by Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of June features Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Neptune. Mercury resides in the sign of Cancer for the entire month of June – and also throughout July – because of its upcoming retrograde on June 26^th, a week after the Summer Solstice of June 20^th when the Sun itself enters Cancer. Thus, in the last week of June and for the first two thirds of July, and potentially into August, we will likely suffer the usual Mercury retrograde symptoms of mechanical breakdowns and mismatched communications, while our interior dialogue looms large and feels more profound.

This is the second such period in 2013. You might reflect back on whatever happened for you in late February. All three Mercury Retrograde periods this year, including the one coming up next October, are in fact in Water. Since Mercury symbolizes a mental energy, and the astrological element of Water represents the emotions, these times are edgy, as Mercury is not entirely at home there. You could look at this in two ways. On the one hand, everyone’s thoughts are confused and “at sea” so to speak; and on the other our emotional detectors are on alert and are more directly stimulated, improving the connections within ourselves between mind and heart.

Venus, too, is emphasized in June’s configurations. At the time of the June 8^th New Moon and slightly before, Venus aligns into a very close Grand Trine with Saturn and Neptune. All through the first week of the month, in fact, either Mercury or Venus participates in combination with these outer planet energies, which are in and of themselves antithetical to one another. Saturn and Neptune’s close trine, lasting through to mid-August, does allow them to have a constructive dialogue with each other, and with these two inner planets that represent factors of mentality, communication, and relationship connection.

Each of us is therefore pulled in two very different directions all through the month, and especially in the early going. Saturn has the symbolism of restriction and limitation, serious purpose. Relationships partake of that energy, meaning that you could encounter obstacles, forcing you to evaluate the degree of serious purpose that you bring to each partnership encounter. Can you go the distance, make things work out in spite of everything?

Meanwhile, with Neptune in the mix, fantasy and idealization have their full sway, a feeling that no obstacles, or boundaries, even exist. We can dream, and perhaps deceptively imagine, all kinds of ideal circumstances that fly in the face of reality, or perhaps – by taking the other side into account of what we can visualize and plan for – we can come to ground our vision more concretely. I like Richard Wilbur’s poem, called Mind, which has the opening lines

Mind in its purest play is like some bat
That beats about in caverns all alone,
Contriving by a kind of senseless wit
Not to conclude against a wall of stone.

We might think of this as the corrective influence of Saturn upon mental function. There are limits to thought, such as the paradigms of science, that constrain it: not everything is possible.  On the other hand, just as the paradigm of Newtonian physics had to yield to the more complex vision of Einstein, and just as the current materialistic world view must eventually yield to a more spiritually inclusive one, there are those moments which could be characterized as Neptunian – escaping the boundaries of time and space.

His poem concludes

And has this simile a like perfection?

The mind is like a bat. Precisely. Save
 That in the very happiest intellection
A graceful error may correct the cave.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). You are tumbling into excitement these days, Aries, so that you don’t always know which end is truly up. Your inner world is calling out to you from a subtle otherworldly dimension, and you ignore it to your peril, even as you also continue to pay important attention to the normal run of day-to-day commerce and connection. Communication is a big part of what you do right now, and of how you make sense of what you do. You are enjoying the recent steep learning curve, even as you sometimes feel confused by it. You do better when you can throw away any and all preconceptions and simply accept the various happenings, however strange, as the universe speaking to you in all its multiplicity of colorations.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is an interesting month of contrasts for you, Taurus. You are learning as you go, and the lessons are all-consuming and profound. Partners seem like mentors and also magicians. You feel as though you are plugged into a kind of cosmic network that downloads a high-volume set of glimpses of the very architecture of the universe to your almost unbelieving eye and then vanishes when you blink, leaving only a puff of smoke. Your idealism and faith in your potential only fails when you happen to look down. This is a heady ride that leaves you with more questions than answers; you are however grounded in a sense of relationship to the surrounding cosmos, and, through faith, riding the wave of your future expectations toward a completely unknown destination.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is an important month of discovery for you, Gemini, beyond your usual curiosity-seeking mental apparatus, a time when both your head and your heart are fully engaged in wrestling with false gods and looking inside yourself for the answers that conventional thinking has denied you. With this month’s New Moon in your sign, you are making a fresh start. Your financial and other resources are very present for you now, and are equally in transformation. A fresh breeze is blowing through, allowing grace to enter. You are stepping into a uniquely different future plan with new possibilities opening up, so that you do not necessarily have to be continually re-running the same old script. It’s all up to you, which can be both scary and exhilarating.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is an intense period of time for you, Cancer, and one in which you must be prepared for a series of significant ongoing inner realizations that will take you far beyond where you thought you were. You have a sense of vital internal responsibility that seems to steer you to what is totally right, or considered in some way wrong, but such judgments could also prove illusory. You are full of the surface qualities of life, so that it is difficult to discern which, inner or outer, is the most attractive. Each is a telling path for you right now, in your journey toward wholeness. Your mystical self-expression and your feelings in general, as always, play an all-important role as you come more fully into yourself; as you are and as you will become.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) The world is opening up to you, Leo, at times rather suddenly. This is by means of inner rather than of outer exploration, and results in some measure of misstep or perhaps confusion aboveground. Like the observer in a glass-bottomed boat, you can marvel but you cannot enter into the interior realms you silently witness, and yet the glimpse that is afforded you influences all your future activities. As you continue radically transforming in your conception of your path forward, you are steadily becoming more consistent with soul purpose. Further, your process of discovery jumps ahead in its acceleration over the course of this month and an active summer. Although many weeks and even months have gone into this exploration, and many more might be required before it is anything like complete, you are on your way.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) You shine in accomplishment right now, Virgo, as career and professional objectives prove expansive, although with a strange twist to the inside. The complete picture for you right now must involve the dark and somewhat confusing spaces hidden deep within your psyche. At the same time, the link in your mind’s eye between values, concept and execution has never been stronger. As much as you are summoned to outer world activities, you are equally brought back for a meditative take on what is perhaps the real story. Opportunities are huge, and speak to you powerfully, and yet your future direction seems incomplete unless you take into account this dark and unknown part of yourself that is crying out for attention in such a way that you are actually beginning to hear its call.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This is an interesting month, Libra, filled with contemplation, daydreaming, and with concrete action in your very best interest. You are taking your enlightenment straight up these days, no longer on the rocks, and you win when you make the most out of this new-found sense of grace unfolding. You are dwelling in the arms of the universe, resting within a sacred circle of perfection, with the only rule that you need to obey being that you recognize radical life change as the only constant. Unexpected enlightenment from many sources school you to no longer ignore this potential for transformation. Your changes are far from the superficial layers of your personality and instead run quite deep. Your continued success in the outer planes depends upon your adherence to an internal mandate that your first priority is to grow in your understanding.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a time of enormous transformation, Scorpio, for everyone around you and for you in particular. Even for someone who makes a habit out of constantly changing and evolving through many worlds, this month could represent something of a special stretch. You have been frustrated lately, perhaps, with the presence of Saturn in your sign, slowing down the rhythm to a snail’s pace. The energy has been building for quite some time and now evolutionary forces are conspiring to allow you an outlet in terms of creative visualization and by means of a hole punched through into a completely different dimension. It is your imagination that provides the key. And it is the honesty of the cosmos, rather than the mere reality mode of consensus thinking, that, in providing your own specific kind of truth, will indeed set you free.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) You are opening up to the universe within yourself, Sagittarius. This is a summer season of in-depth spiritual bonding with others and, through inner work, for establishing a better connection also with yourself. New relationship energy is coming in, and as always when the cosmos washes over you, some parts of yourself must be let go as other parts are strengthened. Such profound change has been prepared for by a process of depth exploration of your relative unconscious places that has taken place over the past few weeks and months. This process will eventually lead you to a more integrated approach; a marriage of right action and intelligent goal formation that will lead you, not into the promised land, but rather into the places that your soul journey has prompted you toward.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) The time could be right for an enormous shift, Capricorn. You have likely known for many weeks now that big changes were in store for you. The pressure of these transformational alterations has been building. Intuitive information from deep inside, plus recent partnership perspectives, and the unexpected enlightenment provided by members of your family, household or tribe, together are facilitating a radical departure from your the outmoded norms of the past. You could find yourself mulling over where exactly your personal evolution might be taking you these days, perhaps toward a destination more in line with deep soul purpose as you are coming to know it. As you re-think the details of your relationship connection and focus to an even greater measure on inner understanding, you are getting closer and closer to making your move.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) You are full to the brim with accomplishment in the eyes of the world, Aquarius, although lately it all seems a bit hollow. The responsibility that results is definitely a two-edged sword that has the illusion of great success, while also some unexpected drawbacks, limiting you from being all that you can be. You are reinventing yourself in some important fashion, and, as you do, finding that it might be inner rather than outer priorities that hold the most sway. A process of spontaneous internal combustion has given you a very different idea of your future than you had previously entertained, and it involves getting to know yourself better at the deeper levels of your psyche. You might just need to abandon ship on everything that stands in the way of achieving these softer and more mysterious aims.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) You are slowing down in order to gather to your fullest momentum, Pisces. This is a powerful month for you, consisting of both contemplation and purposeful action. With all the multiplicity of possibility that you feel, you might have to make a pause to more closely examine what you actually want, as you enter your next stage. Perhaps this space of quiet time will allow you to get the greatest benefit from consulting what deep intuition is trying to tell you. Home in all its symbolic meaning is an important focus as you begin to narrow down and close in on what you truly desire. You may find that, indeed, your connections with your own roots and with inner promptings grow stronger, with the unexpected result that you find yourself planning for a future more consistent with soul purpose.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY

May 2013

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of May features Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and two eclipses. Mercury runs through Taurus during the first part of May, being conjunct to the May 9^th Solar Eclipse taking place in the 20^th degree of that sign, which also conjuncts the South Node of the Moon and makes a quintile aspect to idealistic Neptune. Mercury then enters Gemini, the sign of its rulership, on the 15^th, just in time to host the Sun for the powerful Gemini-Sagittarius Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse of May 24^th, the third eclipse in just this one thirty-day period, encouraging us to think as well as feel our way through.  Eclipses are more intense lunations – as recent headlines also indicate – making these transformative times that we are currently managing to live through even more poignant and accelerating the drum beat of change.

The big news this month is the converging of Uranus and Pluto for their third encounter of the close kind. This happens on May 20^th. There were two previous exact hits last year of their revolutionary and pressure-packed square, out of a total of seven, with reverberations echoing down to the final years of these “Turbulent Teens.”  We are, all of us, caught up in the vice of change and we might as well acknowledge this simple and straightforward fact. No one will emerge in the same condition as they started. The culture itself will undergo massive and radical transformation before we are finished, or else we are finished in quite another sense of the word. We must hang together now in collective action that is both local and ultimately global, or we will dangle separately.

Not only is Uranus in Aries amped up, bringing unique ideas and out-of-the-box strategies to bear, but also Pluto is emphasized in Capricorn, representing societal structure, which indicates that the very bedrock of our individual as well as our collective lives must transform. What is dysfunctional and outmoded in our approach will have to be pruned away. This is also the sign of Saturn’s rulership, and as this two-month period unfolds, Saturn in fading sextile to Pluto begins to make an increasingly close trine aspect to Neptune. We can dream big during this period, and we can also see our dreams come crashing down to a more practical level. When that happens the recommendation is that we do not despair. It is rather – having utmost faith in the universe, whether termed Spirit, or higher Self, or angel guidance – that we choose to rebuild as necessary.

The otherworldly Neptunian archetype is not only aspected by the May 9^th New Moon eclipse but also is extremely activated by the May 24^th event, when the Sun and Moon in exact opposition make a T-square to Neptune. This is a time when idealism holds sway, and when this can and will be confused with illusion, potentially tinged with self-deception or even outright deception that we might encounter on th part of others. The upside of all this Neptune energy is that we can more fully appreciate that we live in a magical and multi-dimensional world, where everything that we see and hear tells only a small part of the story. As the poet William Blake reminds us, “How do you know but every bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?” And we ourselves are like those birds, when we can suspend disbelief and open our minds to the parts of ourselves that allow us to dream.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is the time of your life, Aries, and you must employ it. Coming on the heels of a surprisingly intense start to the springtime, you have before you a great month for looking within yourself and for getting things done. You are exploring all facets of profession and career development, and as you do, consistently finding new wrinkles regarding your work in the world that bring primary focus to those issues that truly matter to your personal evolution, long-term. The rest you are increasingly able to let go. Your finances are on your mind as well, but, again, you win by picking and choosing only those aspects that further your personal evolution. Your ultimate goal is to be all that you can be and to become all that you can, in good conscience, become.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is an exciting time to be alive, Taurus. You are joyfully participating in higher meaning along with the plain and difficult task of walking your walk as you work your path. You are also finding stern guidance from mentors in your life, who provide one key to your movement forward. Your worldview could be even more dramatically shifting, as multiple epiphanies tumble into your awareness. Along with an openness to compassionate communication within your circle, you possess a powerful idealism as to outcomes and an unwillingness to let anything get in the way of your dreams. You are crossing over, and it makes less and less sense to deny it. In following the impulse of your heart you make it easier to integrate your deeper feelings and for others around you to do likewise.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is a subtly exciting period of time for you, Gemini, as you work your edge and explore the boundary between ideal and real. The first half of the month you are extremely tied to your inner world, engaging in a dreamy time that is also productive of new insight. Then, leading up to the Lunar Eclipse of May 24^th in your opposite sign, you are fully re-entering the world of events and social interaction, with the additional advantage of the distinct memory of your time that has been spent in other-dimensional super-realities. You are finding that the more you look, the more you recognize the unseen world within you. The hidden realm within you carries more weight than you might have imagined, informing and underlying everything that you say and do.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is a potent month, Cancer, with the prospect of extra energy as future plans expand in innovative ways. You are cautiously optimistic as you make your move, and as partnership considerations in your life continue to transform. The eclipses of this powerful monthly cycle shore up the spiritual basis of how you see yourself progressing, and symbolize a more satisfying process that could nevertheless feel confusing when seen as a strictly mundane set of circumstances. Your worldview is expanding, although in somewhat nebulous ways. As you make definite advancement toward important life goals you are simultaneously distrustful of that movement forward. You must constantly ask yourself the all-important question of whether your angle of adventure matches your most profound soul purpose, and if so, then take that as a yes and forge ahead.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is a powerful month of new initiatives for you, Leo. Career and public life are truly up for you this month, with the attendant set of logistics and choices for making that happen. There is now more than ever the added subtext that of all your career choices it is only the professional path with plenty of heart that actually interests you; it is your soul needs that are the most urgently calling out to you. You posses an intelligent and forward-looking attitude that takes you far, especially when you allow yourself to recognize that your priorities are changing in ways that were previously unforeseen. It’s always possible to ignore the new mandate and continue with former habits, but the evolutionary pressure upon you is strong, so that you might just need to go with it.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) Your destiny is calling, Virgo, and it is a high-priority message.  Recent depth explorations have given you new perspectives, critical to your chances for true forward movement. Like the extra-high tide that comes only once, this opening can be seized at the flood for great and fortunate progress, or left unanswered. An idealized and almost dream-like experience of relationship is part of this. Even though the temptation is strong to follow the crowd, or your partner, you find when you check inside that you must remain true to yourself at all costs. Illusions glimmer, offset by critical voices within you, but these contrasting factors can be navigated successfully when you keep your eye on the prize. As your radically altered self-expression reveals, you are transforming at the core and there is no looking back.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) Your exciting voyage has only just begun, Libra. You are exploring the world around you through intimate connection with others and a powerful component of that process takes you right back to yourself. It is vitally important for you to recognize the degree to which you are becoming more familiar with yourself in these deeper places, and how that increase in understanding eventually morphs into enhanced feelings of personal security, and a better sense of your own home base. New perspectives come to you rapid-fire in the course of this month’s evolutionary journey of unfolding wisdom. They bring a glimpse of the ideal that you would very much like to aspire to, and might yet find the capacity for. An interesting amalgam of heart and mind takes you both farther out and simultaneously further in.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is an exciting moment for you, Scorpio. You are learning constantly these days, with not all of the lessons planned, although the ones that come crashing in out of the blue somehow still seem to fit. Your evolutionary path is new, and yet also partakes of traditional ways of looking at the world. You are adjusting to a sense of limitation, allowing for it and making it work for you. Key relationships in your life have also taken on a novel form of luster, with perspective changes that are major; some pieces familiar, with a different twist, while others entirely unique in your experience. This is all part of an ongoing metamorphosis that affects everything, and that allows your everyday practice to shine with a subtle light that illumines distant horizons of meaning.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This month represents your next step, Sagittarius, although at least initially things might look sketchier than that. There is a crux of transformational energy directed toward you and through you that allows you to make a significant move. This seems confusing at times, but actually represents steady momentum along the evolutionary arc of personal development that you have long been sensing. Relationship is a huge factor in this transition, and helps you to make space for both thinking and feeling your way through. You are challenged to make use of a growing sense of practical spirituality that is being presented to you by the cosmos, in order that you prosper internally. This creates a lasting adjustment to your relationship dynamic that allows your partnerships to breathe, and the rest of your life as well.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) The adventure continues, Capricorn. This is a difficult period in some ways, as deep transformational change is not an easy path. Acting in accordance with core-level principles becomes a studied artistic expression and remains a work in progress. You are finding that the urge to simply be yourself and for discovering what that might truly mean for you has crucial ramifications for how you set your future course. There is a way that you can remain perfectly happy, in spite of circumstances, in spite of everything; this is an elusive target, requiring a leap of faith. You are setting new standards for accomplishment, which have recently tended toward inner achievement prioritized over outer. Now, this month, you are perhaps beginning to admit this to your conscious awareness as an explicitly stated goal.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) You are turning to the inside, Aquarius, at the same time as you continue to bask in outer world achievement. As you come to understand your own deeper motivation, an evolutionary pressure builds within that inspires you to learn a new language of the soul. Communication and learning are your favorite things, and this is where you are truly at, as information  – amidst a series of profound changes – continues to pour forth from you and to you. The world of events and of outward presentation is one important key to who you are, and yet you are beginning to acknowledge that your performance also rests on another base; a reality orientation of a subtler kind. This one brings your hidden places to light and allows the dark and relatively unconscious parts of yourself to join in and to finally have their voice.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) An unusual season holds sway, Pisces. You are coming into yourself in some very novel and exciting ways, so that you discover a renewed sense of inner purpose. Security is there for you in plentiful supply, with a feeling of extraordinary confidence at the very core of your being that does not correspond to any easily recognizable cause. You seem to be clutching at the void and yet it is creative, graspable, only not in ordinary terms. You require a sort of double-vision to maintain your equilibrium now, a willingness to let the cosmos have its way with you; all the while the deal remains in effect that when you need to return to mundane affairs for this or that particular moment you will be able to.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY – April 2013

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of April features Venus, Mars, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus and Pluto. These last four are in relatively close aspect to each other, with the Uranus-Pluto aspect, the much-discussed Uranus-Pluto square, moving to within 2 degrees of exact by the time of the April 10^th New Moon in Aries. Regarding the revolutionary archetypal combination of these two powerhouse planets, the precise  months of their exact square aspect this year are coming up in May and September. By the time of this New Moon configuration, Chiron in the same degree of Pisces as Pluto in Capricorn is in thus in perfect sextile with Pluto, while Saturn makes a perfect quincunx to Uranus, sextile to Pluto and a trine to Chiron.

This same New Moon, taking place on Wednesday, April 10^th  in the 21^st degree of Aries, conjuncts both Mars and Venus. The Aries line-up at the time of this New Moon includes Uranus also. Regarding Mars and Venus, it turns out that these male and female personal planets are within a few degrees of each other for the entire early part of this month, with Venus beginning by trailing Mars, then passing, so that they are within orb of a conjunction until the 15^th of April, when Venus enters Taurus. Mars enters Taurus himself on the 20^th but it will be almost two years before they are again as close together in the sky as they were over these first two weeks of April.

Relationship issues take on a special quality over this first half of the month. There is a conscious and an urgent effort to achieve connection, and a testing quality to the connection achieved. It is interesting as well to note that while as the month begins, Venus is in the sign ruled by Mars, while by the last third of the month we find that Mars has entered Taurus, the sign ruled by Venus, which Venus then occupies. We therefore have a two-week period of Marsy relationship energy that is very action-oriented, yielding eventually to a more Venus-like period in the second half that is rather than urgent, is slower and more peaceful, relating for the pure physical pleasure of connecting.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, remains in the picture of this month’s energy in its combination with Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. At the time of the April 10^th New Moon, it is possible for relationship fears to come up, especially relating to the fear of control either imposed upon you, which might represent your own projected authority, or else imposed by you on another. Either of these situations could be difficult, depending on your prior situation, especially regarding experiences arising out of the ancient past such as early childhood wounding. And yet fear is always an illusion.

There is a great mandate for change that is upon us now, both individually and culturally, so that the fear of change is another significant factor in this month’s astrology. We might recognize our dysfunction with certain issues, and yet hold onto it for all that we are worth to avoid the uncertainty of a changed situation that corresponds to the healing of these issues. This is the great conundrum of our times, applying equally to personal relationship wounds and to our society’s inability to deal rationally with problems such as hunger, environmental degradation and global warming. Only by somehow putting aside our fear of an unknown future can we proceed.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is an amazing and transformative month for you, Aries. You are full  of energy as everything that was building comes together, like a compressed spring bouncing free. You potentially need to be wary of even too much exuberance and enthusiasm. In the midst of a complex month that includes unexpected shifts in the psychic weather, beware also of reactive responses to sudden twists and turns of fate. It might be better to withhold judgment over whether any particular event bodes good or ill; after all, the one can sometimes morph into the other with amazing rapidity. Good advice that never seems to go out of style comes from the Chinese sages of the Tao Te Ching when they make the claim that success and failure could be considered as equal ailments.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This continues to be an interesting and quite rewarding period of time for you, Taurus, especially in terms of internal over external rewards. For the first half of an empowering month of April, you are reaching for the gold ring down inside; living within the illusory domain of a land of dreams, only partly involved with the machinations of the so-called real world. This changes dramatically after mid-month, but for these first two weeks you are dwelling into your own recent researches into a fully altered life direction, inwardly tuned in to otherworldly realms within you that contribute more than you might think to your everyday actions and decision making. By month’s end, new initiatives abound, made more poignant and emotionally realized by the weeks that you have spent dreaming the dark into renewed life.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is an amazing month, Gemini, when you are coming into some very new goals and plans. For you, this springtime month of April begins like a lamb and then begins to roar.  With the advent of the Aries New Moon on the 10^th, you begin a journey of exploration that takes you into some very altered and excitingly novel life directions. You have in some ways lately been putting yourself through the wringer, and everything in your everyday existence now begins to shine with renewed and purposeful meaning. You do well to reassess yet again your chances in the light of this fresh understanding, and yet if you resist the changes that the cosmos is offering there is no downside; the intensity of your situation will merely repeat until you get the message.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) It’s an interesting springtime that is emerging for you, Cancer. Through all the ups and downs you are experiencing a strong inner presence that transcends everything more mundane and sustains you through the rough places as you rethink your conscious priorities. Your inner guidance is more available to you than ever; it reflects back on and informs your higher mind viewpoint on your situation. Career and profession represent the dominant theme for you right now, pulling together nearly every other element of your life. It’s not that you are living strictly for your work in the world; it’s that your work focalizes all other aspects of your life and brings them into a form of integration that is new for you, going beyond anything that you have previously experienced.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) It’s a long road that has no turning, Leo, and you are more than ready for a change.  Startlingly novel perspectives are emerging to provide you with the perfect opportunity to experiment. You are on an important verge. You have for many weeks been delving down deep inside yourself, into the secret and hidden places of your soul, searching for answers and finding partial ones, or just getting confused. The magic of existence has perhaps been right there at your fingertips all along, yet remained obscure. Starting now you are wrapping all your previous experience into a ball; a new kind of knowledge that you can roll with you into an amazing and colorfully altered set of potentials; a different future than what you had been visualizing, but still, somehow, the right one.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is the first month of the rest of your life, Virgo. Important relationships have been mightily morphing recently and can now be seen in a new way. Is it the partnership itself that has changed, or merely your perception? Problems that as recently as last month seemed too vast are somewhat settling into place at last. This is not to say that no difficulties remain; it is more that these are present in less gigantic proportions, assuming their rightful place in the natural order of things – a part of the cosmic landscape. You are potentially feeling the vitality and freedom of a new mandate that allows you to step forward into wholeness. This applies to the evolving structure of your relationship dynamic and also to the dark places within yourself; now suddenly illuminated..

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This is a pivotal month for you, Libra, in the midst of a crucial year. Partnership is very much on your mind. While this seems like business as usual, below ground the tectonic plates are shifting. Your metamorphosis involves taking personal responsibility for your own arc of development as you allow your interaction with others to inform your inner work. Relationship at times seems to flood you, and all this focus on others is powerful, but less so if only the warm security bath of a double fantasy. Somehow this experience of significant connection with others can and must be brought back home to your own evolving self-concept, as you forge ahead on your own unique path. Then you are set up in such a way that relationship in your life works to guide your own profound process of increasing awareness.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) There is transformation in the air for everyone these days, Scorpio, and for you perhaps even more so. You are on the verge of new discoveries regarding gains in transcending a sense of limitation that you sometimes feel and additionally how you relate to important others in your life while proceeding along your own unique path of self-development. These last few weeks and months have been a time for getting your ducks in order and your act to where you would like it to be, in such a way that you might now be ready for launch. You are finding within yourself an unusual degree of dedication to finding the true fit between you, partners and soul purpose. You benefit by continuing to incorporate – to the extent that you can let it in – surprisingly deep intuitional clarity regarding these matters.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This is a productive period for you, Sagittarius, in which you might find the resolution for several recent conundrums. There is a shift in the cosmic weather that presages if not exactly an easier passage, then at the very least a more fruitful one. You are in some sense being reborn in the current monthly time frame, particularly in the way that you apply your creativity. You are also, after a period of thoughtful reassessment, moving past some of the intensity in dealing with issues of self and other, working out where full-on partnership with significant others makes sense for you and where you must find your own way.  You win when you allow key relationships in your life to breathe, fostering closeness and creative tension and even distance in equal measure, neither actually taking over and swamping the boat.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) This is an important time of getting back to your roots, Capricorn. There is an emphasis on home, family and tribe, a sense that this area of your life provides for you important connection to the earth, and to your sense of ease and safety in a chaotic world. This thought could apply to your physical home or to the figurative baseline established by familial connections with those who are important to you in this way. As you enter into a new monthly cycle, you might find that home is suddenly a living experience, part of a significant  experiment in discovering for yourself new pathways forward that can outshine previous limitations and undo the conditioning of prior situations. Your heart is stirred and shaken, producing surprising and almost entirely positive results, especially when you take the long view.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a fascinating, difficult and ultimately rewarding period for you, Aquarius. You have been through a confusing time of reorientation. Informed by the reflective stance that you have been taking lately regarding inner priorities, you are beginning this month to spring forward into renewed action. Your real-world focus is amazing right now, and you are also beginning to trust that inner guidance could become an immense factor for you as you explore the full range of your possibilities. Working within the framework of consensus thinking is one thing, perhaps not truly satisfying, while putting your shoulder to the wheel in support of what you fully believe in, down to the ground, might yet be tentative. This month constitutes a time of experimentation and intense learning, when some of the answers that you seek begin to swim into view.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This season represents a new dawning for you, Pisces. An exciting month of renewed energy for projects and for stabilization makes up for a shaky start to the year. You are seeking a toehold on reclaiming ownership of your life purpose. This follows upon a time of personal reassessment and of questioning family values as the psychological basis for your own feelings of security. You have taken in recent events, and emerged out the other side with a firmer grasp on your own internal wounding. You are coming to see this as, rather than a stigma, part of an important process of growth, the acknowledged result of poorly digested prior run-ins with figures out of early childhood. The enlightenment from this period that you are now passing through is you most important product. It comes slowly but inexorably and it is lasting.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY

March 2013

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of March features Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Chiron and Pluto. Mercury is still in retrograde from late February, and only escapes its retrograde shadow on the 6th of April. Therefore the entire month of March will be one that partakes at least to some extent of the usual Mercury Retrograde symptoms of missed connections, communication mishaps and mechanical breakdowns. These interesting phenomena can usually be traced to false assumptions or overlooking something on the part of our own mental apparatus, and do not seem to much affect those persons born with Mercury retrograde natally.

Venus, relationship planet and the astrological archetype of beauty and the arts, is also highlighted this month, now in Pisces and there conjuncting Neptune. The March 11^th New Moon in Pisces also conjuncts Venus, so that a softer and more compassionate take on inter-personal connection is even more than usual on our minds and in our hearts. Additionally, with the Mercury retrograde period ushering in a more thoughtful attitude, the focus of our meditations will likely be the very nature of our world as a relationship planet, as well as on our various relationships, our soul’s life blood.

The same New Moon that features Venus is accompanied by Mars leaving Pisces and entering into its own sign of Aries, there to come into closer and closer conjunction with Uranus as the second half of this month unfolds. This brings a series of sudden surprises and an extroverted counter-point to the internal energy of the Mercury retrograde. The possibility of accidents cannot be ruled out so that it is best to proceed with caution. We might continue our month-long meditation by focusing on the many ways that we bring one-pointed and self-motivated activity to the altar that relationship provides. When we more closely look, and look truly, we are able to recognize where indeed the very structure of our lives must radically transform.

Meanwhile, Jupiter in Gemini, ruled by both Mercury and, in esoteric terms, Venus, is once again the focus of a yod formation  from Saturn and Pluto – as was found at the time of the Winter Solstice on the 21^st of  December, 2012, and also in the chart for the New Year. Saturn with Pluto represents the radical transformation of structures; our own, and in the life of the surrounding collective. The Jupiter emphasis lends an optimistic air to the proceedings as we continue to explore what we need to do – both individually and as a society -  to make the necessary life changes that will enable us to get through this pivotal year, recognizing it as one important turning point of a turbulent decade.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is also very prominent in this month’s configurations, being increasingly aspected by Jupiter, and by retrograde Mercury as we make our way through March. This indicates a primary focus on the challenges as well as the rewards of this period. We are caught up in a struggle to accept the necessity of massive change.  There is also the realization that, as we do go along with the flow of the cosmos working itself out through our lives, our relationships must also undergo continual adjustment and repair. It is important to recognize that change opens the door to healing, and is vital, representing the only way that we will be able to make our necessary transition into wholeness.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). You are coming into your own, Aries, although you might not yet know it. The recent cosmic emphasis implies that in order that you take full advantage of your opportunities, it is more important than ever that you make fundamental changes in your mission statement. You are in a good place to aim carefully, and it is vital that, as you do, you take inner priorities more fully into account. With Mercury retrograde all month long, this is not the time to push ahead without carefully thinking everything over, and from several different standpoints. You win when you base your thoughts on your deeper feeling level, making use of the powerful intuitive information that currently floods into your being. There, true information is to be found whenever you can make space and allow it to come in.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  It is a brand new world for you, Taurus, as the winter of your discontent begins to fade and you enter into a springtime of renewed opportunity. You are benefiting from recent realizations regarding partnership priorities and how these affect your world view, and, going forward, on your life in general. You are mulling over your actual plans for a more vitalized soul future, but you are still learning how to navigate the incredibly powerful mix of energies that swirl around you. Next month will be a better time to finalize important decisions that are still coming into being – currently stewing in the reflections of a thoughtful March time frame. For now, you do well to continue to watch and wait, and enjoy your growing confidence as well as the trepidation of anticipated new birth.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This continues to be a powerful and an optimistic time for you, Gemini. You have been in an essentially optimistic place, despite being put through the wringer lately. The transformational beat continues into the heart of yet another intense year. You are coming now to a marked shift in your energies, with your ruler, Mercury, retrograding through your sector of career path and productive works. You are entirely serious about understanding your actual life mission, that which will make you not only successful but also happily so, and now is the time to solidify those gains, as you pause to collect yourself. On into April it will be soon enough you to be pressing ahead with a new mandate for a future that you can not only live with, but for.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) It’s an interesting time for you, Cancer. You know you’ve been through something major over these last few weeks, and it is still ongoing, although it might be hard to pin it down exactly what it is. Your emotional center has been rocked; there is an evolution that is taking place within you. The result over this current monthly cycle is a new world view and new vision for where you are potentially heading.  A deep exploration has come about without specific planning, as though a hidden passage through the center of the earth had suddenly opened up at your feet resulting in free fall. Where you will land only goddess knows, but it certainly won’t be Kansas anymore, or anything at all like the place where you began.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is an interesting month of introspection, Leo, with the retrograde of Mercury through your sector of personal evolution, and following the intensity of the last days of February when everything seemed to fall apart only to pull together again in new ways. You have been caught up, for many weeks now, in the exploration of your interior process, leading to a better, further, and deeper commitment to yourself. You are beginning to entertain, in a new way, the idea that you include Spirit as a normal part of your waking life. It suddenly becomes important that you allow family and relationship with others to rise nearer to the top of your priority list. You are digging deep over this month and the next, first preparing, as you refine your purpose; and then, finally, as you are ready, to act.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is quite a time you are having here in the first few months of 2013, Virgo. Now, with six planets in your relationship sector, including Mercury in retrograde, you are deeply committed to partnership concerns, and also to refining and reformulating your viewpoint on life and love. This is a time of plumbing your spiritual depths, and regarding relationship, of both rampant confusion and also the discovery of ethereal beauty emerging, unannounced,  between the lines of everyday occurrences. You could also be discovering that you just can’t push the river, but must let it roll on with a life of its own to which you are merely witness. Even though tempting, you might need to put the attractive magnet of outer world pursuits on hold this month as you sort things out.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are seeking fulfillment amidst the ordinary, Libra. You are making a breakthrough to new levels of understanding, of yourself and of where in the world your life could be heading, although the details are more than a bit confusing, mystical and vague. Since Mercury is also retrograde until the first week of April, when you take into account the period of the retrograde shadow, it may be best not to try too hard. You win if you can wait to forge ahead with plans until you have a good sense of what you really want, down within the deepest centers of your being. One stage of this evolving process, when significant others enter even more into your picture, takes place with the Full Moon in your sign during the last week of March.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is an important time, Scorpio, when you are continuing to explore your inner world, and when you have also been feeling your way into a better relationship with your own personal power. When you think that you have the capability of exerting the most control is when, paradoxically, you have the very least. Over the course of this current month, your self-expression and creativity is blazing up in a new fashion that takes your deep unconscious process into better account, recognizing that at base, not everything you do is fully conscious. You are on the way to affirming your path forward in a very different way, one that rather than the misplaced conditioning of an era that has lost its relevance to your present understanding, takes soul purpose more firmly into account.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) You are on a roll, Sagittarius, but it is not all easy. As an intense winter makes way for spring via the dynamic transition point of the recent February 25^th Full Moon, you are even more greatly focalized on important interpersonal connections. These include relationships with significant others, and also those with home, family and tribe; where you find that you are reviewing and renewing your priorities. There might be a better way forward than you have previously attempted. This is correlates as well to the psychological  basis of your security, and you might find that in the course of these investigations you are discovering what makes you tick, deep down inside. As you do, you gain a better grasp on a top-to-bottom integration that brings you into closer connection with others and ultimately, with yourself.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) This is an interesting time for you, Capricorn, especially for learning new things about yourself. A tremendous transition period has been underway for many weeks, affecting how you see yourself moving forward into the uncertainty of a changed and changing world, and you remain in the thick of it. There is a way that you have never fully explored what might be termed soul purpose to the depth that you are exploring it now. You are refining your perception of what this means in terms of life direction and how you can best respond. With Mercury currently retrograde, it isn’t the time to push the river. The moment for more concerted action will come mid-April. For now, it makes for the perfect time to write down your observations or to discuss them, and to quietly watch and wait.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is an important time of transition, Aquarius, as you more fully explore public persona and simultaneously your role as a creative and free individual. You are examining your position through the wrong end of a telescope, looking in a new way at the details of how you live your life, and it becomes an excellent time to journal or to meditate on these observations. You are very much in the physical world, and yet not really of it. While still remaining the proving ground of practicality, your world has turned into a symbolic statement of how you connect with others around you, and with your own inner universe. You see both these ideas in a kind of double-vision that will drive you mad if insist on simple logic rather than choosing a mystical approach, and simply enjoying the ride.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This is a powerful time for you, Pisces, one of meditative reflection and self-definition. With the timing of the recent very intense Full Moon in your opposite sign from the last week of February, and the simultaneous retrograde of Mercury through your identity sector, you have turned an important corner. While still engaged with the world, you are spending a large amount of your time simply thinking and feeling. There is a way that you are becoming more aware that, along with recognizing scholarly sources of information, there are vast realms of knowledge concealed within the intimations of your almost entirely unconscious deep intuition. Although you are gaily participating,  socially interacting, this void of profound silence within you might be the one thing that is really worth a listen.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY

February 2013

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of February features Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Chiron and Neptune, together with a Pisces line-up of planets that takes place in coordination with the February 9^th Aquarius New Moon. All month, from the evening of February 1^st on,  Mars is in the very interesting and mystical sign of Pisces, where there is definitely a softer and more subtle approach to his feisty and normally outer-directed energy. It’s as though that energy were turned inside and tuned to distant dimensions – more appropriate to poetry and music than to the active and assertive nature bordering on aggression that is normally associated with the fiery Red Planet.

Mercury joins Mars in Pisces around the time of the New Moon, and closely conjoins Chiron as it does so, making a tight triple conjunction, which is additionally within orb of conjunction with Neptune in the early degrees of the sign. Saturn is stationing in the mid-month time frame, in trine with these three planets, and in bi-quintile to revolutionary Uranus, to which the stodgy and conservative energy is antithetical. Revolution is in the air, as it has been for these last few years, and there is also a considerable conservative backlash that is becoming even more intense as this second climactic year in a row – 2013 – gets underway.

Jupiter is also nearly stationary in the sky at this time and therefore more powerful, having recently completed its station to direct motion as the month begins. This would be a celebratory time frame were it not for the Saturn emphasis and the square between Jupiter and Chiron that is quite close as the month begins, and that remains with 2 degrees of exact until April. The Virgo Full Moon takes place on February 25^th with the Sun conjuncts Chiron and the Sun and Moon make a T-square to Jupiter.

In the final weekend of the month, on Saturday, February 23^rd, Mercury retrogrades in Pisces, in conjunction with Mars. The Mercury Retrograde period of time, famous for missed connections and mechanical breakdowns, is thus underway just as the extremely powerful Virgo Full Moon also appears on the scene. We are drawn even more to the inside. The retrograde lasts five weeks or so, even past the station to direct motion on March 17^th, since it has still at that point to make up its lost zodiacal longitude. This entire period is a great time for reflection and looking within, not so great for direct action.

We are facing enormous change, both as a culture and individually, as we struggle to keep up with what is going on in the society that surrounds us, and in the light of further revelations that we keep encountering. We are getting more conscious, and it is a spiral, so that we continually return to the same place that we started, but with a little more awareness.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). Life continues to amaze and inspire you, Aries, to the point that you are wondering where it will take you next. As you continue to catch lightning in a bottle socially, and as your visioning for a better future outlook continues to grow and morph, you are paradoxically more than ever invested in the unseen world of your internal process. Day-dreams can be useful and open you to new possibilities. The meditative stance that you are holding space for can guide you if you allow it to. You are engaged in nothing less than a thorough-going reassessment of what you stand for and how to plug yourself in, as appropriate to your inner purpose, and you win when you are able to relax and let yourself go into the flow.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  Your cosmos continues to surprise and confound you, Taurus. Even as you revel in outer world pursuits, it is essentially a mystical space in time that you are entering over the course of this monthly cycle. You are also likely to encounter potentially painful issues with group dynamics, rumbles of interpersonal dysfunction that come back to haunt you. These may in fact stem from old patterns that you are more than ready to outgrow and only need one more push of conscious recognition to do so. Acceptance and honoring these dark places is one vital key to moving beyond them so that they are no longer so major. You have a wellspring of intuitional information. New perspectives are flooding in, as well, to take advantage of as you grow in awareness.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is an important month for you Gemini, and a rather strange one. You will be tested in ways that you had not fully imagined before now, and that mere logic does not give you the glimmer of a handle on, with important repercussions in the outer world of business and professional persona. A vague and subtle sense of spiritual purpose is slowly gaining ground over mundane concerns, and that is confusing to them. This becomes even more pronounced the last week of the month with the retrograde of Mercury through your career sector. You are striving as usual for the gold ring of achievement, but with a difference. Although somewhat preoccupied by run-of-the-mill issues and goals, you might also be able to say, with the poet, that “everything is holy now.”

CANCER (June 21-July 20) These are potent times for you, Cancer, the culmination of the last several weeks of changes and challenges especially in the way that you practice the art of relationship. This month could find you somewhat reclusive in terms of outer-world connection – preferring instead to inhabit a space that is expansive on the inside – and if so, it might be for the purpose of getting into closer touch with yourself at these inner levels; exploring the vast, dim and yeasty reaches of your unconscious process. You are discovering new avenues of higher mind connection that take you on a trip that is not physical but is instead a journey to the center of the personal unconscious portion of your very own universe.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is an interesting, exciting and challenging period for you, Leo, one in which your curiosity is highly aroused. It is a stimulating time both intellectually and also spiritually. Ideas are your friends right now, and partners in your life are extremely important as well, in part because of the additional perspectives that they bring. You are a seeker after truth, and find yourself in favor of a new way of life that will clear some of the cobwebs away between what you have and what you are actually wanting. Home and family is another important area for you right now, and issues there pave the way for you to establish your own sense of where you are headed, perhaps by offering a contrasting sense of limitation that enables you to see exactly where you need to break away.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is an amazing month for you, Virgo. You are enjoying life in general and feasting on your relationship dynamic in particular. Things are likely to be going well for you these days in terms of your outer world pursuits, which are both fortunate and spiritually motivated. Surprises abound, and the flow of brilliant ideas is constantly renewing itself. This is also an incredibly active month for the key relationship in your life, both business and personal. Your participation in this important area is idealized, potentially painful and a bit confusing. The higher purpose is that you explore more fully your inner connection with your own deep process. Toward month’s end you are likely to be spending loads of time with concentrated visioning -and revisioning – of what relationship, for you, is all about.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are entering into a joyous mode of discovery, Libra, and yet also recognizing limitations in what you are trying to achieve. You are taking a strong stand on making the relationships in your life really work for you long term, as well as experimenting in this important area. Restrictions on the resources that you need to move forward, including financial ones, have the unexpected benefit of concentrating your energies, as you adjust your priorities and find new avenues of self-expression. By month’s end you could come to realize that your most important product lies in your determination to start figuring out who you truly are, at the deepest possible level, and what this soul knowledge implies about where you need to be heading in your life.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a crucial time for you, Scorpio, in the midst of a crucial year. Your very sense of identity is shifting in a way that is confusing and, at times, scary. The potential transformation implied is daunting, but you might reflect that you cannot really hold onto the past; that life itself is change. You are continuing to explore your deep and largely unknown parts in an even more intense way, and it is slowly bringing you into closer touch with yourself. This is a difficult but entirely rewarding evolution that you are attempting now. Vague and inchoate sensations are being treated with a dose of practicality and ordinary real-world logic in a largely successful effort to form a useful amalgam that partakes of both, and that will take you through.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This is an important time for you, Sagittarius, and a good opportunity to be getting spiritually more centered. It is also likely a confusing one as well, when many of your old approaches are no longer working and yet when new potential ways of being in the world are only just being born. Partnership is very much up for you right now, as you concentrate on adopting an attitude toward significant others and your relationship dynamics in general that makes for a closer match with soul-purpose. This is a period of transition – difficult in the sense that worn out patterns that no longer serve you are being peeled away. This is indeed a painful time, and yet in another way of retelling the story, your days are suffused with light.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) These are amazing days of recognition and of acceptance, Capricorn. The time of your rebirth is upon you as it has been, at least in some sense, over these past weeks and months, and the next phase of your life is unmistakably entering in. This involves new ways of seeing and of being and while it represents a giant learning experience that is only just beginning, involves as well sense of familiarity that feels like coming home. Inner meets outer, and service shines, both in the sense of community and regarding friendships that you favor, and that represent a necessary and important key to what you are attempting. The door to your future is now open, and, no matter how hard you might try, can no longer be closed up upon itself.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a challenging and rewarding period for you, Aquarius. The recent Full Moon from the last weekend in January brought you good fortune and opportunity, although perhaps also a sense of mixed blessings. You have an important opening now that leads to greater public recognition, and yet the increased responsibility that is involved there could feel like more than you can reasonably handle. You are reassessing your intellectual horizon. Something is shifting deep inside you in such a manner that many of the certitudes you have counted on thus far could no longer apply. You might feel like you are struggling to replace them, but the best bet for you right now might be that you have faith in your process and let go and just surrender to it.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This is an extremely vital month for you, Pisces, as you navigate the choppy waters of this special period of time. The cosmic forces swirling around you have their vortex in life changes that have been underway for you for several months – subliminally recognized although perhaps not consciously acknowledged – and that are still far from complete. Personal development dominates, as well as issues of home and family. As you tread your path forward, you are searching for a way to connect your head and your heart, and obviously this is not easy. A concentration of planetary energies in your identity sector creates supreme focus on spiritual evolution as the driver. Your most important product now is your own soul-level understanding of what it is that you are actually up to.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY

January 2013

Henry Seltzer

Uranus itself is hit by the earlier configuration and again by this month’s New Moon. The emphasis on Venus means that relationships of all kinds are emphasized now, or in another way of saying it, we are all in this together.

Uranus is still of course within orb of its strongly thematic square with Pluto, now in dormancy but heating up in the spring of this year, and still quite strong over the summer months, and indeed over the next few years. The influence lasts until nearly the end of this decade. This important aspect was highlighted at the time of the December 28^th Full Moon, and in the chart for the New Year, with the Sun in close conjunction to Pluto. Saturn is also involved, for these next few months, by trine and sextile. We are all feeling the tremendous transformational pressure to make necessary changes to the structure of our lives, so that we can flow into a livable state of balance with ourselves, and for the sake of our future.

Saturn, ruler of the January 11^th New Moon and the Capricorn line-up of five planets, is in a close bi-quintile aspect with Uranus, while remaining in sextile with Pluto, and therefore pulls together these agents of personal revolution. When Saturn involved, it is the very structure of the surrounding society, and of our own lives as well, that must undergo massive transformation in this New Year time frame. Saturn with Pluto, even in a mild sextile, represents an important opening that can indeed be dire and perhaps even drastic, as the capitalist world struggles to wriggle out of the trap that it has set for itself, and as we as individuals grow also along the same lines. Like the radical pruning of a rose bush, this process is vital for the well-being of organism, removing those parts that were no longer needed and that were getting in the way of new growth.

Jupiter, the focus of a yod formation that was exact at the time of the Winter Solstice, is prominent in this month’s configurations as well, especially at the time of the January 11^th New Moon. Jupiter stations to direct motion at the end of January, and all month long in square to Chiron and sextile Uranus, while remaining inconjunct to Saturn and to Pluto. This focus on expansive Jupiter lends a softer air to the proceedings as we enter yet another year of intense change. Saturn with Jupiter refers to societal awareness and, in this case, the awareness of the extent to which we as a society are transforming.

The Sabian Symbol for the degree of Jupiter at the time of the January 11^th New Moon is “An Old-fashioned Well, with a Bucket and a Rope,” while at the same moment the symbol for Saturn, in the 11^th degree of Scorpio, is “A Drowning Man Being Rescued.” Since Jupiter stations this end of this month, still in aspect with Saturn, these symbols speak to the beneficence of Spirit, as represented by Jupiter. The cosmic force of optimism for the future can be the rope that leads us to safety, as long as we continue to have faith in the universe to pull us through, and in ourselves to take advantage of the opportunities as they are presented to us.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). You are entering into the New Year with an essentially positive attitude, Aries, in spite of everything. Even though your career and even your life remains an uncertain proposition, you are moving through this world with grace and courage, awaiting what the next current might bring. By now you are fully aware that the unexpected is your standard fare, and you are also beginning to recognize that allies in the form of friendships and special partners can be a godsend and a mainstay. As you begin setting yourself up for a more integrated future, dialoguing or writing is recommended. The poet Tagore stated about being lost at sea that the three things that were not needed were oars, rudder and the fear of going down. This describes your situation very well.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  You are in a place of profound change over the course of this monthly period, Taurus, as you enter into a brave New Year. Change is nothing new to you by now, but the pace is accelerating. Your worldview is radically transforming, and since the way that you see the world around you counts for nearly everything, so is your access to opportunities for growth. Good fortune follows your steps, allowing you to go for your best chance, which is that you get in closer touch with your inner world and with a sense of Spirit working itself out through you. The chance is there for you to take; and you must leave something behind in the process. Partners are your mentors, and support you in the innate determination that you have for being on your own and diving down.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is a good month for you, Gemini, as you enjoy a powerful New Year feeling of liberation. The world that you see in your mind’s eye is very different than the one you currently occupy. You are optimistic for the most part, even though you might continue to recognize this as a time of profound change. You are moving through depths of intimacy, and finding, at the bottom of the well, your own image looking back at you. This is not to discount the great blessing of others in your life. It is just that your major task at this time lies in finding out who you really are and acting on that knowledge to further evolve. You will come out the other side with a better understanding of your process and of yourself.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) It’s a complex world for you right now, Cancer. You are called to inner contemplation while at the same time feeling somewhat stuck in your self-expression, and reaching out to active partnerships in your life for support and sustenance. The emotional trap is that you overly rely on your partnership connections resulting in a loss of self-focus, but you are also in condition to be very focused on your own needs, once you give yourself space to do just that without feeling guilty. You are in a better place to strike a healthier balance by the time of the Full Moon at nearly the end of the month, so the recommendation is to let go and leave the details in the hands of a benevolent universe.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is a new world for you, Leo, in a new year, and riding on a positive time of powerful change. Filled with the metaphor of leaving the past behind, you are seeing optimism and opportunity in everything. Relationships are active and the foundations of your life constructive. Only, you have to be as aware as you can be, step up to the plate and really commit to changes that you feel in your core. You are fulfilling your concept of service to the surrounding collective, and your spiritual health and even your good condition physically depends upon that. There is a way right now to really set yourself free, and that is to find the path that your soul purpose insists upon, and to put your feet upon that one and no other.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) You are entering into a period of meaningful change with the New Year, Virgo. This is an excellent time for you to get ahead, with career opportunities abounding. You are at play in the fields of the lord, and your actions count for greater progress in your ongoing makeover toward the more complete and well-balanced individual that you long for. You are also perhaps encountering an exciting yet basically unstable connection with intimate partners. This seeming drawback can be turned around when you see it as a chance to experiment and better learn what is going on inside you. Since your own spiritual evolution depends on understanding yourself at the deepest possible level, you will thereby have a better chance to continue to evolve in this and other areas of your life.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You have an interesting year ahead of you, Libra, beginning with an interesting month of January. You are making a fresh start with home and family concerns, and as a consequence within your own depths as well, including issues surrounding your psychological roots. The significant relationships in your life are in exciting flux, as they have been for the past year or more, and bring to you a form of intuitive knowledge that transcends the information that is available by more logical means. As you continue your arc of development in these areas, the new perspectives gained are extremely beneficial to your overall progress. You are making a strong stand for yourself and for your ability to connect with significant partners, and consequently with yourself at deep levels.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is an interesting to be alive, Scorpio, in the midst as you are of creative and transformative life situations. You are entirely serious regarding your commitment to get ahead, and recognizing that as well as bringing in the dollars, this involves the inner work that will bring you peace of mind. You continue to do battle with the demons of your past, in the form of old patterns of behavior stemming from early wounding that no longer serve you. The good news is that you can look ahead and see progress, and that in doing so you are heeding the call of your own spiritual evolution. Communication with your peers serves as an excellent outlet and allows you to come to a better understanding of yourself and your dealings with others.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) You are in a great space of personal evolution, Sagittarius, and only have to be concerned about going overboard with it. You are on a real high, swinging for the bleachers and you just might connect. Having gone through some recent changes, the significant relationships in your life have developed into an important and supportive area that serves to counterbalance in a positive way your current almost obsessive self-involvement. As you continue to go through your changes, there is a sense of stability and of structure with regard to inner work. This is a great benefit, as well. Now you only have to follow through on the course that you have set out for yourself.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) This is yet another month of your ongoing process of change, Capricorn, in your birthday time, as you enter a new phase with this new year. You have been in the pressure cooker of transformation all these past months, and are beginning to recognize the signposts of your journey forward. You are coming out ahead of where you started but you seem to have a long way still to go. This seems discouraging until you remind yourself of the great benefits that have already accrued in terms of self-knowledge and better recognition of what you need, at soul-level. Like the traveler on the mountain path, new vistas emerge as you gain each ridge, and a new viewpoint enables you to see still more upward reaches that you might yet achieve.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a time of creativity and of new beginnings, Aquarius, in this new year. As you come around the bend in ascending the mountain of your destiny, you are in an excellent position to dream new possibilities for yourself into being, cementing still further the hold on outer world success that you currently enjoy. Your creative self-expression is sizzling. You are blessed with focus also on dream imagination and inner work, so that you are in a good place for mystical output, and for contemplation. Although more challenges lie ahead, as you meditate on the changes and challenges of the past few months, you feel that can put them all behind you except for the positive results. You are gathering yourself to spring ahead with verve and vitality in the latter part of the month.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This is an interesting month for you, Pisces, and one of inner rather than outer priorities. You discover that you are currently preoccupied with concerns of home, family and tribe, however these play out in your life. You may be revamping your existing connections with family, or forging new ones, or perhaps it is your physical dwelling that you are dealing with in a constructive manner in this new year. These ties to your deep roots are also the basis for your sense of psychological security. Simultaneously you are strongly focusing on your future path, especially in the second half of the month. This also implies changes in  the way that you connect up with social groups that you favor. You benefit by working consciously to plan wisely for your next phase.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY

December  2012

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of December features Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Mercury is also still recovering from its recent retrograde, up to the time of the mid-December New Moon. Saturn strongly aspected Uranus at the time of the Solar Eclipse from the middle of last month that began the current lunation cycle, and that aspect, an inconjunct, continues into December, as Saturn begins to closely aspect Pluto as well by mid-month.

The Uranus-Pluto square, even though not quite as dramatically close as it was over the summer months, is therefore still very much with us as the year draws to a close; this collision of powerful outer planets is now augmented for this brief end-of-year period by the aspects to Saturn, which is similar to their activity during the height revolutionary sixties. Additionally, Uranus stations to direct motion on the very day of the December 13^th New Moon. Considering the joint aspects Uranus makes to both Pluto and to Saturn, we will likely witness the polarities of the present time continue and even become more insistent. All we can do is watch and wait, and try to stay calm, following the maxim that “whatever we resist persists;” and recognizing that the oppositional activity only increases the polarization.

Neptune in the first degree of Pisces is activated by the ongoing retrograde period of Mercury, now direct but still regaining its lost zodiacal longitude, and in crossing back into Sagittarius on December 10^th, squaring Neptune for the third time in this fall period. Neptune, antithetical to Saturn in its own way, as are the other two outer planets, remains in parallel with Saturn for the entire month. We have the conflict of over-idealization versus hard-nosed reality, but we may want to ask ourselves, which is the actual illusion?

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is still hanging around in the midst of these configurations as well, as we have been outlining in previous months. He remains in close semi-sextile with Uranus and caught up in the aspect from Saturn that kicked off this current cycle, plus hit by a forming square from Mercury at the time of the December 13^th New Moon. We are therefore continuing to study ourselves at deep levels, and attempting to move past our early conditioning and, indeed, our wounding, all through this time frame and especially in the first two weeks of the current month.

Jupiter is also prominent in the current mix of energies, since he squares Chiron increasing strength through the month of December, and on into mid-January, while at the time of the Last Quarter Moon of December 6^th being strongly aspected by the Sun, Moon and Pluto/Mars. This brings a touch of wild-eyed optimism to the first part of December, but this could switch to a more pessimistic take on things by the 21^st, when the Winter Solstice Sun in its entrance into Capricorn witnesses a perfect yod formation to Jupiter from Saturn and Pluto, implying a certain loss of faith, or at least an occasion over the period of time leading up to the Christmas holiday when our faith will be sorely tested.

Saturn with Pluto, even in a mild sextile, can be dire and perhaps even a bit drastic, as the capitalist world struggles to wriggle out of the trap that it has set for itself, and as we as individuals follow along on the basis of the same metaphor. As always, we each in our own way and on our individual timetables are striving for the light through this time of the shortest days of the year; the good news is that, just when things seem darkest, the pendulum shifts, the days grow longer, and we continue to journey up and over, following the spiral path of our destiny.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). It is a long road that has no turning, Aries. You have been through the fires of transformation and, lo, you have come through it all unscathed; only perhaps a little singed around the edges. You are discovering in the course of this monthly cycle that you are as a result a stronger stand for yourself in this world. As you begin to more confidently make your offering of that which is uniquely yours to give, you find that the rewards are plentiful, and that they are by nature of inner realms rather than of outer. These come to you through the physical, yet somehow tinged with a magical touch of the beyond so that they and you shimmer with a deeper meaning, and ultimately a more multi-dimensional sense of understanding.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is a powerful month for you, Taurus, and one in which the tug of war between self and other continues. You will encounter further lessons in intimacy as the month unfolds, and perhaps also find that your most significant intimate partner is actually yourself. As you allow yourself to move forward into a more idealized future, unencumbered by any dissenting opinions other than your own, you are fighting an important battle for freedom from doubt and for enjoying the benefits of connection without the drawbacks. Rather than externals, this has far more to do with internal matters; that is where the action is. As you strive for renewed understanding of your true situation you will also perhaps discover a door to further progress that you didn’t even know existed, until now.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). You are finding your niche, Gemini, and it involves others well as yourself, and finding the balance between. Since your ruler Mercury has been moving back and forth across the cusp of your relationship sector, your take on connection with significant others in your life is at issue in this current monthly timeframe, coming up for visions and revisions that are two or three layers deep. All the while your dharma has been on your mind, and now this issue of your unique contribution to the world has been revisited as Mercury has retrograded through your sector of soul purpose, health and day-to-day activities. It seems as though your future is distinctly calling, and that this prospect is different than anything you had in mind even as recently as few months ago.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) You are reinventing yourself right now, Cancer, finding your niche. A recent sense of responsibility regarding your creative output has given you the push you needed to come back to basics regarding who you really are. There have been mystical inputs as well; intimations from the cosmos that everything on the surface layers of your life constitutes a mere reflection of a deeper underlying reality. Your work in the world also provides surprising intuitional insights that incline you toward new directions quite suddenly at times. You are this month making a  strong stand for yourself as to how to fit the key of your personal contribution into the lock of the culture’s stuck places. This idea of benefiting the surrounding society as you walk your talk in the end benefits you as well.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is an important time of transition, Leo, at this changing of the guard as the old year winds down. As you continue the process of your arc of development and personal evolution that has taken you this far, your creativity is on the line – and greatly stimulated by the powerful configurations of this end-of-year time frame. You are exuberant about the prospect of a qualitatively different future than what you had until recently thought to be in the cards. You remain in the relatively reflective mode that was the hallmark of your previous month. You are dwelling on internal matters and using this meditation as a springboard to new vision that will eventually lead you to externalized action with a refreshingly different cast of mind than before this recent period of time began.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is an emotionally volatile month for you, Virgo. While you are coming at the outer world from an entirely optimistic and empowered standpoint, it’s a different story with hidden parts of your psyche where things are really stirring, far beneath the surface layers of your personality. As a result, this month you are coming into yourself in an entirely new way. You might also find that you are reexamining what makes relationship tick for you and where there are kinks to be worked through. Writing and discussing your experience is vital for you right now as you move forward into new directions of artistic self-expression. Lately you have been coming to the idea that in managing your priorities, personal growth is all that really matters, both now and for the future.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You have been shaken to the core, Libra, once more yet again, and are finding a new world to come back to. This is actually only as difficult as you make it. Your sense of self-worth is important, as always, and yet you are discovering in the course of this unfolding that it might depend more on subtle spiritual depths than you had previously given credit. Finance and material security are still on your mind, but the glitter has worn off compared with the true gold of what you can find in deep connection with others, and in exploring your own vast inside. Home and family concerns might put you through the wringer but soul-felt communication with like-minded fellow travelers will pull you back out again, and you will be the richer.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a somewhat chaotic time for you, Scorpio, with both a heightened sense of responsibility and an antithetical urge to explore without restrictions new emotional territory that has suddenly opened up. In trying to get to the heart of the matter, you are also experiencing a certain degree of confusion regarding who you are and what you are really up to. You feel the pressure of being stuck with nowhere to go but up and yet remain uncertain of how actualize your soul’s truest intention. This pressure cooker will eventually allow you to turn your coal into a more focused diamond body, but first you might have to pay some dues. The ultimate reward is worth the effort you must make to keep your head on straight in this difficult and transformative time.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This is the calm after the storm, Sagittarius. You have been through the wringer lately and if the trials that you have been through have taught you something regarding your deeper process then it might all have been worth it. At this point you are reconsidering just how to take that progression of evolutionary development forward to the next level. A steady, changing and somewhat challenging focus on how you do relationships with significant others in your life, growing as the month unfolds, is definitely one factor. You have an increased feeling of responsibility to your spiritual needs as you go through the ordinary business of day-to-day involvements. It helps to remember that the world is only as real as you make it, and responds dramatically to a shift of your attitude.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) This is yet another huge month for you, Capricorn. Although you are still sailing full steam ahead with career moves that continue to deliver the goods, you have lately come into awareness of a profound process that is operating deep within you, and that takes you further out of your comfort zone. You can escape by complying with an internal lust for change that has been building for months now. This is the sound of the universe gently – or perhaps at times suddenly – nudging you onto a different track altogether. What might eventually await you is very different future than the one that you thought you were headed for. This is only a problem if you refuse to go along with this cosmic mandate from your inner world, leading you onward.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a great time to be alive, Aquarius, and you are moving forward. You are rethinking your business connections to see what you can get out of them, but more importantly to find a way to incorporate a greater degree of personal creativity into the mix. Things are stirring deep inside you, and they are giving you a better handle on where you need to be heading than mental process alone can muster up, so it is vital that you tune in. Your dreams can remake your future at this crucial time, as you enter this powerful end-of-year moment.  Like the dreamer in a science fiction, you are the creator who is in the process of visioning a new personal world into being all around you.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This is an essentially positive time for you, Pisces, full of challenging and interesting possibilities. You are entering a new phase this month, and are feeling the pent-up energy to begin really moving forward. You are getting entirely serious about higher mind activity of some sort that does not necessarily have anything to do with school. This allows deep shifts in perspective. You are putting yourself out there, career-wise, but you must be careful not to neglect the demands of your inner world. Things go your way as long as you are prepared to make changes. While not entirely smooth sailing, this period of time has the key for you emerging as closer to your true self, the person that you came into this plane of existence in order to become.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY

November  2012

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of November features Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and two eclipses. The Solar Eclipse of mid-November is quite potent, triggering Uranus and Pluto yet again, with their attendant pressure toward personal transformation, and for the discovery of life-changing intuitional information emanating directly from the heart of the universe.  Mercury is also retrograde for most of November, beginning with its station on the 6^th, which is (perhaps) coincidentally also Election Day in the U.S. Since Mercury does not escape its retrograde shadow until December 14^th, for most of this month and into the next we can expect the usual symptoms of missed communications and mechanical breakdown, with also the opportunity to turn to the inside in meditative reflection. Mercury aspects Uranus as it stations this month, potentially inspiring further and even more profound epiphanies.

The Solar Eclipse and New Moon of Tuesday, November 13^th, takes place in the third decant of Scorpio, the Moon’s decant. As a culture, we are looking for new ways to nurture ourselves, while still dealing with the massive changes represented by the ongoing Uranus-Pluto square that lasts throughout this decade of the “Turbulent Teens.” Their square is highlighted by the configurations of this month and heats up once again in the spring for the third of seven exact hits, becoming closest by the middle of May. A few days after the American Thanksgiving, the Lunar Eclipse of Wednesday, November 28^th, makes yet another chime with these powerful outer planet energies, while Mars exactly conjuncts Pluto, making for a potentially quite intense holiday season.

Chiron has been a part of the configurations all summer long, and into this fall period, having been aspected by Uranus and Mars, and in the current month, by Mercury and Saturn. Chiron represents our essentially wounded nature and so these aspects are particularly apt in these fraught times. There is as well the poignant feeling of dislocation between our ideals and the hard reality that we face as a culture, and as individuals. At this vital juncture, if we want to move on with our lives we need to accept ourselves at the deepest levels and turn to truly face our pain. Chiron also represents the Shamanic path of inner realization. This movement runs orthogonal to the media blitz of advertising and thought formation. We win when we refuse to take the superficially easy but deeply costly route of going along in blind acceptance of consensus thinking.

Saturn, now in Scorpio, and coming into forming inconjunct aspect with Uranus, remains the elephant in the room, by its nature unmoving, yet caught in the crosshairs of radical transformation. Saturn represents the structure of society, a structure that is rapidly evolving as we near the end of 2012 and look ahead to the unknown future that lies beyond December. The more conservative elements of society, as well as each of our individual desires to hold back and preserve the status quo – symbolized by dour and conservative Saturn – is undergoing quite a shake-up all throughout this turbulent decade. Painful as it is to leave the past behind, we might as well go ahead with that immense step forward. We must somehow allow our ideals to triumph over our fears. Where we are headed as a global society there is no room for outmoded values that no longer work for the sake of everyone and for the sake of future generations.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is a season of getting down to the real nitty-gritty, Aries. You have been making connections with your own deep center all this past year, and by means of these intuitional leaps continuing to evolve greatly, both with sudden moves and through the slow attrition of discarded and rejected behavior. Now with the advent of the fall and the fading of the sunlight you find yourself voyaging even further into the dark unknown. The monsters there are scary but in time you will befriend them, using your mental powers, rather than to reject their most fearsome characteristics, to adjust your thoughts. Something inside you is urging you to take an important stand, and it is for yourself and no one else that you must advocate. This one’s for you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  Excitement is in the air for you, Taurus, and it feels electric. You have been energized by the recent Full Moon in your sign and now you are ready to play with tigers. The beasts that dwell inside you will do for a start, although it might be difficult to discern who is taming who. You are magnificently confronting old wounds that you can finally see represent not only the guardians of the gate to your spiritual evolution and of the pathway to your future but the actual doorway itself. Partners are also an important component of your journey, and help you to stay in touch with the wondrous world that you are still only just beginning to discover within the vast and yeasty confines of your very own mind and heart.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is a time of important contemplation, Gemini. Although it might seem like spinning your wheels, it is actually a vitally necessary task that you are engaged in this month, as you meditate on where you are going and on the friends that you are meeting up with along the way. You are rediscovering relationship with others around you, intimate partners and other connections also, and finding within that redefinition a clue to your own inner world, and as well to your own true pathway forward. There is a mystery at the heart of your turning and it is one that is best left unanalyzed. The inner wounded nature that you have been skillfully avoiding your entire adult life has been magically transformed into an ally in your search for wholeness.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) You have been overtaken by your own evolution, Cancer, and can only sit back and enjoy the ride. Brilliant future-oriented ideas are only one product of this deeply meditative time, as you open to intuitional truths that might elude a more logical mental grasp. The path before you evolves slowly in the midst of Mercury retrograde and with Saturn holding back the flow in your sector of creative self-expression. It feels a lot like stop and go, but it is really all part of your forward motion. Your relationship dynamic continues to transform apace, with a strong spiritual component as an important part of the mix. These and other poignant matters are the subject of your intense reflection as you take in the lessons of Saturn and Mercury.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) It’s a wild ride, Leo, but someone’s got to take it. Your travels, even if purely physical, are leading you inward rather than strictly out, and with Mercury turning retrograde this month your self-expression has a strong interior component as well. You do well to be journaling, especially since what most continues to amaze and confound you lies with delving into the secret motivations of yourself and others, and the associated unresolved residue of early trauma. The outer world is less fun; although optimistic regarding future expansion, dealing with the details can get you rather more bogged down than you bargained for. But there are lessons to be learned from all of the delays and digressions, and most particularly from the ongoing exploration of your own inner depths.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) this is a positive time for you, Virgo, with opportunity to expand your outer world repertoire and networking and financial possibilities. Your self-expression continues to morph along the lines for which your soul has long held intention. This month’s retrograde of your ruler Mercury implies that an important portion of your mind is settled into a more meditative agenda. Sounding your depths provides a rich stream of information of a very different kind, supporting your continuing quest to connect more fully with others around you. There is imaginative fantasy to be worked through, and perhaps some vestige of early trauma is gumming up the works as you relate. These issues benefit enormously from a considered approach that involves self-searching, fostering inner over outer connectivity.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) Your interior viewpoint is the most interesting one of all right now, Libra. You are riding high in the material plane, feeling the wave carry you that began with of last month’s New Moon in your sign with only a few issues of lack to contend with, but what is going on with here-and-now surface events is only a small part of your current story. The eclipses of this month are powerful for you and take you where you need to go. You are called to unlock the deeper mysteries of your existence and it can’t be done except in terms of soul-orientation. Although there are definitely trials to contend with, as you continue to transform at your very core, the universe is ever on your side, leading you down and through.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is an interesting month, Scorpio, a time of deep learning. From the time of the Full Moon in your opposite sign at the end of last month, you have been exploring your relationship potential from the inside out, seeking within yourself the true basis for partnership with others. You are concerned first and foremost with making a strong stand for yourself. With the advent of November’s powerful Solar Eclipse in your sign, you enter a period of reflection and dedication, trapped in your process with no way to escape or even a need to. You can take best advantage of this internal cast of mind by absorbing the lessons of this time period with relative grace, staying as open as you can to all your possibilities.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) You are getting clearer regarding what you really want, Sagittarius. It’s been a transformative journey for you all year long, and now you are beginning to see daylight as you traverse the midst of the tunnel. You are operating at this time half in and half out of the material world, with a large portion of your being surrendered to the darkness within you that upon closer examination glows with its own angel light. Although perhaps confusing on one level, on another you are filled with unearthly stamina that will eventually see you through. Your strength at this time comes from knowing well your inner purpose and choosing to go that direction, and to along the way comport yourself in accordance with this powerful intention.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) This is an energetic season, Capricorn. You are coming at the world from an idealistic stance and although in one way totally immersed in outer world concerns, you find yourself also drawn to a subtle and almost psychic awareness; a deeply intuitional knowledge that trumps mere logic. During the first portion of the month, as Mercury begins its retrograde, you are quietly taking all this in. The mid-month Solar Eclipse in your sector of future plans represents a moment to look ahead. As the month unfolds, it becomes a better and better time for you to vision new possibilities for yourself. The full realization is difficult to wrap your mind around: you can be anything that you want to be, as long as you take full account of the wisdom of your inner world.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a great time to be alive, Aquarius, and your creativity shows it. Your career moves are well-founded so that you seem quite at home in the world, and grounded in your outer-world pursuits.  Although more subtle, there is also a strong pull to the inside, just as there has been all year. With Mercury retrograde for almost the entire month, you are taken to a more meditative place where you might be able to profitably reflect on the vast scope of your inner world. Connection with others becomes a focal point for a non-local journey, a voyage of intimate discovery that eventually brings you back home to yourself in an entirely new and different way.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) Things are getting strange, Pisces, although somehow still sane. You are basically comfortable inside your own skin, and at home in the world around you, but there is an element that keeps intruding into your relatively peaceful existence with an alien shock that is simultaneously a shock of recognition. An important factor underlying your everyday behavior is coming more and more into the light as this epic year unfolds, and while you recognize the feelings that are engendered there, they have long been held away from the center of your awareness. This is a supremely meditative time, with Mercury in retrograde, and it makes sense to take advantage of the moment. You honor the flow of the cosmos, and yourself, when you give your interior walled-off places the attention and the acceptance that they seek.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

TRANSFORMATIONAL ASTROLOGY 

October  2012

by Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of October features Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Mars enters Sagittarius on Saturday, October 6^th, squaring Neptune as it does, while Saturn draws closer and closer in trine with the mystical numinousity of Neptune as the month gets underway, forming its exact connection as Saturn enters Scorpio on October 5^th. This first week of the month is therefore particularly fraught, confusing and shimmering with shape-shifting possibilities as unbridled illusion and even deliberately deceptive behavior take center stage.

This is the third month in a row that Uranus and Pluto have been prominent. The late Virgo New Moon from the middle of last month triggered their square just as it reached a second completion two days afterward, and then the September 29^th Full Moon conjuncted Uranus and squared Pluto. The radical transformation symbolized by the dynamic alignment of these two powerhouse planets, strongly present for us in this fall timeframe, caps the symbolic effects that we have been feeling all spring and summer. Much as in the violently revolutionary sixties, we are in a process of discarding what no longer works for us, both as individuals and as a society, although old and outworn habits obviously die hard.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer has been in the mix with the three outer planets all this time, being at roughly the same degree of Pisces as Pluto occupies in Capricorn and Uranus in Aries, indicating that the painful necessities we collectively face are very alive for us now, as we attempt to modify existing potential outcomes. Venus is opposite to Chiron during the first weekend of the month, and we may find at this time even greater poignancy in the dislocation between our ideals and the reality on the ground. We win when instead of turning away we face our pain and come to accept it as a neglected but valued part of ourselves, for it is only in this way that we become truly free of its grip on our lives.

With Saturn moving into Scorpio, a Water sign, and thereby coming into alignment with mystical Neptune in Pisces, the Water sign that Neptune rules, we are far more conscious of our emotional nature than we have been thus far in the yearly cycle. Since the Sun is coincidentally moving into Scorpio this month as well, we are in for quite a ride. We have the stability of the earth ruler Saturn holding us down to do our inner work, and the watery fuzziness of the Scorpio-Pisces pairing to pull us into spinning circles of passional whirlpools that could instead flood us out. As we strive for balance between the rocky shore and the hard emotions that, though difficult to deal with, still we must manage to surmount and withstand, we win by riding the wave to its utmost and possibly beneficial conclusion – standing as firm as we can, aided by everything that we can bring to bear and by embracing a maximum of faith in ourselves and in our process.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). Your roller-coaster ride continues, Aries. Just as you begin to find some answers, further questions emerge. Everything is mystical and vague; this could all be perceived as less than useful, but once you let go of your preconceptions and stay in beginner’s mind, you find it to be an extremely exciting time to be alive. As you recognize that you are voyaging further into wholeness, you can better enjoy the scenery flying past when refusing to engage in concerns regarding your ultimate destination. You may be suffering, but breakdown leads to breakthrough. Partners in your life are important now, and helpful in allowing you to make your stand, even when in seeming conflict. You might seem stuck at times but then again, that could be just another illusion as you continue your journey.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  Your world is turning, Taurus. A true feeling of spiritual connection is suddenly possible, while still not taking anything away from the achievement-orientation that puts you squarely within the mainstream of duty and financial reward. Only a gesture is needed, a figure-and-ground reversal of sensibility that while forcing nothing in any obvious way, changes everything. There is a unique destiny all your own that you currently participate in. You could encounter tremors within your psyche corresponding to ancient trauma coming to light, but these difficulties can be faced down with courage and with the application of effort. Partners in your life are helpful in their own way. While firmly standing their ground they are actually helping you to define what it is that you are truly after.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). You are in a good place, Gemini, as you continue attempting various approaches in order to find out what direction you need to go. Your optimism is flourishing, along with your strong creative output. If you have been doing your homework and saving up your good karma you have come to the cusp of decision on how to respond to changes that you feel tugging at your feet to move them on down the line. Service to your higher Self is service to everyone around you. Curve balls to existing plans could be disconcerting, or might be experiments on the part of your inner nature, trying to get the key to fit the lock. Depth researches that take you down below your conscious mind will form an all-important backdrop for everything that you say and do.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is simultaneously a dreamy and an active time, Cancer. Your career and private life are concurrently set in motion, as startling insights and unexpected revelations continue to pour out of an expanding cosmos to your inner eye. The effect of relationship awareness looms as a powerful and transformative influence. It is not so much the actions of others but rather your own in response that helps you gain from the experience of being with them. Your recognition of differing points of view – and even of the painful realizations that could also arise – allows you to tap into deeper layers of your core being. Play is serious and work is play for cosmic stakes. All your ups and downs are incredibly fruitful in opening you up to the perspective of your inner world.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) You find yourself at a unique crossroads, Leo. The times are ripe for change, as is becoming more and more apparent, perhaps to the point of desperation. You need a way to get over but the best and perhaps the only pathway that you can utilize is down and through. Philosophically grand gestures take you to surprising places that you never expected, while your ordinary world is suffused with light and filled with transformative energy. Your emotional depths speak important truths. What seems like limitation turns into something far richer and yet again more strange. These trials provide important lessons of great depth as you ride the wave of your future to an illogical conclusion. Home and family issues could open you up to a larger picture viewpoint once you make the necessary adjustments.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) You are going through a major alteration of identity, and even of self-expression, Virgo, but it’s stealth. In the grip of such far-reaching change, you cannot quite comprehend its full import. In fits and starts you are seeing into your own unrecognizable future, delving deep down inside yourself to find your way forward and through. There is mystification on the relationship front, and perhaps this is just the other side of the very same coin. Your values could be also subject to illusion, confusion, and ultimately, resolution. You are seeking to find yourself in others, and through serious communication attempts to discover and convey your own inner truth. In the end you might succeed, although the harbor that you sail into is a far different one than from where you started.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) Your future is calling, Libra, although it might not turn out to be the one that you had in mind as recently as a few short months ago. This remains a powerful time of inspiration and change as core issues continue to arise. You have plenty of energy in any case for forging ahead, in this, your birthday time of the year. Your hopes and plans have been partly based on idealized dreaming and partly on hard-nosed reality. Adjustments are required before you can spiritually prosper. In this fall season this is more true than ever, as you face unexpected challenges together with surprising and even startling revelations. This has the blessing for you of allowing you to become even more aware of what you are experiencing, in terms of both outer event and inner truth.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You are in an essentially good place right now, Scorpio, with your mentality fixed on the future as you explore your inner depths. A difficult time has its great advantages in terms of lessons learned. You are coming into yourself in a new way, and you might find that you will never be quite the same as when you started. There is progress to be found with your endeavors, but it is progress of a rare and different kind. The key to all your researches is greater awareness of the power of your inner world to guide your process. You are searching for applied madness, a way to ground your wildest fantasies of creativity and of service into a functional beauty of practicality that can more fully be shared with others around you.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) The world beckons to you softly, Sagittarius. You are full of verve and vitality, but there has to be a strong mystical component to all that you say and do in order for you to feel truly satisfied. This is so because you are intent on inner rather than outer priorities. Finances remain a pivot point, especially when their fluctuations can come to be seen as symbolic rather than literal, as just an especially poignant part of the dream that you and everyone else around you inhabits. You could be actively energized in relationship right now, but even this area reflects back to your own ideal of spiritual transformation. What you are primarily concerned with is the transmutation of your values and of your sense of psychological security. Everything else must take second place.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) The drum beat of your transformation continues, Capricorn, in the midst of a season of change that has only increased in intensity over recent months. Difficulties might be able to be surmounted with a change in attitude. As you forge your way forward and deal with obstacles that you encounter, you are attuned to intimations referencing dimensions of experience beyond the purely physical plane, and you are beginning to take these far more seriously. You are essentially functioning in an optimistic and energetic manner as you explore the more profound truth of what makes sense for you as mission statement going forward. You are serving yourself by serving others and it opens you up conceptually to exciting and novel worlds to conquer, from the inside out.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a thoughtful period of time for you, Aquarius.  Although you are in many ways coming into your own, the question lingers of what you are attempting to engender. As much as you are engaged in practicality, a spirit of enquiry and of personal development remains paramount. Information out of your deeper Self can no longer be ignored, and provides glimpses of a further reality that takes you beyond the world of simplistic manifestation. This is a doorway to which there is no key, a mystery that cannot be entirely solved, although the angst and pain that you might sometimes encounter are clues. This exploration is all-important, and helps to explain how the difficulties that you encounter can lead in the end to riches of an internal and non-obvious kind.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This may be a time of trial, Pisces, but it is also one of renewed hope and of ultimate possibility. Although you have spent months in self-examination, you are now exploring your depths in a different way than before. Limitation brings important lessons. Perhaps, along the path, you might encounter issues of old wounds that have never been fully healed. This trauma could stem from your early years, but it remains palpably present for you, and will continue to haunt you and possibly even sabotage your best efforts unless and until you can confront the past with a fresh attitude. Acceptance of yourself at all levels is key. Then, you must be brave and willing to go wherever your process takes you. Like a persistent diver you will be able to eventually bring up treasure.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs and a variety of astrology reports are available on his website. Henry also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.