February 2012

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of February features Mars, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus and Neptune. The red planet is now retrograde in Virgo, and similar to a Mercury retrograde period in this present condition of Mars, usually representing aggressive and ego-oriented urges, there is instead a tendency for going internal and mulling over our normal actions and activities rather than just doing them. Saturn, also retrograde as of February 7^th, loosely aspects Mars as it stations and closely aspects Neptune, so that the contrast between life in the physical plane, represented by Saturn, and life in the multifarious inter-dimensional spaces beyond the purely physical, represented by Neptune, now in its own sign of Pisces after the third, is very much upon us now, adding to the meditative posture symbolized by a more internalized Mars.

Meanwhile the revolutionary energy of Uranus is also very much with us as this second month of 2012 gets underway. Uranus, quite as much as Neptune antithetical to Saturn, therefore takes us out of ourselves and our surface concerns.  The recent New Moon from the last ten days of the previous month in Uranus’ own sign of Aquarius closely aspected both Uranus and Jupiter, whose combination brings out the rebel in us all, and also brings forward the potential for surprising events to unfold that change our basic set of perceptions of the world around us.

February 14^th, Valentine’s Day, when everyone is out buying chocolates and flowers, coincides with the Last Quarter Moon and with Venus square to Pluto, and therefore this year will represent more of a mixed blessing. We will be searching under the covers of our motivation with regard to relationships as well as patterns of outward aggression, and along with the joyful and celebrity sides of sexuality and romance the various shadow sides – jealousy or factors of power and control – could easily emerge. This is especially true since Chiron is also prominent. We might be able to bring to consciousness certain aspects of our earlier wounding that, just when we least expect them, continue to crop up in our present day situations.

As the cycle begun in late January with the Aquarius New Moon concludes, the one beginning with the February 21^st New Moon in early Pisces is powerful as well in that it trips off the same triumvirate of outer planet energies, namely Neptune/Chiron in Pisces, Uranus in Aries and Jupiter in Taurus. Brilliant ideas continue to be the norm rather than the exception, with the extra added benefit of Neptune’s compassion thrown in. Venus is still flirting with both Pluto and Mars so the relationship dynamic remains a bit dicey, but there will be plenty to think about as we look more closely into events in the physical plane, seeking to discern the inner soul-level meaning.

All through this month, these cosmic forces are at work on us, helping us surmount the fences that have been holding us back for far too long from taking our rightful place at the forefront of our own spiritual evolution. This month represents a fitting introduction to the strongly transformational period of time that is shaping up for late spring, when Uranus and Pluto make their exact pass, the first of seven, on the square aspect that has been building between them these last several years. We will be older and definitely wiser on the other side of this powerful spring and summer.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). Chaos and confusion can yet breed wisdom, Aries. This is a time of back-and-forth movement rather than straight ahead. Although you are full of energy in some ways, you find yourself pausing in mid-flight to reflect on where you are going. This is in fact an excellent time to look to the inside for answers to questions you perhaps until recently didn’t know to ask. There has been building a strongly intuitional level within you, and it serves you well in this time of inquiry. Some facets of your worldview might be crumbling but there is much to be gained as you open to inner guidance. You suspect there is more to your life than you have been letting on; and you are attempting to suss out what is really going on here.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  You are operating in a hazily optimistic and future-oriented mode these days, Taurus, and seeing just how far that can take you. You are yet simultaneously very focused on your work in the world and bent on taking big chances in order to maintain your momentum there. In some ways like those cartoon characters that are dueling right off the edge of the cliff, in one way you are feeling frisky and free, but only when you choose not to look down. In another part of yourself you might be discontent, and not only a little, over how far you are removed from everyday concerns. But since it’s working for you, you do not have to dissect what exactly reality consists of, whether it is on or off that cloud; it merely is.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). Everyone around you is joining hands, Gemini, although not necessarily in the physical. You are tempted to shout “alle alle outsinfree” just like in the childhood game. A mystical nature overcomes you at times so that the other-dimensionality of the outer universe is no longer just a rumor. You are, from the security of a deeply felt place of inner refuge, discovering new worlds not so much to conquer as to enliven and even to embrace. All this would be wonderful were it not for the nagging thought that you must somehow still take care of real-world business. This is not as much of a problem as you think since you are simultaneously occupying at least two realities at once. Try clapping your hands three times and softly whispering “make it so.”

CANCER (June 21-July 20) There is no time like the present, Cancer. Some form of spiritual evolution awaits and the moment to act is getting near to hand. Transformation is truly in the air for you these days and you have as well a deeply felt intuitional basis to draw upon that gives you needed guidance. You have been building up to taking some huge leap of faith that will propel you forward and, yet, still you hesitate to make the move. As you mull over your situation in the midst of this powerful month you are able to recognize that while prudent caution is a healthy reaction, you might need to look more closely. If it is only fear that is holding you back you have no real choice but to forge ahead.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) You are particularly attuned to partnership these days, Leo, and may be taking a break from feeling as though it is all up to you. While working it as a team, you are yet very capable as well of subtly taking charge when the situation calls for it, but in so doing you are obeying, rather than commanding, the forces of nature that are flaring up like solar flames all around you. You feel mystically inspired and yet more fully present. It is one thing to get a sense of direction from your own single mind and quite another to get that same feeling in concert with another, but you are managing to pull off both of these feats without even breaking a sweat or flexing an obvious muscle.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) You are working the mystery, Virgo. This month you are acknowledging more fully the powerful road of self-development that you have been on lately, and taking it another step further into conscious choices. There are still knots to unravel. You are getting deliberate about making a spiritual pilgrimage to the center of these conundrums and conducting a town-hall meeting within your own mind and heart on how best to accomplish this daring feat. Others are important now and they shake you out of your winter slumber and urge you to get on with what you started. These significant persons in your life are there not only as fellow conspirators but also to remind you to open up to all that you are and to all that you can become.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) The season of surprises has not ended, Libra. If anything your flirtation has become even more intense with unexpected offerings on the part of the cosmos that surrounds and nourishes you. Sudden moves in response are almost second nature by now. You are called to service and to more vibrant self-expression, but not from the standpoint of merely ego involvement. The universe is affording you an opportunity these days to make radical changes in your life and in the way that you do relationship with others, and to make these in line with inner promptings that you can no longer ignore; these take you into better alignment with your highest intention for yourself, or with at least as much of that soul-purpose as you are currently able to acknowledge.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Your world is out of joint, Scorpio, and only you know the way out of the trap that has been set for you. The nature of these times, and of your deeply felt intuitional responses, requires a fundamental shift. Where some of this will play out: home and family concerns, and finding your emotional sense of security within yourself. The good news is that your release is fully within your own grasp when you have the necessary fortitude. The bad news is that it does not come easily or entirely without pain. Of course you stand to lose some part of your normal waking identity in order to gain that which will outlast this least part of yourself, and hides you from who at base you truly are.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) It’s a long road that has no turning, Sagittarius, and you are beginning to find yours. You are also finding your footing in the midst of difficult and often troubling times, buoyed by the notion that with enough faith you can move mountains. Life may be quite a roller-coaster ride at present and it is truly a difficult passage from where you are now to what you must eventually become. You operate on this thin rope both for the sake of the collective and for yours alone. Being possessed of a fount of brilliant ideas and imaginings now, you are nevertheless in an excellent position to make vast headway over the next few weeks and months. The result is that you will hardly recognize yourself come the summer, and maybe that could be an acceptable goal.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) It’s a paradox and a conundrum, Capricorn. Your future is coming toward you now at express-train speed and yet you still feel stuck. You are energized around career and public acclaim and at the same time feeling like you need to re-think everything in the light of an orthogonally oriented process that brings in the mystical. Then too, part of the problem is the mud that clogs up your pathway forward which may in fact be calcified from old ways of thought and of action that have long outlived their usefulness but linger on. The road ahead is arduous and yet something is nevertheless destabilizing your comfort zone and calling you to venture onward. What is it? And how do you burst through the barriers and get with it?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) Another day is dawning, Aquarius, and this time there’s plenty of heat but not quite enough light. A new beginning for you in this your birthday time of the year turns out to be something of a mixed blessing, since although you have the impulse to forge ahead right now and make the most of it, you might find yourself hesitating in your forward momentum. You could blame it on the complexity of what you are trying to accomplish. There is an amalgam that you seek made of outer necessity and inner desire, of cheerful compliance with the powers that be and yet soul-level attunement to what makes your heart sing – and you won’t be satisfied with substitutes. Compassion for yourself and for the state of the world demands no less.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) Dream on, Pisces, and recognize that your dreams might easily morph into so-called reality and… vice-versa.  This is definitely a time to look more closely at your life in three dimensions even as a surge of energy takes you quite beyond them. Your resources, including financial ones, have been fluctuating for weeks now, with surprising pay-offs as well as shortfalls so that there is no discernable trend. Now in this present month the drama of it all fades to less importance compared to finding out why your basic sense of security has been so affected by what is after all only a concept. Relationship is another area that is subject to a more intense scrutiny than usual as you mentally meander through surface events in search of the deeper – and more truly vital – meaning.
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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

January Astrology

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of January features Mercury, Jupiter, Chiron, Uranus and Pluto. As we enter another radically transformative year, these powerful symbols are very much focalized. The New Moon from the last week of December strongly aspected these four outer planets, continuing the trend from the fall, so that the significant archetypal energies of Zeus/Jupiter, lord of death and radical transformation/ Pluto, plus the Wounded Healer/Chiron and Prometheus or the Trickster/Uranus are very much in evidence in our individual lives, and in the life of the surrounding collective. The New Moon in early Capricorn was conjunct Pluto as well. What this looks like will depend on us, but we might imagine further surprises and opportunities for transformational growth and enlightenment, as our inner wounding becomes both more drastically activated also as a consequence more apparent to our conscious thought process.

We could add dreamy Neptune as well as stern and unforgiving Saturn to the above list as the year gets underway.  Saturn is stationing in early February in close trine with Neptune, while Neptune is conjunct both to Chiron and also to the January 22^nd New Moon. Neptune is also changing signs, entering its own sign of Pisces in that same early February time frame. Thus, all the outer planets are extremely active in this important year of 2012.

This year is likely to be very intense and is of course made even more so by the mythology that has risen up in our culture surrounding these numbers of 2012, we have an opportunity to tune in and really think about where we are going and why, both in our individual lives and in terms of the surrounding collective. It is well to remember that our every thought and action has a ripple effect throughout the increasingly larger concentric circles of societal connection that surround us: friends and family, community, state or province, country, world and cosmos.

With Uranus and Pluto emphasized at the very beginning of the year, and completing the first exact hit of their square aspect in June, this year is bound to be an extremely potent one, picking up where the intensity of 2011 left off and taking even further this past summer’s revolutionary energy for necessary change. We can work with this energy, promoting radical transformation as needed in our own lives, and in the life of the society that surrounds us. We win when we choose to be part of the solution rather than remaining outside of the flow of history and increasingly irrelevant to it.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is a powerful month for you Aries, heading into a potent New Year when many things in your life will alter, and when business as usual is out the window in favor of right livelihood. As long as you can keep your wits about you then your luck is definitely flowing. You begin the year well and how you end is strictly up to you and what more really can you ask? A potentially feisty ride awaits toward month’s end and into February but your days of difficulty and struggle are limited as long as you adhere to the simple maxim of allowing grace to enter. You win by seeing deeply enough into what is actually happening so as to discern the direction that the universe is asking you to go, and then choosing to go that way.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is a time of big action, Taurus, and of imagination in motion. It’s a tightrope walk in which you strive to meet yourself gracefully in many different simultaneous ways, and you are operating without a net. You are all set to experience life in the largest possible dimension and to gain from your experience a truly big-picture viewpoint – as long as you refuse to look down. Whether you consider yourself ready or you don’t, your actions are expanding out into the surrounding universe and making not just a ripple but a stir. You are serving to further society and to enable your own self to take a powerful stand; but it must be a spiritual stand in order for your balancing act to remain on target.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). The hits just keep on coming, Gemini. The series of transformations that you have been engaged in for many months won’t let up in 2012, quite the contrary. Your changes have taken a new turn recently. You are making yet another evolutionary leap in this present month that will take you further along the path that you all along knew you needed to follow. This time your vision really has legs for a new future plan more closely aligned with soul-purpose. A whole new world will open up for you as this period unfolds. It will not be without struggle, and it might not look pretty, but there is a rich spiritual component associated and that’s enough to take you a long, long way down your road.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is the truly the first month of the rest of your life, Cancer. Many opportunities are presenting themselves to you in this New Year. You are still engaged in where your life is taking you, and still surprised at some the new directions that have been opening up, so that in many ways it seems as though not much has changed. And yet there is a qualitative difference now. You are starting to get on board with the notion that your life is moving through a distinct and startling evolution and that you cannot by any stretch return to where you once were. This is more than a little scary, but exhilarating also and happening no matter how hard you try to resist. It’s refreshing to realize that in fact it really is all up to you.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) The plot is thickening, Leo. The time has come, as the Walrus said, to talk of many things; and these are things not normally covered in your pre-existing worldview. A new year and a new mandate await you. You might normally feel as if you are the center of your own universe, apart from the rest of the society that surrounds you, but lately, not so much. You are seeing the world and your role in it with new eyes. You feel more compelled to join up somehow, and although still somewhat on your own terms, enter into a mode of service to the surrounding collective. Even more, through the trials and challenges of this sense of mission you will come to understand your stance much more clearly – and ultimately yourself.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) The wave of metamorphosis keeps on coming, Virgo. This is for you a continued season of spiritual sustenance and deep transformation. Your worldview is changing and you along with it, so that you find that you are reinventing yourself. A moving target is difficult to squarely hit and there are also volatile emotions accompanying this shift that so that everything could be up, down and all around for quite a while. You can perhaps no longer subscribe to any non-functional relationship patterns that survive to the present day. Inter-personal connections suffer, but then eventually improve. The important thing is that you are on your way. The path that is opening up before you now is profound, life-altering and scary, but you are on the road to freedom and nothing can stop you now.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are digging deep this month, Libra. The psychological basis for your root security needs and as well the fall-out from scenes on the home and family front are very much up for you right now, including new relationship initiatives that are both exciting and destabilizing all at the very same time. Surprising inter-personal developments could lead to drama or increased tension as the month unfolds. There could be ancient patterns of behavior stemming from early childhood trauma which come up for you and that are finally ready to be acknowledged and integrated. Spiritual solutions are waiting in the wings. Your challenge is to respond as gracefully as possible to events as they arise, just taking them in, without getting hooked, and yet without turning your gaze away.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is still a time of deep reflection, Scorpio, even though your vision for the future is very active now. These ideas are taking you mentally where you need to go. You are seeking a better fit with an internal soul purpose that is becoming clearer to you by the day. Be advised, however, that it might take you a lot longer to get the actual walking of your talk into true alignment with your fledgling concept. You could be struggling somewhat at this time as well with ancient issues. You are engaged in discovering your true self-concept and making of your fundamental service orientation an act of conscious sharing rather than one of knee-jerk reaction to early conditioning and to feelings of lack. When you discipline yourself to watch and wait, you will find the right direction to allow your feet to travel.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) It’s a tricky business now, Sagittarius, as you enter the New Year. This is a time of putting security needs uppermost and yet it is not financial security that you truly seek. There is also the stability and the deep psychological security that comes from knowing that you are on the path dictated by soul-purpose and that no matter how far away you remain from actually articulating that inner vision, you have done your best to do so. To this end, you have cosmic forces coming to your aid. You are ripe for significant progress there. You are undoubtedly dealing with financial fluctuations and issues with resources, but they take a back seat compared to finding your true pathway forward, the road that is aligned with soul purpose, which is the place to put your full attention.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) Your month and year kicks off with a bang, Capricorn. You are both inspired and destabilized by the archetypal currents swirling about you now, in this your birthday time of the year. There is excitement at leaving behind in some ways all traces of the past – although something important also remains – so that it is a bit dizzying. With your ruler Saturn beginning to slow down, stationing to retrograde motion next month, and Mars also after the New Moon of January 22^nd, you might find yourself operating in stop-and-go mode, with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake, simultaneously. There is wisdom in both approaches. To maximize happiness and avoid misery you must relax into the paradox, taking something of the new and unknown as normal while with another part of your psyche remaining skeptical and holding back.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is strangely evocative period of time for you, Aquarius. You are in the midst of intense transformation right now, but little of it is visible, as this takes place in the deeper parts of your psyche, somewhat cloudy to your conscious mind. You are spiritually connected and dream-world oriented, so that it might be best to extend your closest attention to what your inner world reveals to you in the form of dreams and visions. You become more available to friends and colleagues after the 22^nd, but the influence of these unconscious parts of yourself remains. Never underestimate their power. Your real-world approach will be forever altered by the changes that are brewing now beneath the surface, and will shortly make themselves manifest at all levels of your being and in your outer-world presence also.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This is an essentially optimistic period, Pisces. As the New Year gets underway, you are looking ahead to a brighter future for yourself; one that more closely matches your true heart’s desire. There are implications also for significant relationships that you cherish, as every part of your life settles into a new blueprint for future activity. You could continue to feel fluctuations in finances, and old patterns of behavior might be triggered and demand to be dealt with, but even these issues can be exciting as well as scary, the harbingers of important life changes that you are more than ready to make. It’s all in the perspective that you bring. You win when you are able to put your trust in the surrounding cosmos and take comfort in the realization that time, like a river, never stops moving forward.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

December  Astrology 2011

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of December features Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Chiron and Uranus. This is another quite powerful month as we transition into what promises to be an intense year. Mercury is of course retrograde making this month a meditative and introspective time as well. Mercury slips backwards through the Zodiac until its December 13^th station, after which it remains in its retrograde shadow, gradually easing, until the new year. Jupiter also changes direction this month, on Christmas Day, a spiritual event having some significance as Jupiter reverses direction directly in line with both Chiron, the Wounded Healer and with revolutionary Uranus. And Uranus itself, residing on the Aries point and aspected by the New Moon and Solar Eclipse from the end of last month, stations as well to direct motion on December 9^th. Mars is featured in the First Quarter Moon from the very beginning of the month, the late night of December 1^st, when it forms an exact T-square with the Sun and Moon, increasing the tension of what is an already volatile configuration.

This means at a minimum that surprises will continue as the month unfolds. The nature of Uranus is a two-edged sword, not so easy to handle if your goal is to simply maintain the status quo ante, without change and in long-lasting stasis. If your goal is change – and life itself requires change – Uranus can be your great friend, producing revolutionary movement and new ideas just when these ideas are the most sorely needed. The Uranus-Pluto square is in somewhat of a hibernation period now, but will come roaring back in June of 2012, the first of five exact conjunctions that will come to characterize the nature of this tumultuous decade.

And Jupiter is featured also. When Mercury stations mid-month in early Sagittarius, it does so while aspecting Jupiter. Mercury will also be in square with Chiron and in trine with Uranus. In this spiritually enriched time of the year, Chiron, or the Wounded Healer, brings yet another side of mystical dimension to this subtle and numinous series of configurations. Since both Jupiter and Uranus are aspected also, and are in slow motion, coming to their respective stations, their combination is productive and powerful. Uranus with Jupiter indicates the potential for new ideas to come into being, and these ideas are likely to connect us in some way to inner wounding, reminding us once again that our biggest obstacle is ourselves, and that by accepting and then integrating our flaws at the deepest level we are taking our first step toward transcending them.

The powerful December 10^th Lunar Eclipse highlights both Mars and Venus, so that all forms of relationship, especially between men and women, are also brought to the fore at this time. Since Mars reaches its square with the eclipse degree exactly in line with the Capricorn New Moon of Saturday, December 24^th, Christmas Eve, this is likely to be a very spiritually active season as we head into 2012. The chart for the New Year is also quite interesting, emphasizing Pluto just as Mercury is finally escaping its retrograde shadow. We are in for more surprises and we are likely to witness much more revolutionary ardor in the year ahead. In the final analysis this reflects evolutionary activity on the part of humanity as a whole that is taking us out of our cultural infancy.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is a thoughtful month for you, Aries, a time of increasing awareness, and you do well to acknowledge it. There is a time for everything, and right now, during the retrograde of Mercury in your sector o­­­­­­f higher mind, your focus is on furthering your understanding of the events of your life rather than the events themselves. Powerful mental and psychic tools are available for this task; your intuition is strong right now, perhaps even stronger than you know, and so also is the subtle awareness of both your strengths and your potential shortcomings. “Don’t push the river” is the standard advice for this period of time, rather let the river push itself. And, we would add, do your best to attempt to see the broader outline of its movement.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  Welcome to your internal depths, Taurus. This is not at all related to the pleasures of the physical world that you normally negotiate with such ease, and also might come unexpectedly, perhaps almost totally out of the blue, but you are entering into a deeply meditative period of time. The New Moon eclipse from last month packs a soft punch and motivates you into greater connection with others, while the Wounded Healer, Chiron, is also strongly activated as visionary ideals continue to call. This takes you to important realizations that are difficult but ultimately rewarding.  Your possibilities now involve inner work fully as much as outer. You are beginning to recognize that for you right now “the path with heart,” as Castaneda puts it, is the only path that is truly worth following.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is a time of meditation for you, Gemini, more than one of direct action. This is a huge factor for you to recognize because you are also able to detect the operation of powerful energies that could be interpreted as an impetus for action. You are reviewing the impact of partnership in your life, including business partnerships, and your action orientation might feel as though it has a strong interior and essentially domestic component. The strongest activity will be on the inside, and visionary in its nature. You are exploring new territory within the vast and yeasty inner reaches of your private heart space, and this is a very important endeavor –one that takes all you’ve got – even as you forge new ground as well with significant relationships.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is an interesting end-of-year period for you, Cancer. You continue to encounter a rather dizzying array of options opening up for you, so that you are tempted to entirely abandon previous foundations, but then again, not. Something in you also holds steady. Your motto right now is service, both to others and to the demands of your own inner journey that is definitely leading you somewhere important, if you could only begin to guess where that truly is. There are secrets to be discovered as you progress along the path that the cosmos is showing you the way toward, and although almost pre-ordained there is adventure in the journeying. You will not get there with your mind alone however; you win when you equally follow the dictates of your heart.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is a time of great insight and change, Leo, even as you revel in the here and now. You are a little full of yourself, but in a good way. This end-of-year period is a spiritual as well as a material season for you, one in which your fundamental understanding is sure to take unexpected leaps. You are coming into who you really are, getting to know yourself in some ways for the very first time, at least in terms of your present level of personal evolution. While feeling the great good fortune of how you are currently situated regarding career, which will only improve in 2012, you are still far from satisfied. You are instead using that realization as a springboard for further growth and development where it really counts.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is a powerful and profound month for you Virgo. It’s a very different kind of end-of-year season with your ruler Mercury retrograde in your sector of home and family, one in which you might find yourself reviewing and re-visioning your connections with important others in your life, especially within familial units and tribe. Understanding unexpectantly dawns when you can hold yourself open to receive it. You are fully engaged right now in sussing out the inner meaning of ancient habitual issues of relationship that have perhaps tripped you up in the past. Instant epiphany can suddenly appear regarding these patterns – so it pays to be ready for that moment when it arrives, or as ready as you can be.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This is once again a powerful month for you, Libra. You are wrestling with issues that are difficult to pin down and define, but which definitely have to do with forging new ground with important partners. You are intent on finding a basis for security that, while it enables you to merge with others and allow for their point of view, is not dependent on that. Communication is key, both in getting yourself across to others and in taking in their information, which ultimately serves to enhance your own process of awareness and growth. You are seeking innovative ways to combine your various possibilities and even finding them. Home life and concepts of intimacy are transformed along the way especially when you can free yourself from any sense of expectation regarding outcome.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a time of great ferment in your life, Scorpio, and yet a moment of calm can also prevail. Your future is coming at you like an express train and the ultimate form remains unknown, but through it all you are continuing to pave the road toward your eventual realignment. This is definitely a time of consolidation of previous gains. Epiphanies abound regarding finding your true calling in this world. Relationship is one key to this time period and the resources at your disposal are another, and you are getting clear that it is vital to bridge the gap between them. You have been to the mountain and now are bent on incorporating the lessons learned into a more graceful and conscious act of sharing yourself with others.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) It is a relatively quiet and reflective period that you are in now, Sagittarius, as you continue to examine your life. This is the calm after the storm or preceding its next stage. You are feeling comfortable in your skin right now but very aware also of changes that you still need to make. Your identity crisis is looming but so are creative solutions that remove you from that bind.  Partnership remains important and becomes even more so as the month wears on. You are forging new territory both with your own self-definition and regarding issues of personal security that you are perhaps wishing would simply go away. Something is however calling you to face these issues and to possess the faith in yourself to regard this task as, rather than a drawback, an opportunity.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) This is an important month for you, Capricorn, in the midst of an important year. You are approaching critical mass for changes and developments that you have envisioned for yourself – and for the world around you as you consider your place within it – that you have not quite been able to put across although getting increasingly close. You may be less than fully satisfied with your progress, and so might profit from this month of deliberation. This a time of research, with Mercury retrograde in your sector of dream imagination and unconscious material. As you continue to take in what is going on both within you and outside of yourself you are storing up the information to eventually use as a springboard for further and more massive change after the end of the year.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is an exciting month for visioning your possibilities, Aquarius, although not necessarily for acting on that vision. Mercury is retrograde in your sector of future plans, making this a better time for research than for activity – except for furthering what has already been previously conceived. With Neptune activated in your sign as well, your basic attitude is more than just a bit nebulous and you might very well be confused. Still this moment of enhanced vision steers you toward your ultimate destination; you only have to let go of expectations. You are finding your way to a new world that is opening up before you perhaps as soon as next year, and it is likely to be so new and so different that you will hardly recognize yourself.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) You are learning to live with paradox this month, Pisces. There’s a conundrum here to explore; you currently find yourself out in the world full-force, yet you are somehow not satisfied with purely worldly rewards and accolades. As your values fluctuate along with your finances you are seeking something more. You are in some ways quite inner now, exploring the underside of all your motivation, the secret doorway in the floor of your mind that leads to the mystery at the heart of everything. It is no surprise that this secret place within you holds greater fascination than what is laughingly called the “real” world. The only question is why the material rater than the mystical holds so much sway in the eyes of the world at large.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

November 2011
Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of November features Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Mercury. One reason that Mercury is highlighted this month is that the planet of communication is conjunct Venus and parallel to Pluto at the time of the Scorpio New Moon from the end of last month that characterizes this current monthly cycle. Mercury is conjunct Venus nearly all month long before turning retrograde on the 23^rd, one day before another exciting New Moon that is also a Solar Eclipse. The Mercury Retrograde period that is initiated then and lasts through the entire month of December – when you take the Mercury retrograde shadow period into account – will have the usual characteristics of missed communication and mechanical breakdown as we turn inward for this holiday season in order to better understand our own nature and the nature of the culture in which we find ourselves an active participant.

At the beginning of November and at the First Quarter Moon on November 2^nd, the Sun and Mars form a bi-quintile yod to Uranus, while Uranus is in turn quintile to the Moon’s South Node, marking in the heavens four points of a five-pointed star. This brings a powerful dose of the intuitional and surprising energy of Uranus into the picture, since this month’s lunations aspect Uranus as well, while Pluto remains square.

Neptune is also highlighted in this month’s configurations. The Sun at the time of the Scorpio New Moon is parallel while by the time of First Quarter Moon at the beginning of the month, taking place on Wednesday, November 2^nd, Mars has begun to form his opposition to Neptune, which lasts through the following week. Mars with Neptune means that we take on a chameleon-like sympathetic coloration from our surroundings, while idealism flourishes along with a certain degree of sensitivity and spaciness that is more in harmony with other-dimensional realities than with life in the physical plane.

With Pluto also aspected by this month’s lunations as well as it remains in square with Uranus, and with Jupiter exactly trine Pluto at the time of the Scorpio New Moon that begins the month, we are feeling the energy of all three outer planets as we make our way toward this important end-of-year time. As the fall continues to unfold and the winter months loom, there is a natural drawing in of the extraverted energy of the summer so that these powerful harbingers of societal change, which eminent Astrologer Dane Rudhyar called “the ambassadors of the galaxy,” bring to us the great gift of becoming more closely in tune with spiritual values as we evolve. Their prominence now is letting us know that change is upon us, and that we have within our hands the power to reshape our lives as we see fit in order to make a better world. When we enlarge our mind’s gaze to take into account these numinous presences then in spite of everything we have the courage and the confidence to keep faith with ourselves at the deepest possible level, and to continue to allow the future unfold just as it needs to.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is a big year for change, Aries, and your remarkable evolution continues into the present month. You are feeling subtle vibes for an exciting fresh start in all areas of your life, especially the necessary spiritual component that ties together and gives meaning to the remainder of your journey. You have only to beware of taking yourself too seriously or the cosmic connection too lightly. This is a climactic fall season for you and it must be noted that your life at this time cannot be fully understood by the same mind set that that has gotten you to this point, and that has prevailed within your thinking up to now. New mental perspectives are required transcending previous ones, and these incorporate Spirit as a significant component in the equation.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is a positive and also a perhaps difficult time for you, Taurus, when you find yourself deepening your search for meaningful solutions. There is a creative tension in your process now, as the journey of your transformation continues. This is potentially a very confusing time for you although a richly rewarding one as well. You are all for changes that have been building and are no longer able to be put off. In assessing a noticeable sea change in life direction, you discover that it is an essentially spiritual mission that you are engaged in, so that you do not get anywhere without relying on some form of cosmic consciousness. You are also very aware of significant partners now, and see them as helpers in finding your own way through.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is yet another powerful month for you, Gemini. You are finding new wrinkles on old issues that illuminate relationships of all kinds and how they manifest. This goes far beyond the simple surface layers of your psyche. A new sense of comfort and security is becoming possible for you; one that redefines your very self-expression and that does not lean on any one’s opinion but your own. This affects everything, especially relationship in your life, as well as home and family commitments and the way you actualize in the public sphere including career agendas and future plans. The circumstances that surround your present journey have the ultimate effect of kindling within you the next phase of your ongoing encounter with Spirit, working itself out in your life.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) Your synapses are sizzling, Cancer. Work is play for high stakes and proceeds in stop-and-go fashion with more go than stop. This makes your career a gloriously unknown quantity right now that could be exciting as well as edgy. You are simultaneously feeling the energy of Pluto in your partnership sector whispering uncertainty there as well. A spiritual necessity engages you or else confuses with shifting perceptions while relations with significant others and even with yourself are all in flux. This might sound more than a bit scary but it feels like a celebration, and you win when you go with your gut instincts and party on. If in the process you accomplish some serious soul-purpose along the way so much the better.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) Surprising realizations continue to abound, Leo. You are focused this month on home and family and as well your security needs in general. During another big month of changes, the realization is beginning to dawn upon you that your psychological well-being is entirely tied to the holistic grace of the earthly environment and the numinous starry cosmos combined; that success in the world is a reflection of the integration of the innermost depths of your being as much as it is found in the more easily accessible surface layers; and that your own happiness depends on the happiness of all others. The possible activities arising out of these realizations are many and varied, but some form of exploit seems to be called for. Your task is to find the one that is uniquely your own.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) It’s another powerful month for you, Virgo, as you continue to explore your unique path toward spiritual evolution. You are re-inventing yourself in this summer and fall period and it’s scary but also exciting and life-changing when you can get beyond your fear. In this regard, communication is key. Not only will you be able to benefit from the perspectives of others around you, but in sharing your fears, you will lesson their subjective impact, since voicing them makes them less poignant. Another potential trap of this particular time is the possibility for idealization or even illusion concerning significant relationships in your life. You might need to resort to inner guidance – and your own currently potent sense of intuition – in order to make it through without a loss of faith.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This month is a special time for you, Libra. You are likely to be fortunate now with finances, or at least have no problem getting by, but the more important question to ask is what you might be able to create from the gift provided by these resources. Your values are shifting as you explore new perspectives on both outer and inner work, with the one feeding off the other. Meanwhile, partnership with others around you is an important and enlightening although fitfully transformative factor. Security in this area seems elusive, but you are in the process of forming a stronger basis for your own emotional security in terms of greater self-reliance and a deeper connection to the beneficence of the universe that serves to guide you onward, even as it puzzles you.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This month is a significant one for you, Scorpio, both spiritually and physically. Riding the wave of the New Moon in your sign from the previous end of the month, you have loads of energy for both work and play, and find yourself in fortunate circumstances for new realizations to dawn and for personal growth in general. You have in fact so many chances coming at you that you might easily feel confused by your multi-form possibilities. You are making a powerful intuitional connection between where you are right now and where you more and more find yourself heading. It is vitally important that you pay close attention to these inner impulses – foreign as they might perhaps seem to the ways of thought stemming from your prior conditioning.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This is a powerful time of the year for you Sagittarius, what with your birthday looming and a Solar eclipse in your sign during the last full week of the month. The energy of early November is also strong, bringing you riches of a spiritual and intuitional kind. You are changing with the shifting tides of this climactic year, and might have difficulty in finding your footing without a firm reliance on Spirit inside you. The trick for you right now is to remain open to what is being offered without judging that gift in any way. The material world might fail you but what never will is that sense of cosmic connection that you are lately developing more and more as you explore the fullest range of your possibilities.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) You are refining your approach, Capricorn. This month is when you take your can-do approach a step further, making an art out of the achievement-orientation that is your hallmark. You are actively visioning a novel and qualitatively different future for yourself, one involving a good dose of the spiritual along with the mental and physical techniques that have been so successful for you in terms of past results. You are beginning to recognize that while the latter is consistent with what consensus thinking calls for, and beyond which has no greater expectation, it can lead you right into a dead end. This recently emerging expansion of your potential includes a melding of heart and mind, inner and outer. You are taking a courageous stand for yourself based firmly on internally felt values of home, family and tribe.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) You are intent on making a difference, Aquarius, but on your own timing, and in your own way. This month you are strong on career performance and professionalism, getting yourself out there into the world and communicating powerfully with your peers. As you do, you find that you are more and more tuned to the subtle vibrations of your inner cosmos as well to the outer. You come at the world more whole when you take all these operational levels of your psyche into full consideration. Like the proverbial iceberg, almost everything is underneath the surface, so that what you can learn from within might indeed prove startling. There are angels in the woodwork waiting their chance to come out and play, only the game is for real and the stakes are high.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) You are at something of a standstill, Pisces, but it is a creative one. While you explore new perspectives on where your life might be taking you, this time around, you connect more fully with yourself at deep levels and allow grater scope to the concept of how you define success. You are engaged also in fighting interior demons as you go, or perhaps you wind up befriending them in the process of getting more comfortable with the vast and yeasty spaces of your inner world. Communicating your deepest and most profound truth is powerful for you now, and unlocks layers of mystery as you settle in for the winter. Like the caterpillar in chrysalis you are preparing your cocoon and like the butterfly you will eventually emerge, but transformed.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

Transformational Astrology

October 2011

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of October features Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, plus Chiron. This is a powerful month for change, based on the Libra New Moon from the end of September that conjoined Mercury and formed a T-square with Uranus and Pluto. We are urged to transform, in ourselves and in our thinking, like it or not, and whether we think that we are ready for it or not, and we will eventually come to see the advantages of moving forward thus with our lives.

Mercury is also prominent in this month’s configurations, since it almost exactly opposes Uranus at the time of the New Moon and is also exactly parallel with Uranus. Visionary ideas and startling epiphanies could well come to light over the course of this month’s cycle, while a series of surprising turns of events is also more than likely with their consequent opportunities for enlightenment. The intelligence that we receive in this way, rather than being dismissed as illogical, might need to be allowed to absorb in a kind of spiritual osmosis whereby this unexpected and powerful information can be allowed settle, via an act of cosmic grace, into our very being.

Saturn is also strongly configured in this month’s lunations, being in parallel and conjunct Venus at the time of the New Moon, and is also in parallel with Chiron. Saturn is also conjunct the Sun and opposed by the Moon at the time of the Full Moon on the October 11^th. Saturn with Chiron brings up once more, as it did last month also, the wound of misplaced authority. This is therefore a time when we question whether the authority figures that influence us in our adult lives are in fact acting in our own best interest. Our fears in this regard are based on early childhood trauma with parental authority that we found not fully functional. By a process of introspection we come to accept outside authority as in fact beneficial as well as suspect. When Saturn comes up it is not necessarily negative. Although we are facing inherent limitations in what we are about, and taking on a conservative thrust of mind, we need also to acknowledge that limitation is an important part of life and that the intelligent conservation of resources and of time and money might turn out to be crucial to our survival in this pivotal decade.

Uranus and Pluto are the big news this month; still within close orb of their square, and that square is powerfully triggered and highlighted by the Libra New Moon that guides the unfolding events of this month’s cycle. We feel the evolutionary pull toward an unknown future, and this is of course scary. But choosing to move forward nevertheless remains safer than continuing as we are, since we are essentially moving toward the true purpose of our Higher Selves. We are tempted to resist this evolutionary pull; the familiar is always more comforting than the unknown. We must however recognize what would be in our actual best long-term interest, and this enables us to have the courage to go ahead. We go stumbling and slow, or as singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan puts it – fumbling towards ecstasy. We honor our own best interest but only in fits and starts, not as consistently as we would like. However we do it and we benefit from accepting what is.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). This is a powerful time for you, Aries, when you will be making a major move toward integration. The wheel is still very much in spin; transformational energies that have been coming down this past year or more are just getting started, and your life from now on will never be entirely the same. These changes may take years yet to complete, but you actually find yourself at the beginning of a kind of plateau now, a place to stand while you reflect on recent developments. Partly as a result of the turmoil, your creative self-expression runs high, and moves in unlikely new directions. This month is also a time when you are extremely focused on significant partners in your life as an adjunct to discovering your own wholeness.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  You are getting serious, Taurus. This is the month when you make an important internal connection between what you do and what you believe. There is a way that everyday life is being made into something rich and strange, to fit in with how you have been seeing the world around you. Health concerns and fitness programs also correspond to this more elevated and intuitive viewpoint which is recently more of a dedicated ideal for you. The challenges and surprises of this time are ether coincidental or else meaningful, and it is by accepting the latter idea that you rock your world entirely. Partners could also come into the picture in a big way after the mid-month Full Moon, and might prove to be extremely helpful in pointing your own way forward.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This is a big month for self-development, Gemini, a time when you are walking your individual walk, and yet by that act you are led to examine and clarify your talk as well, and the collective impulse that engenders your expanding philosophy that yet does not correspond to consensus thinking. Your vision for your future has never been clearer or more urgent, although it is perhaps difficult at times to accept because uniquely yours. The strictures of society are very much with you these days, paradoxically both as exemplar and as something to resist. It’s a heady mix of energies that swirl about you now, and the only way through is to consult your innermost angel guides. They are subtly steering you in the direction that you have all along somehow known to be your own.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is a powerful month for you, Cancer, and for the evolutionary arc of your development. You are feeling excited and inspired to be moving forward with career plans that continue to shift and modify on a daily basis, while at the core of your being you remain true to yourself and to your tendency to hide away from the world at large. The question is how to pursue these very different agendas, and do justice to each one, without making yourself crazy in the process. The answer might lie in attempting to discern how they interact and feed off each other. When deeply felt, your outer world participation will fulfill your inner goals, and in terms of career, only the path with heart will satisfy you now, for public or for private considerations.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is an interesting month for both spiritual and mental progress, Leo. Although these twin modalities are not often linked they can indeed be one and the same. You are possessed by a fierce and competitive drive for knowledge, and by the realization that knowledge is power. But between the concepts of power over and the power of self-transcendence there is an obvious choice, and it is one to which you are increasingly attuned. Your communication comes fast and furious at times or else goes silent as you move toward the inside to dwell on the responsibility to remain as true as possible to your principles, as you can presently discern them. Through all of this you are gradually coming into better alignment between what you believe and what you actually do.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) You are feeling the rush, Virgo. There is a sudden influx of energy in your life lately, which is a beautiful blessing. The blaze of glory is only somewhat shadowed by your own internal demons, an important part of the thorough-going transformation that you still find yourself in the midst of. This includes a radical redefinition of your self-concept and your most basic values. The solution is to trust inner wisdom, which appears as wild-eyed intuitional information from your deep inner core. Life certainly throws you a few curve balls lately. Like a roller-coaster rider you could be thrown off at the turn. But if you can manage to hang on, there is more power residing in these strange places within you than your rational mind can possibly even imagine.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This is truly the first month of the rest of your life, Libra. There have been many challenging events over the past year and therefore many changes also to absorb as you begin another birthday year amidst a radically transforming social order. Partnering with others has taken a new turn as a result of your own rapidly shifting perspectives. You could be seeking a better blend of inner and outer concerns, a greater intrinsic security that stems from meeting your own needs first and foremost. There also comes to your aid the helpful interaction of close partners at this time as well but in a way that does not take away from your own presence. It’s a tightrope balancing act between being there for another while asserting your own independence, but it’s one that you’ve been training for.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a tempestuous month for progress, Scorpio, although it is of a unique kind that might be hardly recognizable as progress in the eyes of the world.  You are more active in inner realms than outer, although truly the inner feeds the outer. Your perspective is rapidly shifting on your day-to-day life and on your sense of purpose. Spirit calls you to action, and the only conceivable response is “yes,” but you will no doubt come to your own version of that affirmation in your own manner and in your own time. It’s a great time for journaling and for meditation on your condition.  You are full of somewhat undirected energy and yet intent on establishing for yourself a new beachhead in a changing world.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This is a revitalizing time for you, Sagittarius, and attitude is all-important. Your idealized concept of a future life that you can believe in has never been as fully present to you as it is right now. The cosmos is inviting you to put aside cynicism and despair, and to embrace the possibility of positive change in a way that exceeds previous high-water marks. Just go for it. You must also be aware that in the course of actualizing your powerful vision there will be inevitably chaos, confusion and uncertainty, just as is always the case with any new conception. Your task is therefore to witness everything that happens just as it is, without needing to editorialize from the limited standpoint of your logical mind, which knows after all only half of the story, at most.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) Your career and professional life is a powerful force for you right now, Capricorn, and you are no doubt reveling in it. Achievement in the eyes of the world really calls to you, but your true assignment lies with internal changes that you are still very much in the midst of. These will ultimately transform your self-concept and your world along with it, since the one reflects the other. This idea does not affect your actions so much as your attitude toward them. Once you detach and see your viewpoint as your own creation things become much easier. Achievement is effortless when not freighted down with extraneous judgments from consensus thinking, and you can relax and simply trust in the beneficence of the universe to sustain you, no matter what.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) You are making your way through to a new sense of freedom, Aquarius, and in the process redefining your very identity. You are also recharging your perspective on life in general. Everything that you have thought and known up to now is subject to change, and sometimes surprisingly rapid change. You are searching for a way into the future that allows you breathing room, and even though this is currently unfolding for you, you might resist novel approaches there and quail at these radically different locks on the doors of your destiny. As you attempt to find the keys to fit these new locks, your core center is activated, as well as the true goals of your Higher Self and of your purpose going forward.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) Your personal evolution takes a growth spurt this month, Pisces.  If it sometimes feels as though your process places you squarely in the path of an oncoming train it might be the train of your destiny coming to call on you, that serves you even as it shocks you into greater wakefulness. Your sense of basic security is threatened because you can’t go back mentally to what no longer anymore exists, and this leaves you somewhat helpless in the face of too rapid and too drastic change. In the end it is your connections to others that will pull you through. In plurality lies power. You are supported by an emerging social order that is being born in the wake of your own transformation – as much as anyone’s.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

Transformational Astrology

September 2011

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of September features Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, plus Chiron.   Mercury is also still in its retrograde shadow for the first third of the month. Chiron is highlighted being aspected by the Sun at the time of both the New Moon and the Full Moon two weeks later. It is also powerfully aspected throughout the month by a strong and difficult connection from Saturn. Saturn with Chiron asks us to take seriously the dark places within us, and to seek greater responsibility within ourselves for dealing with these dark places. It is also possible for authority issues to come to the fore, perhaps as carry-overs from experiences of questionable parenting during our formative years.

Uranus and Pluto are also in the astrological news again, as they have been for the past several months. Their intense and climactic square – echoing the turbulent sixties – is not getting closer, rather it is slightly fading in its strength over the fall and winter season coming up. However, these two powerhouse outer planets are still within 2 ½ degrees of a perfect square for the remainder of the month. They are also triggered by the Virgo and the Libra New Moons that just preceded and end the current month. Additionally, Pluto stations on September 16^th only 2 degrees away from its square with Uranus. This summer has been a hotbed of change, with headlines are full of the violent revolutionary activities and reactions to events that Pluto with Uranus implies. Western civilization, indeed the entire world society, is shifting mightily. In our individual lives too we are being asked to transform ourselves to be more in line with our ideals.

Speaking of ideals, these are in part symbolized by Neptune, which shares with Uranus and Pluto a prominent although far less noticeable place in this month’s configurations. This is because the New Moon opposes Neptune, currently residing in the last degrees of Aquarius, with Jupiter in quintile to it also, and because Mercury opposes Neptune briefly during the first week of September as it moves toward its re-entrance into Virgo late on September 8^th, a few days before the tenth anniversary of 9-11. During this entire time there might be a touch of deception in the air, which also masquerades as idealism, and vice-versa; sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. The Quarter Moon occurring the Sunday before this tenth anniversary of the big transformational event represented by 9-11, on the 4^th, is also likely to be somewhat contentious. Therefore, these first two weeks of September constitute a very tricky time period when synchronicities and intimations of cosmic forces in action are more likely than not, and when sudden epiphanies are more than possible.  It is a good time as always to keep our heads on straight, or as straight as we are able to, and to watch and wait for better answers to our dilemmas – or at least for better questions.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). You are still in the midst of transformation, Aries, and it only grows more profound over time. You are fully exploring your own path these days, attempting to discern how and why you can handle that in concert with society’s somewhat contradictory goals and strictures. Meanwhile, and especially this month, you are responding to concepts of service to others and to the surrounding collective that seem to emanate directly from your higher self. You are called to greater participation in the life of your community, with the understanding that partnership goes far toward establishing yourself in a way that benefits both societal and individual needs. You are striving now to both belong to something larger than yourself and to flourish in your own unique individuality.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  You are this month coming into a profound redefinition of your own identity, Taurus. This is of course a culmination of the many-faceted phases that have led you to this moment in time, and is yet in some ways an entirely new departure. Your changing sense of self corresponds to changes in your worldview and also to the extent that you take your mission in this context more seriously – a feeling of life purpose that is connected more to intuition than to consensus thinking or even to rationality.  You are in a naturally fortunate space right now, where all sorts of things come relatively easily, and important opportunity presents itself. You benefit by remaining as open as you can to all your possibilities in order that you truly rise to this occasion.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). You are attuning to your inner depths, Gemini, and contrary to popular belief, there are no real dragons to be found in these uncharted waters. This is a big month for more thoroughly finding yourself in the context of family or tribe, and for redefinition generally. You are also taking a good long look at largely dysfunctional patterns arising out of the distant past but which still have the power to trip you up in this current era. By examining these details through the lens of intuition they lose their power to so strongly affect you, and you are enabled to form new agendas going forward. By Full Moon time you will be returning is some important sense to your roots – and you will know the place for the first time.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is a month of transition, Cancer, as you head toward a more sober-minded assessment of the reality of your enterprises. You have lately been exploring new wrinkles in the arc of your personal development, taking a good hard look at yourself from the inside out, and all this thoughtful work has paid off in terms of increased acceptance of where you find yourself within this important cycle of self-development. Your evolving partnership dynamic forms the backdrop of what you are currently up to, as you seek a more thorough grounding – but not of the usual material variety that consensus thinking would dictate. An important balance point is reached mid-month, giving you a graceful pause before the potential intensity for you of the Fall Equinox and the month’s final week.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) You are entering upon yet another powerful month, Leo. This time the foreground subject matter is formed by your values and the resources at your disposal, within the context of continuing shifts in perspective leading you further along the thread of your own personal evolution. Your finances have been fluctuating lately – and perhaps even something of a mystery – but all that begins to change with the oncoming fall season. Perhaps more important, your financial picture is only one way of looking at the transformation that you have been through, to the extent that they almost don’t even mater anymore, just counters in the game of what must be given over to one sidelined part of existence, while the real life of your mind and Spirit flows on independently.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is a powerful time of new beginnings for you Virgo. You are only just now starting to emerge from the adventures in consciousness of the previous cycle, one that has taken you to your depths and back out again. Now, your energy is up, and partnership is paramount as you exercise in a practical way the information that you have gained. It might also be that old patterns of relationship come back to haunt you in the present monthly cycle, but if so, it is for the purpose of recognizing and moving beyond them. You are hitting your stride, and although you are less superficially brash than you were even as recently as a month ago, you are coming at the world with greater depth – and more true confidence.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are deeply meditative, Libra. Having been in an increasingly introspective space over the course of these past few weeks, you are plunging even further into the dark waters of your inner world. This is useful as well as temporary, so it benefits you to make the most of it. There is a time and place for everything, and right now, yours is internal. Your dreams are quite real to you, and your intuition provides better answers than outer events can show you regarding questions you had perhaps forgotten to ask. By mid-month the cocoon will begin to shred and by month’s end you will be once more out in the world, but with important soul gains that you have made over the course of this fertile period.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a powerful time to set intentions, Scorpio. The recent New Moon in your sector of future plans and societal connection has set the stage and now it is up to you to inhabit the scene and make it come alive. It is also becoming obvious that you can’t really get there entirely independently, so that you could potentially be forced to compromise somewhat with your famous tendency to go it alone. It is a delicate tightrope walk between self and other that you are performing now. You must make allowance for the help of important partners, perhaps even for joint ventures, while still applying the unique sense of your pathway forward that only you can bring. Spirit will guide you, to the extent that you will let it.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) The beat for personal evolution accelerates in the present month, Sagittarius. You are energized by your ongoing penetrating presence on the world stage – your work in the world – and actively seeking a more complete sense of mission in life that more closely reflects your true self. Service is your motto now and you are getting better and better about actualizing it. Your values are shifting as you wage your struggle for better internal connection with yourself and ultimately, therefore, with others. You may also be getting more adept at dealing with old patterns that arise to trip you up from the dark places that underlie your logical surface mentality. If such issues arise, they can be mitigated by a concerted effort of recognition and acceptance of these hidden layers of your psyche.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) The rules of the road are changing beneath your feet and before your very eyes, Capricorn. You continue to be faced with a thorough-going personal evolution that is difficult to negotiate, but then so is the rest of the surrounding collective. Since you are more attuned than many to the needs and shifting values of the society at large, you are more profoundly affected by the challenges there. Your ruler, Saturn, still placed in your tenth sector of authority and career activation, calls for your active participation but the increasingly poignant question is exactly how that looks. As your perspective shifts, and field and ground exchange positions, you are seeking your own sense of personal authority, independent of the strictures of a collapsing societal worldview that no longer serves you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a fascinating and perhaps difficult time of increasing understanding and renewed subliminal struggle, Aquarius. You are coming at life more from your heart than from your head, and you could discover that it is only your heart that will serve you now in what you are really intending. You are called to a new form of intimacy with others and even with yourself. The going gets tougher so that you find you have to dig the well a little deeper as you recognize more clearly the need to discover the direction in which to get going. The changes and challenges of this climactic year seem to sum themselves up into one or two major epiphanies for you right now, and the question becomes how to act on them.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19), This is in some ways a thoughtful and introverted month for you, Pisces, although there is simultaneously a push for greater partnership sharing and intimacy. Even as you reach out more strongly to others around you, you are reserving a large allocation of your energy for introspection and reflection. With your ruler Neptune moving backwards into your sector of dream imagination, you are going internal, in-dwelling within your own private world and continuing in your own way the reflective energy of the Mercury retrograde period that for everyone else is just ending. Although logically paradoxical, this all makes sense in the larger scheme of things. You have to know yourself at the deepest possible level in order that you truly know and are available for others.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

August 2011

by Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of August features once again the powerfully transformative energies of the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, plus a Mercury retrograde period that accentuates the thoughtful and meditative nature of this important mid-summer time frame. The Leo New Moon that began this most recent Sun-Moon cycle in the ending weekend of July makes aspects to both Neptune and to Pluto, a yod formation, while continuing to emphasize the powerful and intensely close Uranus-Pluto square by also trining Uranus. Venus is conjunct the New Moon and closely trines Uranus, plus making strong aspects to Chiron and Pluto as well, so that our relationship energy will tend to be all over the map, with surprising and profound developments on all fronts.

When Mercury turns retrograde on August 2^nd, it is in the beginning degrees of Virgo, directly opposite Neptune, making for a three-week period of the retrograde that will be more confused and mystical than usual. As Mercury drifts back into Leo, it will also eventually make a sesqui-yod to Uranus and Pluto, formed by two sesqui-quadrate aspects to each, and thus emphasizing once more the strong aspect between them. This perfects just as Mercury changes to direct motion on the 26^th, so that the few days proceeding and following the Virgo New Moon of the 28^th will be a particularly dicey time. Mercury leaves its retrograde shadow by September 9^th.

This will be a supremely important and transformative as well as surprisingly insightful month, when many things in our lives could alter or begin to alter. This is because the Uranus-Pluto square – the primary outer planet collision that will become the hallmark for this turbulent decade – is still quite close to exact, being only a little more than a degree off, and is also aspected by both the New Moon of this month and the one at its end, which takes place on the 28^th, at 5 degrees of Virgo, almost exactly trine to Pluto and inconjunct to Uranus.

Neptune too is a very potent energy in these August skies. Mercury remains opposed for the first two weeks of the month, bringing the mystical and nebulous nature of this otherworldly energy directly into the mix surrounding Mercury’s retrograde. At each lunation phase as well, the other personal planets Mars and Venus also make aspects to Neptune, as well as to Uranus and Pluto, thereby emphasizing all three. We’re in for a very interesting ride as we head into the fall season.

In all this there is opportunity as well as challenge, since we badly need to let go of the dead and dying past, of those unnecessary parts of ourselves that have outlived their usefulness and that are in effect holding us back from becoming a truer representation of the people that we need to be. The transformative powers of these outer planets are intended to help us by giving us the chance to transcend our former selves. We need to keep our heads on straight, or as straight as is humanly possible, in order not to miss that chance when it comes around.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). You are still heading over the waterfall in a bucket, Aries, but at least you are beginning to get used to it by now. Another powerful month for you brings mixed blessings of difficult but transformative energy. This is a contemplative rather than an action-oriented period of time, with Mercury retrograde in your self-expression sector. The pace of conceptual change accelerates but the action slows and the enormous pressure will not fully release until September. There are manic as well as down moments but the experience will in any case be enlightening. Surprises abound. Picking up the pieces and continuing to try to make sense of everything brings its rewards, eventually, as you begin to discern that different place where your life is now heading.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  Your life is a fluttering tapestry these days, Taurus, and the tapestry is in profound transition. What you want to be and do in the world depends more and more on how you see and appreciate yourself at center. You are in an important process of stripping away what doesn’t fit. Your sense of family is potent now, and also your sense of who you really are at the very core of your being. You inhabit these inner places more than outer ones. Deep within, you sense the turning wheels that signal a changing of the guard. Your world view might need to shift to accommodate these coming to you and through you, stemming from the innermost part of yourself.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). Your transformation continues, Gemini, and even grows in its pace, although the time for concentrated action is delayed until at least the middle of the following month. Spiritual epiphanies provide occasions for greater intimacy. Your fullest potential is not yet realized, although the concept of what you are striving for is beginning to unfold during the course of this thoughtful and challenging present cycle. Communication with friends and loved ones is vital for you now, and helps you to better define your own position. Home and family could also be transforming in some way over the course of this important month. You are coming on strong but in invisible rather than mundane realms, as you speak your most basic truth, from your heart.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) You are redefining your values this month, Cancer, and your feeling for what it means to be alive on this earth. Current events have rocked your world, including your feelings toward family and tribe. Significant relationships in your life are also subject to abrupt alteration. What was a steady reliance on a way of life that you could always count on seems far less a sure thing and the only career factor that shines forth for you is the need for continual and sometimes even drastic change. This does not necessarily imply a new career or even a new job, but perhaps an entirely different way of looking at the existing one. You might be in the process of asking yourself to what extent does your career and professional life serve your soul development, rather than the reverse.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) These are exciting and even magical times for you, Leo, when you are coming on strong, and when also everything in your life is subject to dramatic adjustment. You have been inhabiting your world from an entirely compassionate place lately and this continues, even as you drive for career success and for a more powerful presence in your surrounding milieu.  Surprising epiphanies abound and lead you to a very different way of perceiving and believing. You are also morphing in your concept of what you want to be when you grow up. In your heart of hearts you are very sure that all this is leading up to something truly great and fundamentally transforming; the question now is what. The answers will come over time, and from within.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) You are moving to the inside this month, Virgo. With your ruler Mercury running backward, a profound meditative sense overtakes you in which you are dreaming your life into new being. As you revision your possibilities over the course of this important monthly cycle, you are tending to let everything else in your life shut down in favor of inner development. Sudden epiphanies are more than likely, especially regarding old patterns of relating to others that no longer serve you. You will emerge from this tunnel of time ready to re-enter the battle with a refreshed viewpoint; older in experience and wiser in years compared to where you started.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are voyaging into the unknown, Libra, although it is getting more familiar all the time. August is an interesting month, in some ways a continuation and in some ways a departure. You might have a difficult patch to get through over the first week or so, but the positive side is that circumstances will provide you with much food for thought and with plenty of impetus to keep moving forward. As you drift toward mid-month you are visioning your possibilities. You are in the process of forging a new life direction for yourself and in it is good to keep firmly in mind that this is your most important product. Your creativity is calling and it will let nothing, not even you, stand in its way

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a summer of metamorphosis, Scorpio. You are gradually drifting toward a new vision for yourself and your world and it begins with redefining your worldview. The changes might come at times rapidly and at times more slowly but they are definitely rolling and with the inevitability of a slow-moving freight train.  You benefit from framing everything into the largest possible picture. Your work in the world, perhaps entering a new phase, is also bound to be affected, as you navigate turbulent waters that do not allow you to see clearly, perhaps not until almost the middle of September. In the meantime watch and wait, and seize your chances when they present themselves.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) An interesting year thus far is about to get even more interesting, Sagittarius. Your worldview is likely to undergo further visions and revisions, or perhaps a more thorough-going transformation, during the course of this month’s cycle, ultimately leading you to a better understanding of what makes you tick at soul-level. Deep reflective spaces open up that connect with your sense of mission in this lifetime. Although your ebullient nature makes it at times more possible to do outer work than inner, the convoluted and potentially confusing events of this month tend to pertain to the internal. You seek to be of true service to others but before you can be fully present in that role you must first become your own advocate in being of true service to yourself.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) It’s a hard road you’re traveling these days, Capricorn, but it might be even harder to refuse the challenge and attempt to avoid any issues that continue to come up. You could be feeling a bit lost at sea as you struggle to find your way in an alien world where the rules of the game keep rewriting themselves. Your changes are in fact only just beginning, as difficult as that might be to imagine, and this monthly cycle provides one more chapter in your on-going saga, and rather a contemplative one at that. Your attempts at thinking yourself out of your dilemma, while admirable, will only take you halfway there. Sooner or later, and perhaps by the end of summer, you will have to jump in with both feet.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) You are at an interesting cross-road, Aquarius. You are contemplating eternity in the specifics of day-to-day life on this planet and exercises in partnership interaction. Everything is fuzzy and vague, and yet somehow brings you closer to understanding yourself at the core. You are getting used to the notion that relationship can be fun even if you fail to commit yourself to any one course of action.  By mid-month you will have found a dozen ways to see the bigger picture and the amazing fact is that all of them have a certain degree of validity. It’s an excellent time to dwell in the paradox and to renew your vow never to push the river. It takes you at the very least until mid-September to even begin to sort things out.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19), It’s getting to that point, Pisces. You are feeling compelled to find out what it takes to be all that you can be. Your future is calling, and you’re doing the research. This could involve taking another look at partnerships in your life, how they help or hinder the arc of your own development, and could also have implications for refining your concept of where you are in your life right now versus where you need to be. Ideas continue to pour into your brain, and your resistance to them is slowly beginning to melt away. The time for action has not yet arrived, for this month is mainly one of preparation. That time is fast approaching however and then you’re headed over the waterslide.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

Transformational Astrology

July 2011

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of July focuses on the powerful New Moon eclipse at the beginning of the month plus once again the important T-square of outer planets Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. The New Moon squares Saturn, now returned to direct motion after its June 12th station. Saturn thus emphasized is bringing its restrictive and yet constructive energy to the table of the changes promoted by Uranus-Pluto for one last monthly cycle before the T-square fades. The extreme polarization of our times – strongly symbolized by the Saturn leg of the T-square – is likely to continue through these summer months but will lessen markedly in September. Since in contrast the Uranus-Pluto square reaches the one-degree mark this month and stays close for the next several, we will gradually find that a more purely transformative thrust begins to take hold, fading slightly over the late fall and winter, to emerge in its greatest intensity yet by June of 2012. We therefore will see even further evidence than we have thus far of the massive transformation still to come begin to show itself over these climactic summer months. Does this mean that in the words that Bob Dylan famously penned nearly 50 years ago, the old guard will be forced to “get out of the [new road] if [they] can’t lend [their] hand,” that the times indeed are “a-changin’” ? Time will tell but it is certainly beginning to appear that some form of his prophetic vision will indeed once again be the case as was the case in the tumultuous decade of the sixties that this current one reflects.

The intense changes of our world will continue to manifest on a more personal level as well. The planetoid Chiron, termed in modern Western Astrology “the Wounded Healer,” is also strongly invoked by the Solar Eclipse of July 1^st. The eclipse Sun and Moon trine it; Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto strongly aspect it, while Saturn and Mercury form a bi-quintile Yod to Chiron. Since an eclipse is good at bringing things to greater conscious awareness, we might expect that that hidden traumas of all kinds will become more apparent to us. So also will the knee-jerk reactions and dysfunctional behavior patterns that stem from such deep woundings, and our task when these dark places within us do surface is to remain in conscious contact with our emotions while putting at least a temporary hold on our reactivity. Only by accepting every part of our human inheritance at the deepest possible level are we able to love ourselves through the grief and rage inspired by early trauma and begin to move past it. The scary part of all this is what might come up for us during the first two weeks of this present month, but that is also our greatest blessing, since what comes to conscious attention at this time is ripe for healing and eventual integration.

As this monthly cycle unfolds and our awareness continues to grow, we are able to feel creative limitation evolve into a sense of our own empowerment, but it won’t be easy. The First Quarter Moon of Thursday, July 7^th, conjuncts Saturn and strongly aspects Neptune in mystical Pisces. Then the next week can bring us to new levels of self-actualization as the Moon opposes Mars and conjuncts the recent lunar eclipse degree, followed by the Full Moon on the 14th. The Last Quarter Moon of Friday, July 22^nd, adds to this process as the Sun and Moon respectively enter Leo and Taurus. The hard work consists in figuring out who we really are, including a strong dose of out-of-this-world spiritual component, and then in acting on this realization to form a better basis for security beyond ordinary superficial reliance on material gains or beliefs conditioned by consensus thinking. The stages of this powerful lunation cycle demand no less.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). Ideas abound, Aries. You are on course to really begin to recreate yourself and your values– and the basis for your emotional security – out of the failed premises of the past. You are going through a birth process that is sometimes difficult but never dull, making an embattled stand for your cherished beliefs both new and old. You might wind up questioning everything that you ever knew, or thought you did, but there’s an excellent chance of it all coming out somehow right in the end. Your basic quality of character, the strength of your resolve, and your trust in the benevolence of the surrounding universe will see you through.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  You are feeling a joyful energy for change these days Taurus, and it is a truly spiritual direction that you are taking. As you contemplate your future now nothing makes sense that does not partake of the numinous and unseen world behind what is available to your senses five. As Whitman puts it you “contain multitudes.” There is a practical side to your desire for self-transcendence now that is appealing and that balances your wilder notions although might also feel limiting in the short term. With so many alternatives presenting themselves to you a certain degree of uncertainty and confusion is also inevitable. Optimistic thinking will take you far, but perhaps you are not meant to so easily get yourself all the way out of this particular dilemma.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). Your full potential is opening up before you, Gemini. As you search out new fields to conquer and focus on what is ahead for you rather than on what is behind, it’s almost as though what has gone before no longer even exists. This dream of the future unfolding is the stronger and overcomes any illusion of past incompleteness. It’s scary taking on a new kind of responsibility for yourself in moving into a better internal relationship with Spirit actualizing itself through your life, and yet this vision is so compelling that it outweighs all other considerations. Your life as it develops and as you respond to the evolutionary pressures within you and outside of yourself is simply allowing you to become who you really are.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is the first month of the rest of your life, Cancer. A new phase is upon you with the July 1^st Solar Eclipse in your sign. You are now more fully yourself, and it might be best to simply accept the changes that continue to rain down. You recognize that you are being put through the ringer, but for good reason, as your work in the world and the way that you come across to others turns topsy-turvy as a result. This all goes better when you relax and let the cosmos have its way with you. As the poet says, “Why, that my chaff might fly, my grain lie shear and clear!” You are somehow allowing Spirit to mold you and sculpt you, removing whatever is not your truest self.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is an odd month for you, Leo; you are uncharacteristically feeling a little secluded. You may find that it is increasingly important that you reach out to your peers and yet this is an intention that does not easily find its resolution. You are meanwhile connecting to a quiet and calm space within you that is slowly transforming your approach to life from the inside out. Brothers and sisters and the way that you communicate your deepest thoughts to others create an important t feedback loop to your own process which is a largely internal one. Your insights are dazzling in their essential clarity and when you can find the way to get them across to others then you will really see them shine. They magnify in significance and serve to further the common good as you see it.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) it is an entirely new ballgame for you, Virgo. Your wishes are powerful now, and lead you toward new horizons. Self-expression is a transformative area, a changing landscape throwing you out of your normal orbit, and putting you more in tune with a deep sense of intuitional purpose that takes you beyond former limits. You are coming to greater consciousness regarding old patterns of dysfunctional behavior that have perhaps held you back for far too long, and that with the help of the feedback from constructive partners are starting to shift. You have been feeling stuck, shying away from necessary adjustments that you fear will take you out of your comfort zone. All that may be about to change with the power of this monthly cycle.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are taking it over the top, Libra. This is the month that the pace of change really accelerates for both your work in the world and also for your on-going internal transformation. It is important to recognize that far from being a distraction, the one is not really possible without the other. Partners in your life provide much of the catalytic excitement and part of the joy, but the real opportunity is for deep connection within the bounds of your very own mind and heart. As you sink into more meaningful resonance with the surrounding cosmos you might return to your own profound center and, as they say, know that place as though it were the very first time.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You are undergoing a sea-change, Scorpio. Nothing that is fundamental to your former life will be left untransformed, but with your reaction to the events of this month and the next will turn “rich and strange.” Day-to-day existence becomes surprisingly unpredictable. Hidden and even difficult places within you are likely to be revealed and to present themselves to your conscious self for acceptance and healing. Significant partners in your life have an important role to play in illuminating your way down and through your own deep places and in keeping up your spirits during the course of these inner explorations. It is important that you keep the communication flowing in order to achieve an entirely necessary balance.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) You are in for some serious fun this monthly cycle, Sagittarius. You must yield up any preconception of what is in store as you explore yet another new edge for yourself in a culmination of recent developments. You are fundamentally optimistic while still remembering – as you dream large – to cross the T’s and dot the i’s of the necessary details of life. The world is not as you have always known it but is far richer, and far stranger. The very grounding of your being has been pulled out from under you and it’s disconcerting. An unexpected blessing awaits you though when you dig down deep into your process, as you find your fear and then proceed to move beyond it.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) Your transformation has merely begun, Capricorn. You are a little like the weary traveler who has surmounted hill after hill just to find that the truly daunting heights are only now fully revealed. Still there is solace in the notion that you will emerge on the other side a wiser and much different person than when you started. Partnership holds promise for you, as you are currently seeing your intentions and your possibilities in this area in an entirely new light. Your world is being rocked, sometimes gently, at moments quite a bit more suddenly, and it is the rocking to which you are going to have to become accustomed rather than any temporary resting place that you might happen to find along the way.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is an unusual time of questioning, Aquarius. You are seeking the truth about your life path on this earth; why now of all times and whither, and why me in particular? Communication with your peers is the name of the game for you lately and helps you to grow in some uncharacteristic directions that involve far more inner than outer exploration. Everything is undefined and vague and a bit of a mystery from the standpoint of the surface layers. Education is one source of assurances but it won’t be the kind that comes from books. In the caverns of inner desire and intuitive grappling for big answers you’ll find that experience is not just the best but actually the only teacher.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) You are in a fantastic place right now, Pisces; this is your time. Although lately you can be more sensitively alert to the ups and downs of your surroundings than is usual even for you, your self-expression and dramatic presence is a torrent right now when you let it out. You have only to ensure that you disregard lingering voices of negativity and self-criticism that seem to come from nowhere but are actually holdovers from the past. When you get out of your own way you are constructively engaged in the process of finding your true self and crafting future plans that are more consistent with who you really are. Putting all that positive energy to good use feels like a win-win because it is.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

Transformational Astrology

June 2011

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of June focuses on the powerful summer eclipses plus once again the important T-square of outer planets Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, along with a stationing Neptune in the first degree of its sign.

These next three months will see the closest square yet between Uranus and Pluto. Beginning with the Solar Eclipse of June 1^st and through to the very end of August, the pressures of the times that we are already seeing will build dramatically. As Uranus and Pluto, and Saturn also, continue to form the arms of a vice or the pot and lid of a giant pressure cooker they enable us to squeeze through the narrow passage of a birth canal that we would otherwise be unable to pass. In another way of looking at it, there are necessary changes that we must make in our own lives and in the life of the society around us that will not be made without the dire extremity that renders them if not palatable at least possible to digest. The radical transformative pressure of Pluto in combination with Saturn and Uranus are catalyzing changes that we all know are needed but which we might have trouble springing for if times were flowing more easily.

The presence of Neptune in Pisces, stationing early this month and aspected by Uranus and by Jupiter as well, lends a spiritual quality to the proceedings and also makes for a large degree of confusion surrounding what exactly is happening. The June 1^st and July 1^st Solar Eclipses aspect Saturn as well as Pluto, so that the conservative backlash to revolutionary change that we have been seeing from the public squares of the Middle East to the halls of congress will also continue in intensified form over a politically heated summer.

The Solar Eclipse of June 1^st closely trines Saturn and forms an inconjunct to Pluto, bringing their square into far greater prominence. We are likely to see conservative elements greatly intensified. Since Saturn is at this moment in a biquintile yod with Mars and Chiron, the difficulties and painful qualities of this situation are also likely to become apparent. Meanwhile Uranus lurks only a few degrees away from its forming square with Pluto, so that the motivation for necessary revolutionary change becomes more intensified over the course of June and then on into July.

The Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse of Wednesday, June 15^th, might make for a more peaceful resting place between the Solar Eclipses, since Neptune in Pisces, now retrograde, is triggered by Jupiter and Uranus. This goes for the Summer Solstice of June 21st as well, which will be a particularly spiritually enlivened moment in time. There is a joyful quality to the middle of the month as we concentrate on positive solutions rather than the obvious problems that plague us.

Then the last week of the month, culminating in the Solar Eclipse and New Moon of Friday, July 1^st, once again brings the Uranus-Pluto square into sharp prominence. The long hot summer that follows, the first of several more still to come, might have similarities to that of the Watts riots of 1965 which was the kick-off to the revolutionary ardor of the late sixties. In all this we must remember that the chaos that we are seeing in the society at large, and potentially in our own lives as well, is but the prelude to an unknown birth. We have the opportunity now to move in either direction, to a higher or to a lower state of consciousness and choice. With the grace of Spirit and with our own best efforts we can try to make this special time that we are living through count for the highest.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). The beat of massive change continues, Aries.  As the pressure for total transformation grows, so too does your understanding of what you are up to, from the largest possible perspective. You are gathering the resources that you will need for your next stage of personal evolution, not least of which is the willingness to go there. You are both inspired and forward-looking at this time, discovering surprising enlightenment around each corner, and yet holding back somewhat. Communication is key. You are encountering a conservative trend within you perhaps enacted by significant partners in your life, and secretly embodying your own balancing tendencies. By see-sawing in this way you are nevertheless steadily moving onward, integrating boundless enthusiasm with a more practical and grounded sense of both forward momentum and the limitations to your progress.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is a powerful time for you, Taurus, one filled with numinous grace and yet practical concerns as well that can come to dominate your thinking if you let them. What currently focalizes your attention is your concept of available resources. You are successfully fighting off perceived lack with the help of the inspiration of angel guidance from the depths of your psyche, slowly transforming your perspective as you prepare to more fully enter a major new phase. Service to others around you is an important touchstone. You have reached a plateau of relative comfort in the midst of change. It’s been a long road to where you have currently aligned yourself and it is a longer one still to go, but the truest joy is not with the arrival but the journeying.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). Spring is popping for you Gemini, both physically and metaphorically. Yet even as you reach for adventurous exploration, you are solidifying a more conservatively centered sense of yourself. New beginnings are powerfully constellated at this juncture. You will find that the cosmically illuminated component of your existence is calling you forward even more poignantly then the merely physical side that is occupied with the routine details of life and living. Although you are also fraught with second guessing, so that with another part of yourself you are holding back, there can be great satisfaction in your drift toward the mystical and the numinous. The tension of these opposite tendencies is creative, and leads you forward, by fits and starts, to precisely the place that you have needed all this time to go.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is your season, Cancer, and it is up to you to make the most of it. The eclipses of June provide seismic shocks that lead you to inner realizations that are startling and also life-changing. You are being called upon to exercise worldly activities in a new way that takes Spirit more fully into account. You could be rocking your existence after the June 21^st Summer Solstice, although leading up to that time you are far more internally centered. This has been an interesting spring for you, as you weather the storms of major shake-ups and gather your energies to expand your capabilities in a truly mystical fashion. You wind up by assuming all the consensus thinking that has lead you to this point and then going beyond it.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is an amazing month for you, Leo, when you will have flashes of new insights and get a better handle on future direction. Your wishes are powerful now so you must choose wisely. As you feel the future moving toward you at express-train speed, new perspectives abound, including negative imaginings. The glass feels at times half-empty, at times half-full, and mostly overflowing. This is wonderfully exciting from the standpoint of revolutionary ardor and ultimately of spiritual development. Your task is to sort out, as carefully as you are able, the wheat of true evolutionary experience from the chaff of spinning your wheels, which includes illusion and even delusion. If you can achieve that you will be sitting pretty, or at least as pretty as you can, in this challenging and stimulating new world.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is an excellent month for you, Virgo, especially if you enjoy being shot out of a cannon. After a period of relative stagnation, there are changes that you are now ready to make and multifaceted talents to dive into. A fundamental instability at the very core of your being is scary but productive. Even though the outcome is uncertain, there is no time like the present for exploiting your opportunities and moving forward. You are still held back by perhaps too great a reliance on the solid ground of what you already know, so that the progress that you seek must stitch together all your assets, including past beliefs and impossible dreams and longings. Once you get over your natural hesitation, it is a vibrant and exciting future that awaits you.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This is the first month of the rest of your life, Libra. Transformation is coming, sometimes fast and sometimes more slowly, as you prepare to enter into a brave new world of your own devising. You are moving with quiet deliberation now, placing each foot ahead of the other with carefully thought out intention, and yet each step hopefully aligning in a generally forward direction. Intimacy with others around you and especially with yourself is a rapidly moving target but one well worth pursuing as you feel your way forward. You are seeing the world in an entirely different fashion these days, and that changed vision paves the road ahead of you as you slide along into more rapid movement over the course of an intense summer still to come.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You are in this world but not of it right now, Scorpio, feeling your way forward in a dreamy period of time where nothing is entirely what it seems. You are engaged in real-world activities it’s true, especially those concerned with significant partnership connections in your life, but one part of your mind is elsewhere. You recognize that you are on the road to important life development and that it takes a fully integrated self to achieve it. You might be missing that boat when you feel yourself slipping into old tapes of conditioning or automatic responses corresponding to consensus thinking or to the lack of creative thought. You do better by making your own headway, in your own fashion, and you help the world to transform around you when you do.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) Welcome to the patterns that connect, Sagittarius. There are moments in your awareness when others in your universe become quite important almost in spite of yourself, and this is one of them. Relationship is a big item for you this month but the truly startling news is the way that helpful partners and the input from your surroundings filter in to enhance your own ongoing set of realizations and transformations. These in the end involve nothing less than a wholesale revisioning and revitalizing of your entire basis for self-knowledge and for finding emotional security in this world. You are moving slowly in the direction of greater reliance on Spirit inside you for providing the answers and although you can momentarily dam it up there is nothing that can ultimately stop this flow.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) You are both outer and inner oriented right now, Capricorn. The information comes over you in waves and can be entirely confusing, or else ignored, and then seems to recede once again into non-awareness. While you are firmly in the saddle you are out there rising so successfully and so far ahead of the pack that it might tend to get a little lonely. But inside you feel stirrings of a vastly different nature that can alert you to more radical changes still to come. This year and next represent a huge changing of the guard that ultimately serves your own best interest although it might not seem that way in the turbulence of going over the waterfall. These next few weeks of summer are the doorway into a new world.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a huge month for progress, Aquarius, but it is progress of an unusual kind. Your creativity is on fire with loads of artistic production going on and also realizations regarding how the world around you ticks. Your energy is focused more than usual on home and family and the exploration of your inner world. Past patterns of behavior could come to light as a result and be up for review and revision. This all serves to further an incipient transformation of ideals and values that has been ongoing but underground and now burgeoning to the surface of your awareness. You are fully present to the world of events and circumstances but it is your own changing internal compass to which you are ultimately attuned.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) This is an unusual month for you at the beginning of an unusual summer, Pisces. You are paradoxically making rapid progress and yet remaining somewhat stuck in the mud, doing well and enjoying life and yet conflicted. You are comfortable in your own skin and reaching out to others around you in new ways. You are also conscious of the places of insufficiency that you can discover at the deepest layers of your being when you take the trouble to look closely. Home and family concerns are key for you right now, and the information that you get from others helps you find your own way. You win when you accept everything and take it all extremely seriously and also lightly, trusting in the ultimate beneficence of the surrounding cosmos to take you home.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.

Transformational Astrology

May 2011

Henry Seltzer

The Astrology of May focuses still on a potent Aries line-up, this time with the New Moon in the next sign of Taurus. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are also still very much highlighted. The start of this month represents a slightly different emphasis than with the very strong New Moon at the beginning of April, some thirty days ago, and could be conceived as a follow-up to that powerful initiatory energy, since Aries and Taurus are both involved. The emphasis remains on initiative, represented most significantly by Mars conjunct Jupiter in fiery Aries, plus Uranus in Aries in aspect to the Sun and Moon.

It is also quite significant that Saturn in Libra, on the opposite side of the Zodiac from Uranus, Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter, is getting to earlier and earlier degrees of that sign, and therefore coming into closer square with Pluto in early Capricorn. We have this spring and summer a final run of the contentious Saturn-Pluto square – a configuration of polarization that astrologer Richard Tarnas has termed “conservative empowerment.” The last gasp of this important configuration is closest over the next two months, and is definitely significant as can clearly be seen in the polarization between liberal and conservative forces both in the area of national politics and across the world. This dynamic and tense aspect exhibits an angular distance of only about 4 degrees through June, widening to a bit more in July and August and fading away after that.

Meanwhile, in another echo of the revolutionary note that sounded so resonantly in the sixties, the Uranus-Pluto square becomes closer and closer over these same summer months, leading up to about 1 degree of separation in August. Uranus and Pluto separate slightly over the end of 2011, then make their first exact hit in June of 2012. They are indeed very close now and a definite factor in the angst and the glorious revolutionary quality of these difficult days in the spring of 2011. Years ago, astrologers were led to remark that in these climactic years of the lead-up to the first exact pass in 2012 there would be people out in the streets in protest to social and economic conditions, with massive changes in store long before this decade of the “turbulent teens” is over. This is a prediction that is already beginning to come true, as can be seen with the recent mass unrest in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, as well as with the public protest over collective bargaining in Madison, Wisconsin – a protest that is far from over.

The Taurus New Moon that begins the month represents another dynamic configuration in a series of powerful lunations. Neptune, newly entered into Pisces and therefore emphasized, is also closely aspected by this New Moon, meaning that idealism, fantasy and illusion are all strongly constellated while the dire conditions heralded by the Uranus-Pluto-Saturn T-square also continue to play themselves out. Deception and manipulation of the truth to serve political ends is one way that this energy can manifest, although self-delusion is another, which is one mechanism of denial. It is up to our intuition – also strong within us right now – to separate truth from illusion. Mercury is also powerful over the first half of the month as it regains its Zodiacal longitude, emerging from its retrograde shadow by the 11^th. The stellium in Aries is active right up to the 15^th, two days before the Scorpio Full Moon. The last half of May is quieter, a time for thoughtful follow-up and course correction based on the startling information coming our way over the important first two weeks.

All in all, this is an extremely dramatic monthly cycle, especially in its first half, and an important lead-up to the dramatic changes still to come over the summer.

ARIES (March 20-April 19). It’s a powerful time, Aries. You are still quite energized and charged up with the multifaceted possibilities of your situation, only now you are able to even more concretely pursue them to their logical or perhaps their emotional conclusion. Your ideas continue to come fast and furious, and not all of them can blossom. Sudden left turns come up out of the blue, and before you know it you’re taking a new byway. Relationship twists and turns are only part of the story. These have their better than expected endings that are also beginnings. Tough love has its own rewards, so that you are learning more than you ever thought you would as you advance, seemingly haphazardly, toward an unknown outcome.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19).  This is a time of full-on intensity that moves you closer to your spiritual purpose, Taurus. You are reaching for the happy end of the rainbow and although you might have to half-close your eyes to see the treasure that awaits you there in terms of inner goals, you are finally beginning to see how to reach them. You have spent the previous month mulling over your possibilities, operating from a largely internal standpoint as you attempt to discern the real reasons behind what you are currently up to. Mere financial reward no longer seems to cut it. Now, in this current cycle, you are reaching for the gold ring down inside yourself that represents your truest motivation.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). You are ready to let fly your arrow, Gemini, although you must be aware also that it could outstrip its intended target by miles and lead you into unexpected results. Of course, these might indeed prove better than what you originally had in mind. The mystical side of life calls to you quite strongly right now and lends a mysterious and internally fulfilling subtext to everything that you say and do. You are on a fortunate path to perceived excellence that transcends ordinary thinking and goals, moving you toward an essentially artistic set of agendas and pursuits. You are in some ways held back by caution, but this has the benefit of allowing your wine to more fully mature before you uncork the bottle and plunge ahead.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) This is the first month of the rest of your life, Cancer. You are in the midst of a big push forward and yet also holding yourself firmly in place so as not to float away. Part of you wants to stay rooted in the past, and in the safe haven of your home base, while another and larger part of yourself yearns to go sailing out on the high seas of the adventure that calls to you. Deciding your course might turn out to be difficult, if not impossible, and there are also unintended consequences that could complicate your plans. Be that as it may, your choices are still extremely powerful at this juncture, and whatever you decide will prove to be an important springboard for future development.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is a month of contrast and of strong initiative, Leo. You are reaching for the stars while still remaining grounded in concrete reality, or at least partly so.  There is idealism present in your evolving situation now, and also a tendency for illusion or fantasy that could prove troubling if you are not willing to take everything slowly and to look carefully before you take each step. You are seeing the world in a qualitatively novel way and this new set of insights informs everything that you think and do. You find yourself once more in the midst of a powerful set of changes – crossing an enormous ocean of belief to a farther shore – and it will leave you feeling quite different on the other side than when you started.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) Welcome one more time to the roller coaster, Virgo. You are entering yet another entirely different phase with everything that you do, based on changing perspectives within your conceptual framework. These perhaps in part stem from exploring new horizons and also perhaps from significant relationships in your life, which currently represent something of an idealized view and a moving target. There is a jumping off point that you reach and then reach again, and although you are so tempted to hold back you must in one form or another take the leap that is offered.  All this might lead you to an overwhelming tsunami of questioning that will only really hit you during the last full week of the month.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) This month is a strong one for you, Libra. There have been surprises, and there might be even more coming your way, especially relationship-wise. Changes like these go better when they are not resisted, although they provide you with much food for thought and perhaps even a few more wrinkles in the fabric of your ongoing personal evolution. If you resist what comes up for you at this time you will suffer, that’s just the way of change. But you sail through if you allow things to unfold without trying to steer the unknowable outcome. Throughout these relative trials, you are keeping what the British call a “stiff upper lip;” this serves you well and keeps you on a steadier course than you might otherwise adopt, but everything is best in moderation, even restraint.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Sufi rainbows of internal bliss make for a true cause of celebration this month, Scorpio.  You are entering upon a quietly mystical space that has you also feeling exuberant in service to those around you. There is extraordinary punch in your personal energy field but is directed toward daily routine and a sense of duty that could feel like obligation until you turn it around and see it for what it is, a commitment to your Higher Self. You find yourself taking a more active role in partnering with significant others in your life, and in discovering joy in the smallest of details. There are rational and artistic motivations but they all translate into the spiritual sense of finally doing what you came into this life to perform.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) This is a confusing period of time for you Sagittarius, and yet also an extremely rewarding one if you take the time to look more closely within. You are discovering a truly expanded sense of who you really are, in concert with your angel guidance. Everything remains the same and yet everything has changed. There is an element of looking ahead with breathless anticipation and also one of slowly feeling into a more conservative streak that honors the past and its limitations. You are in fact both consolidating the insights that have been coming at you fast and furious lately, and simultaneously launching yourself forward into the world in an entirely different way than with previous growth spurts, so that you are this time on more solid ground.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) You are asking the universe what you are currently living for, Capricorn. The evolutionary pressure of these recent months and even years had been easing off, but is now intensified, and your feet are once more being held to the fires of circumstance. Everything is clicking along but with an undercurrent of massive deep-level change. Home is where the heart is, but yours is in extreme flux, so that your internal guidance center and the basis for your psychological security is somewhere up in the air. Your communication reflects other-worldly priorities as much as worldly ones. You gain by trusting the information that comes your way at this time, no matter how far it seems to stray from the more mundane concerns that are your forte.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) It’s a curious universe that you find yourself in these days, Aquarius. There’s important development that awaits you this month and it partakes of revisiting your roots. You are drawn toward the mystical, and to your psychological grounding. Startling information continues to come your way and it might be the occasion for a learning experience that transcends any that you had in school, giving you the chance to complete the course work for a more unusual diploma than the one that you wound up with. You are building the foundation for a different type of service to the world at large, and although in one way nothing is certain any more, in another that makes for a refreshing change, and a return to wonder.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) You are in a good place these days, Pisces, or at least moving in the right direction. A seed for the future has recently been planted and the seed has fallen on fertile ground. You are more than ready to break free from at least a few of the shackles of the past. Something seems to be holding you back from a total assault of those ramparts, but it might also be a healthy strategy to “look before you leap” and be very sure of your ground before you attempt to cross it. You are collecting yourself and the information you will require before a full-on exploration of your depths, so all is indeed well. Your way forward at this time leads you down and through the deeper layers of your psyche before surfacing.

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 is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com.