Taurus New Moon - Welcome Abundance

So, it's the Taurus new moon, and I figured I should post something to kick off my return to this blog.

It's been ages since I've posted anything here and, frankly, it takes a lot to be back. The last six months have been fairly taxing emotionally and mentally - even physically, given some needful surgery I underwent this past February.

I'm now back in Nicosia, Cyprus after having flown out from New York City this Monday and having ended my first major relationship - my American ex-girlfriend's decision, not mine. To be honest, I can't get my head, heart and mind round the situation. But perhaps it's for the best. Her reasons for deciding on the break-up were based on our different cultures and paths in life, and our lack of mutual interests. Hearing that you'd think splitting up would be obvious. But we lasted a month shy of six years because of the love and tenderness we had for each other. There was a lot of that, the first three years. And it was wonderful. Certainly the best three years of my life and a level of happiness I never thought I'd enjoy.

If I'm honest with myself, though, I'll admit that we were always different, which was probably always going to be problematic in the long-run. And the kind of affection I mention above had been one-sided (ie from me alone) for a while now - particularly after the half-way point during my forced return to Cyprus from August 2006-October 2008 (due to my scholarship's strict home requirements following my graduation), and the obstacles to her joining me on the island. While we were living apart, her own hopes and dreams surged forth (unsurprising, as Saturn crossed her ascendant just days before I left the USA for my two years of 'exile' in Cyprus) and she began to focus unrelentingly towards realising her dream. She wants to found a charter school where she will be the principal and, in this way, shape children's education. To achieve this, she began collecting all the needful credentials - MBA, MEd, three years of teaching, PhD - while holding down a full-time job, as of March of 2007, leaving her little time for me, but also eventually granting her the insight that we were never going to bond over her passion for education, or over mine for filmmaking and all things spiritual.

So again, I guess she might have done us a huge favour by calling it off. But I'm still in mourning for a shared life I thought would be ours.

Just what has this to do with today's Taurus new moon?

Well, Taurus is a symbol of fertility and abundance, and my ex always symbolised 'plenty' to me. She was the embodiment of the Empress of the Tarot and the cornucopia of all good things; a happy, joyous home where there was always something playful happening, good food being prepared, and much love available to be shared. It might sound unrealistically idealised, but I guess that's part of the meaning of my family-oriented, Saturn in Cancer and Venus trine Neptune (the latter found in my fourth house). In other words, she was the manifestation of all that home and love mean to me.

But now that she is no longer mine in that way, I find I'm more and more open to finding abundance in my own heart and soul. Finding self-sufficiency and plenty inside me. And with Taurus in most of my ninth house, I am focusing on tapping into the abundance and creativity of my 'higher mind' and my higher education. I'm looking toward generating my most mature creative writing, after a wealth of tertiary education, and for it to steer me toward creative plenty and - why be coy about it? - money.

I've always had a troubled relationship with money; when I was growing up, there never seemed to be enough - even though I lacked for nothing and enjoyed a pretty high standard of living - and there was tremendous anxiety about it. Until recently, I was either uninterested in making or having it, or believed I had no aptitude to earn any significant amount. Now I see it as energy, and I'm sending out my gratitude in advance for the plenty in terms of income that is about to open to me. (This is a big issue of trust in the provision of the universe/God, so it's part of my healing process - being fairly left-brained, I tend to doubt the so-called 'law of attraction' without applying myself in a more practical, mundane way to 'getting what I want').

Of course, money can't take the place of the joys of the senses. And it can't buy you love. But perhaps the joy of abundance that is Taurus, whether its a plenty of lucre, literary output or love, will carry me forward toward finding that 'plenty' in a new love again.

Peace, joy, creativity and plenty to all on this Taurus new moon.

Meanwhile, thumbs up to the lovely article on this lunation by Beth Owl's Daughter. You can read it here.






The image above is from the mythic Tarot deck and was taken from this site

Venus Trine Neptune: the Piscean M.O. for Lovin'

I used to think everyone experienced that breathless, dumbstruck, shaken-to-the-core sensation when it came to love.

Then I found out that Pisceans are rather pathetic when it comes to matters amorous.

And even later than that, I discovered that, irrespective of whether one has the Sun in Pisces or not, if one is born with one's natal Venus trine its higher octave, Neptune, then falling in love is an event so momentous, it feels like whole worlds are being formed and destroyed at the mere thought of the beloved. It feels like being dropped in the heart of the sun and rejoicing at the annihilation. It feels like being ripped apart by a thunderous, rapturous wave - the perfect one surfers wait for - except you don't ride it, you let if fall upon you like a heavy, white mesh of bliss and surrender to being wiped out.

Er, before we get too carried away, that is my attempt to articulate what the experience symbolized by a Neptune/Venus trine might feel like. My own natal trine between those two planets is in the element of fire - Venus in Aries, Neptune in Sagittarius, and boy have I willingly burned whenever the lovebug's bit.

Why did I happen to choose this topic to post on? Because I've been musing about a lot of things, of late, including trying to identify where my own source of creativity comes from. A friend asked me two days ago something along those lines, and I burbled out an inarticulate reply that it required "a brush with love".

But really, that's what it is. What I feel when someone strikes me as beautiful and desirable and lovely, is that same exultant feeling I get when contemplating what strikes me as a great story to tell, or a dizzying bit of drama to act out. I feel like I leave my body and soar somewhere, not entirely certain of the geography.

Apparently, there are people for whom such transportation does not occur. I'm not entirely sure I should feel sorry for them. The highs bestowed on you by the almost transcendent, spiritual love symbolised by a Venus-Neptune trine are more than matched by the lows when the beloved one is seen through the inevitable perspective of the mundane. Or dear old Saturn comes to call by transit or progression, tearing down the pedestals we've built in our adoration and showing us exactly what we've sworn undying devotion to. Not quite as beautiful when seen through the Saturnian goggles, and absolutely no flying of any kind allowed. It's more like enduring, accepting, forgiving.

Perhaps a more positive way of putting all of that: Saturn helps give form to the ethereal, almost protean (and near sexless) nature of the Venus-Neptune trine, which, in its desire for immaculate, pure devotion, is less inclined to bring true carnality into the mixture. That's for Mars and Venus (and Pluto) to sort out on some other level.

I know that I still - very rarely now, but from time to time - see the apparent image of my first love - my long dead biology teacher appear before me, just before an important creative experience is about to dawn. She's usually walking just a little ahead of me, as lovely and as out of reach as when I first met her. She's always 28, the year she died. For me, she is an precious innocence, a remembrance of adolescent yearning that no amount of weariness, human frailty, age and cynicism can take away.

So love (and creativity) for me, is this, in essence: an idealised longing for a union where two melt away into some sublime self-negation. Which is, as far as I can make out, about as good an interpretation of Venus trine Neptune as a Piscean Sun can probably put it.

Pisceans. Tsk. They're so wimpy and soft. So sappy, gushy, wishy-washy, airy-fairy, arty-farty. Bleeding their hearts all over the carpet. Then crying because the carpet was the only thing you had to remember your dear departed old grandmother by.

Good thing bad boys Osama Bin Laden and Ariel Sharon (and Rupert Murdoch) have proved just how badass they can be. But then, to my knowledge, none of them is afflicted by a natal Venus-Neptune trine.






The image above was taken from this site.

The Capricorn New Moon and Manifestation

The Sun and Moon are now conjunct in Capricorn, the sign of manifestation.

This means we have a two-to-three-day window during this commencement of the new lunar cycle to send forth into the universe our highest aspirations, desires and hopes - not just for ourselves, but for our loved ones and all that lives - all creation in other words, since creation is very much Saturn-ruled Capricorn's realm (though it helps if Neptune's involved, too).

With the powerful Capricorn energy dominating over the next day or so, we are given a particularly potent window of opportunity to channel our intentions for new projects outward and give thanks for what we already enjoy and what we are yet to receive.

This evening, I reminded myself of my most positive aspirations, since I so often struggle with the lowest vibrations of anxiety, depression, fear and negativity. I gave myself licence to remember what I hoped for for myself - to remember, in other words, my highest self.

I looked into my heart and saw a mighty being of light - a light far greater than the terrors that usually threaten to overwhelm it.

I saw creativity, joy and daring. I saw a gratitude mighty as the sun, reaching forth with every action to embrace life and to send out love and healing.

I imagined a consciousness pure of every kind of bias, prejudice and limitation. Of limitless generosity and grace.

No longer a slave to pessimissm, fear and shame, anxiety, insecurity and timidity, I invited my grandest, strongest, wisest, most compassionate self to me.

May the beginning of the new lunar month make us all agents of our highest aspirations, to serve and to love others, regardless of reward, and to help each other manifest our dreams.

Light, love and peace to all.