also hoping to have a beginners’ evening class, so if Saturdays don’t work for you, please get in touch…

Neptune represents the infinite, the transcendent, and Saturn, the finite – our limits and responsibilities.  I’m working my way through a lovely book by Kristoffer Hughes entitled, ‘The Journey into Spirit: A Pagan’s Perspective on Death, Dying & Bereavement’.  This quotation stood out for me today:

“…as soon as we attempt to rationalize or conceptualize infinity, we make it ‘something,’ and this immediately limits it; it ceases to be a permanence by its very defining…”, reminding me also of these words from a hymn: “Our God contracted to a span/Incomprehensibly made man”

Saturn and Neptune in my natal chart make a sextile aspect, and Liz Greene (‘The Outer Planets & Their Cycles: The Astrology of the Collective’) talks about Saturn’s connection to an outer planet (the conjunction being the strongest) as the need to ‘do something with’ the energy of that planet in our lives – to manifest it in some way.  The poem (from c 2000) speaks to this Neptunian longing for me:

The longing in me comes not from a sense of something missing

More from a knowing something ‘is’ – and reaching for it

If I expressed it in this grounded reality, made it manifest

Would the longing cease?

Or merely move on to something other that was just beyond my grasp?

My fear is that the something that I reached for would die, disintegrate

Turn into something ugly

Or judge me for my stepping out-of-time

There is a place, out-of-time, where we can touch each other

And we do

But on this plane we’re called to hold both ends

What is ‘out-of-time’ jars with ordinary reality

Spirit enters matter

And heart longs for embrace in this parched and thirsty world

… and it remains to be seen how well I manage to manifest anything truly Neptunian in my lifetime… 😉

Saturn has recently moved into Sagittarius (23rd Dec 2014), which also sits very nicely with the idea of structuring our exploration and (re)defining our beliefs.  Looking back again to 2000 (I feel so old sometimes 😉 ) when Pluto began his journey through Sagittarius (which also overlaps with my own 9th house) I wrote in my journal about ‘standing on the edge of the abyss’ with regard to my sense of meaning – and now I’ve got Saturn in the same position helping me to ground and structure those beliefs, as well as his timely help in anchoring me (or his ‘for god/goddess’ sakes get real, Helen!’) after what seems like an endless Neptunian phase… Saturn, of course, has been through this part of my chart previously in this lifetime, in the mid-1980s – looking back I can see this time also had an element of defining beliefs.  It always fascinates me looking at the planetary transits in this way – how the planetary patterns interweaving with my own chart trigger the blueprint and bring opportunities for growth and insight (both at the time and, in this latter case, retrospectively).

And lastly some more quotations from my recent reading which speak to the necessity of definition 😉 – the first one is again from Kristoffer Hughes (ibid) and the others from Bill Plotkin (‘Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche’):

“In my tradition, the spirit equates to a fragment of the soul that experiences the universe as an individual entity; it is the experience of individuality, yet it is simultaneously connected to the source, to the soul… The soul is the constant that houses (the spirit)…”  KH

“By soul I mean the vital, mysterious, and wild core of our individual selves, an essence unique to each person, qualities found in layers of the self, much deeper than our personalities.  By spirit I mean the single, great, and eternal mystery that permeates and animates everything in the universe and yet transcends all… Soul embraces and calls us toward what is most unique in us.  Spirit encompasses and draws us toward what is most universal and shared.”  BP

Who would have thought that the same two words could have an almost opposite meaning?  It really does pay to check out our assumptions…

And now a little structuring for the year to come: I’m planning to open up the second Saturday in alternate months (Feb 14^th, Apr 11^th, Jun 13^th, Aug 8^th, Oct 10^th and Dec 12^th, 2015) for study/workshop purposes – my initial thoughts are for an overview/information session from 10.30am-1pm, with more of a workshop/playing with the big chart session from 2-4.30pm (each session could be dipped into separately or they could be taken as a series).  Do let me know if you’re interested – and keep an eye on social media for further information…

Wishing you all a blessed 2015!  Helen x