New Moon, Sept. 29, Jewish New Year

This new moon in Libra, at 2:00am MDT opens the curtain, to let in fresh new light, into the chrysalis we've been dangling in since the August eclipses. New light is emerging into our cocoons of deep inner change. We may not even realize how much we have changed since the beginning of the eclipse field, in July. We have all dissolved into a chrysalis. Today this light of the Libra New Moon asks us to clear the slate in our relationship lives, to compost all attachments and expectations into the freedom that allows for true union. When we are truly free, our coming together is blissfully chosen, rather than arriving out of expectation. This new moon begins a whole new journey, we begin to emerge out of the chrysalis, into our new form. Our wings may feel a little clipped, but the fresh innocent new energy of this new moon can rejuvenate even a tired soul.

photo Credit: makelessnoise, flickr

Happy Equinox!! Sept. 22 Equal night and day!

On September 22nd at 9:45am MDT, we hang in an archetypal balance where life is just right. There is equal night and day. The temperature seems just right, not too hot, not too cold. We have overcome the challenges and insecurity of the eclipse, for the most part, and we can rest for a moment in the gratitude and beauty of life.

Birds are beginning to fly south, kids are back in school, the equinox rolls gently in with the waning last quarter of the lunar cycle. We are unwinding into a deep sweet time for reflection and meditation on how well our projects and creations are doing. With this Fall Equinox, there is a tight mercury/mars conjunction in Libra. With mercury going retrograde in two days, on Wednesday, Sept. 24.
Mercury and Mars can create hot tempers. The libran scales of justice are allies during a fiercely battling political campaign. Use your scales to feel for integrity, use your sword to cut through illusion.

There is a lot of charge right now on communications, especially in relationship. With the sun/moon waning square, in a T-square with Pluto, we are all meeting with some unsettling feelings inside. We are doing some intensive learning with each other. This is a beautiful time to stretch ourselves in our ability to deeply listen to one other and hear beyond the words and differences. There is a beautiful collective yearning in women to both discover and inspire the conscious masculine in the men before us. We must call forth the desire in men, to be their deepest self, with our love of their wisdom and integrity. As this mars meets mercury at 22 Libra on the 22nd of September, the day of equal balance, it prepares to enter the depths of Scorpio. We can be there for the men in our lives for the next month as they enter a deep process of healing. During this next month-long opportunity we can do some deep healing of the masculine presence on the earth and in our personal lives.
Equinoxes are such potent doorways for ceremony and prayer. We can celebrate ourselves as vessels of love, as we work the alchemy of preparing ourselves and our family and community for winter. Even though a waning Pluto Sun square is causing deep insecurities or fears around local and international economies, this energy of equal light and dark is enough to balance away all of our fears with our knowing that we can respond to life, one day at a time. During this equinox season, we can find ourselves having some of the most beautiful moments imaginable.

Remember to take the time to appreciate the stillness and calm of the next week. If you do not have any time for stillness, try to take an extra ten minutes here or there to breathe deeply and honor your body's desire for this deep breathing and deep resting as the moon wanes down to a low energy place by the end of the week.

Azlan is available for personal astrological consultations. Please e-mail awakeningastrology@gmail.com

Photo credits: top:"stonebird," flickr; middle: "billogs," flickr; bottom: "cello8," flickr

Harvest Full Moon Season

On September 15, 2008 at 3:13am Mountain Time, The moon was full in the Virgo/Pisces season of preparation and surrender. Today, September 17, the moon has just opposed Mars, Mercury, and will be opposite Venus this morning. In the same way that leaves turn bright colors, right before they drop from the tree, we too are compelled to ripen and bring to fruition, whatever has been growing in our hearts all summer long. Our harvest can be rich with our words, actions and gifts. It is time to share our gifts with our community and world.
Photo Credit: "Wit," Flickr

August Eclipse Rippling into September

On August 1, 2008, there was a solar eclipse at 9 degrees Leo. And on August 16, there was a full moon lunare eclipse in Aquarius. These eclipses happen while the nodal axis is in Leo/Aquarius. South node is in Leo and North node is in Aquarius. This time will focus our attention on whatever creative gift we must share with the world, before we die? What light, what message, what gesture must we share, because if we die and never say it, share it, do it, we'll not be at peace.

Eclipses are fierce like death, and yet gysers of life, fueling our wheels of change. Often during eclipse periods, we feel as if the rug has been "pulled out" because it has. Eclipses push the extremes, seeking balance by pushing the imbalances even further.

I have respect, reverence and great care during eclipse periods. I believe the eclipse period covers three lunar cycles. The 28 day lunation before, during and after the eclipses--essentially three months, with the eclipses in the middle month--which is August. As the moon unwinds to the bottom of this Harvest Moon, post eclipse, third month lunation, we can surrender and come to peace, with deaths that have occurred, difficult decisions we've made and losses we've experienced. We can breathe into our deep changes that are still raw inside of us, emanating out of the August eclipses. For me, the doorway, out of the "eclipse field" is at the next new moon, on September 29th, when we begin a fresh next lunation after the deathforce of the August eclipses.

Photo Credit: Total Solar Eclipse, "nOII", flickr

Mercury Retrograde Sept.24-Oct.15, 2008

Three times a year, for three weeks, the planet mercury appears, from planet earth, to go backwards in our sky. The truth is, mercury is still whizing around the sun, moving forward, but to us mercury is moving backward. These kinds of mis-understandings are more common during the three weeks that mercury is retrograde. Just like this image, each of us lives in our own "telephone head" where we hear what we think we hear and see what we think we see, but in reality, this is our own personal experience. What is communicated between two "telephone heads" can easily be misunderstood. During this three weeks, remember that each of us is in our own head, when we communicate with others. During this time, there are some important guidelines for a more graceful, and even fun time:

1. Always double check dates and times
2. Always have a back-up plan
3. Communicate with extra care
4. Have patience
5. Be flexable
6. Know that mercurial glitches will happen
7. Be able to let go of a fax machine that is not working
8. Stop, breathe, let it go
9. Review whatever needs reviewing
10. Dig into our past to find treasures
11. Notice the syncronicity of our past emerging
12. If you need to, speak to planet mercury about it.

For activists, parents and mates, people's minds are most open to change during a mercury retrograde period than at any other time. Retrograde periods are times of review and rectification with our past. This one is in Libra, the sign of the balancing fall equinox, the place where male and female, self and other, seek to find balance. This three weeks, we will review relationships. This is a perfect time to clean out the closet, releasing the old, to make way for the new. This is a great time to re-pattern, by replacing old patterns with new ways that support our conscious evolution.

During the three weeks between September 24 and October 15, it is best not to sign contracts or begin new projects. If you do either of these things, it is likely you will repeat steps and need to redo things. This is a great time to pull out old projects that needed redoing or that piece of writing that just needs one more edit; a perfect time for re- words, renovation, reconsideration, recognition, remember, re-do, re-calculate, re-negotiate, re-file, re-store, re-write, re-imagine, re-work, respect.

Between September 24 and October 15, your mind will be worked on, by the evolutionary forces of life. If you find you are having a difficult time with communications devices, even your own mind, take it to nature, breathe, and return to devices and communications issues, refreshed. Renewed perspective makes all the difference.

Photo Credits: top: "Loop_oh" on flickr
middle: "malias" on flickr
Bottom: Scenic Telephone Box - "fakelvis" on flickr

Pluto Direct - Power Check

PLUTO DIRECT - On Monday, September 8th, Pluto went direct at 28 degrees of Sagittarius. This retrograde has been a force in our lives since April 2nd, 2008, when Pluto went retrograde at one degree of Capricorn. Pluto had made the transition from Sagittatius to Capricorn, and then, on April 1st/2nd, said, "April Fools! i'm moving back to Sagittarius, there is a little more work to do at the bottom of the Sagittarian barrel of beliefs."

Pluto has been digging deep into our belief system to find any weak links we may have. Wherever we believe we do not have enough power to meet the challenges we face, we see the weak link in our belief system. Those are the places we need to focus on dismantling and rebuilding in this transition, between now and November 26, 2008, When Pluto makes the archetypal shift, for real, into Capricorn, Earth. We may have found ourselves, in one form or another, over this past five months in a pluto initiation of our power or lack of power, or (whatever our story is about our lack of ability to create the world we truly want). This Pluto retrograde purification of old shadow, old victim and old "giving away our power" dynamics, has shown each of us, where and how we give away our power to something which we then feel oppressed by. That whole dynamic happens inside of us. Our personal version of that pattern is what we are being given an opportunity to release. Whatever it was that came up as a challenge, during the month of August, this is our place of powerlessness and purification, our place of release--Now.

From April 2nd through yesterday, we have been in a season of Pluto Retrograde: dust storms of shadow from the past. These shadowy dust storms made it difficult for us to see where we were going. The storms have stirred up a bunch of shadowy dust that is still clearing away. Now, as Pluto is moving direct, it is time for us to once and for all, CLAIM OUR POWER. We must once and for all CLEAR OUR BELIEF STRUCTURE of any victim consciousness. We must claim the truth that every thought, every word and every action is an expression of our power here, and will create and affect. As Pluto moves into Capricorn for real, our thoughts will manifest more profoundly and more deeply. It is time to build the world we have been imagining for the last fifteen years, even if it is one thought, one word, one piece of writing at a time. As this Pluto shift becomes more manifest, we'll have the opportunity, more than ever before, to brick by brick, build the world we dream.
This is a time of cleaning up our beliefs, to prepare for what could be an increased level of power in our Capricornian physical form hands. PLUTO/PURE POWER moves from the realm of FIRE-Sagittarius (imagination/beliefs), to the realm of EARTH-Capricorn (form). During this last fifteen years or so of Pluto in Sagittarius, we have explored all possibilities of how power can manifest through ourselves, or through others, in our imagination. We've imagined all the best and worst scenarios for our future. We have been preparing, in our minds, our beliefs and our friendships all over the world, for this power to move from the realm of the mind, to the realm of the earth. That shift is about to take place from the reference point of our power. PLUTO, Power, in Sagittarius, the sign associated with higher mind and wisdom, has empowered in all of us, great understandings, through our connections to sources of information on the web, other people and other places in the world. As Pluto moves into Capricorn, we will all be asked by the evolutionary forces of our lives, to put all that we know, into practical application on the earth.

The important concept to get, for this transition is the old over said idea: "Every Thought Creates Form." Focus of attention and intention is Power in the Physical world. If we believe we are at the effect of the physical world, then Pluto in Capricorn could be highly oppressive. Now is the time to reprogram the mind. No matter what may have been true until now, Now we get to write the story. We must know that we can effect change in any moment with a thought that will affect the physical world. We ARE that powerful and we must build that into our belief system.