All Planets in Direct Motion

Here's some interesting astrology for you. From December 25th's Full Moon in Cancer GMT 11:11am, yes, you saw that correctly, 11:11) we have All Planets in Direct Motion for 11 days, till the 5th January 2016. (yes, 11 days)

Previously, astrologers would simply mark a chart 'zero retrogrades', however an astrologer, Stephanie Forest, recently saw it in a different way. Rather than zero retrogrades, what she saw was All Planets in Direct Motion. ALL planets moving in sync and harmony together and in the same direction. This only happens at seemingly random times and for differing lengths of time. 

What are these windows of time for? 

How amazing is the ability to look with new eyes, interpret something in a different way and open up a new world of ideas?

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL PLANETS DIRECT MOTION™
1. We can consider acceleration, movement and velocity as intrinsic to APDM timings, and observe or apply core potential.
2. We can open to discovery, information and/or messages during APDM.
3. We can meditate and/or dance together, or individually, apply timing and conscious focus to conceive new ideas, organic cures, set the intention, visioning.
4. We can BLOG our thoughts, observations and feelings before, during and after APDM cycles, checking for similar themes.
5. We can take note of apparent APDM themes including faith, confidence, determination.
6. It takes a Village to unpack APDM. our combined participation makes a difference. in fact APDM is all about global participation during the approaching Aquarian Age.
7. We can co-create an enlightening experience through a collective vision for the future of humanity.

Read more - http://allplanetsdirect.com/

Pisces New Moon

Tonight is the Pisces New Moon.  At 19.54 (UK Time) this evening, the area of the sky called Pisces will have a total of 7 planets occupying it.  This is a pretty rare line up.  Mars, Venus, Mercury, Chiron, Neptune, the Sun AND now the Moon.

(C)WikimediaCommons

My natal Sun and Mercury are in Pisces in the 11th House, so this moon is bringing up thoughts around friends, groups, organisations and the collective.  It can also highlight how I become my true self, in relation to the collective groups around me.  As it was my birthday just 4 days ago, this new moon and the positions of all the planets will signal the theme of my coming year.

Mercury is still currently retrograde, and as a mercurial being, I often feel the effects of this.  A slowing down, being a little less productive with writing.  It can have an effect with my relationship with my partner too as a Gemini Sun, he too finds himself withdrawing a little during a retrograde, and little arguments or misunderstanding seems to occur.  Mercury goes direct again on March 17th.

The energy has been tense to say the least.  Myself, and many people around me are feeling the energies at play.  It's tense and INTENSE.  We've also just had Mother's Day in the UK.. so women and talk of the mother are all over the web.  Pisces always brings us back to the spiritual matters in life, it reminds us of the need for a spiritual practice, however small and understated.  Symptoms of all this Pisces has been frazzled nerves, daydreaming, strong intuition, messages, signs, intense dreams... being easily distracted... 

(like I just did while writing this.. gazing out the window I notice the roofing on the shed is flapping about very ungraciously in the wind, exposing the wood underneath... it's trying to snow and this could end in shed disaster, so I broke away from the blog to go stick a heavy piece of wood on it)

(oooh... there's the postman at the door with new art materials  **big smiling heart** might as well make a fresh cuppa while I'm up)

The antidote, if you like, is to meditate, to dream.  It IS to take time out and be still and quiet.  It's time to repair, restore and revive.  Getting creative just for creation sake is beneficial right now.  Recognizing and connecting to your source of power.  Honoring it, developing it.

I spent the last couple of days painting.  I haven't painted in a very long time  With more and more ideas flowing freely.  I feel like's I've finally found a way to work on canvas, without compromising my style or changing it too much.  It's exciting, and I feel like I just want to go from canvas to canvas.. create, create, create...

Although now, I find myself a bit lost again.  I'm due to bleed soon.  I've had the warning signs it's imminent.  Last month it came 2 days after new moon.  My cycle has adjusted itself naturally to the moon.  I've been off any form of hormones/birth control for almost 2 years.  I ovulate when the moon is fat and round in the sky, I bleed when the moon is dark and new.
I slept all morning today.  It's freezing outside, with the strong winds and snow showers making it bitter.  I could have happily stayed there, but that nagging little voice that tells me I should be up with the Sun, I should be being productive... so I get up and find something to do.

Although I want to crack on and paint, focus and write, it feel impossible right now.  I think I will happily wander through my day being led in all sorts of directions.  I don't really want to speak to anyone, or be anywhere busy.  The thought of having to pop to the supermarket is not appealing.

My body is preparing to bleed.  It's almost ready.  My mind, as it is so often at this time, is somewhere else.  I'm clumsy and forgetful, easily irritated and feeling very lethargic and tired.  As a mother I have to push through this and find a solution to the kids getting fed this evening and me staying as calm as possible.  Any stress around me now builds up like a gas.  One spark and BOOM...

I don't want any cosmic sized explosions.  I know what I need to do, so all it takes is a little preparation.  All these energies will dissipate slowly over the coming weeks.  This is significant as Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac.  A whole new cycle starts when the Sun moves into Aries.  With all these planets in Pisces it suggests that many cycles are coming to an end.   The planets all move at different speeds, but we see them all arriving at the station at once this year, with them all gearing up to shift into youthful, firey, impulsive Aries.  Mars and the Moon leave tomorrow.  The Sun changes signs March 20th, Venus leaves March 21st and Mercury then moves on April 13th.  Chiron will stay in Pisces till 2019 and Neptune will stay in Pisces until 2025.

The fog will begin to clear.  The light will return.  However uncomfortable the energies are at the moment, know that they will begin to shift soon.  Clarity and energy will return, and hopefully this will coincide with longer days, warmer weather and a few sunny days.

In Gaia's year, the Goddess is almost at pre-ovulation.  The bleeding may even be over, but she's in that limbo land, where Winter is refusing to let go and allow her to move into the Spring.  Patience is needed.  Continue to plan, lay foundations.  You may feel you are champing at the bit, but a false start will only lead to more problems.  This time of year is like the pause between breaths in yoga.  It's where there can be a deepening, and extension of the space.  It's dark and calm.  We will all be able to breathe in deeply again soon and admire the view, but for now we are on our own, in our own little foggy worlds.  Enjoy the peace when you can get it.  Don't sweat the small stuff.  Connect to your higher self and tell them where you want to go, ask them for advice.  Insights for the coming year are in your grasp...  There has never been a better time.

Why don't women recognise the power they hold?

A male friend of mine asked this on Facebook today, I wrote a bit in reply and thought I would share for you here.  David is also my current astrology teacher and I would highly recommend checking out his online courses and his readings.  You can find him here http://www.davidrowan.co.uk/index.html and on his Facebook page.

Ladies, I am confused ...

I keep seeing posts that read is if some women believe that the world would be nicer, safer, more harmonious and less hostile if women had more power ...
and then, I read in neuroscience and biology and psychology books that a mother is The primary influence in child's brain development/character

which means that women are The most powerful people in the shaping of the trajectory of a boy's, or a man's character

so I have 2 questions:

1 - how come you do not recognize the vast power you already have ?

2 - since you already have the power to initially shape the path of mankind, how come there is so much hostility ?

is it that, regardless of our gender, that all healthy humans are capable of experiencing every type of human emotion; that men can be sensitive and women can be angry ... etc ?

Would it not be better if we stopped blaming others for circumstances and began looking at what we can change within ourselves to make life easier and better for everyone ?

just a thought ...

My reply, was as follows...

I think that there is a definite up-surgence in the 'feminine principles' or the following of the Divine Feminine and I too have seen and know personally the anger that women hold.  Any woman who thinks that the world would be 'better if women were in power is missing the point.  It's not about women ruling over men or vice versa (we have plenty of experience of the latter)  it's about allowing women to be women and men to be men, and accepting and embracing the differences held within each.  It's only through the coming together of the male and female that we experience wholeness, and I mean that in all senses.  Within our own selves and in outer relationships.  It's about reaching a balance.

Women have for centuries been held back, repressed and written out of all aspects of history.  As women we have experienced mass genocide and propaganda.  The problem lies in the lack of knowledge.  Women in 2012 do not necessarily have the support that our ancestors would have.  Who teaches the mothers?  Who is there to help raise our children?  Once upon a time, grandmothers, great grandmothers, sisters and aunts would have helped collectively to raise a child, along with the men showing the boy child how to be a man.. rites of passage, the passing on of knowledge.  A man has a massive part in raising a boy, more so, in the ways of setting a good example and teaching the child.  A mothers love and knowledge can only go so far.

Girls these days getting pregnant only a few years after starting to menstruate mean they have no experience or knowledge in theer own bodies, let alone the raising of a child.  Even older ladies may have no connection to their cycles due to years of birth control.  The connection to pregnancy and birth is not as strong when you rely on medical intervention and don't trust or know you're own body.

In answer to your questions...

1.  How come you do not recognize the vast power you already have ?

How can we?  We have not been taught how awesome the power we have is.  Not unless we were lucky enough to have a mother or mother figures to learn from.  I have barely known my own mother through my life, so where do I turn for information...  EVEN IF she had been there, she was not aware of her power, and nor was my Grandmother before her.  No one taught them.  In my own history, my Grandmother, Anglo Indian, born in India, her mother before her, born in India... no records kept, my G Grandmother was married at 16 and had 7 kids.  But she was a woman in India, and even now in that culture, some women hold little or no power and have very little say in their own lives.  So, I digress..  Many women will go through thier whole lives unaware of what they have the power to achieve and the responsibility they hold, but it is not their fault.  Women have been told for centuries that their basic bodily fuctions are something to be ashamed of, something to be 'cured'.  Men were at the forefront of all the developments, treatments, understandings...  why? because the passing on of knowledge through mother to daughter, generation to generation has been lost or ignored.  Men have tried to understand the mysteries, but then we deny our own knowledge and believe that they know us better than we do.
If we are cursed, if we are inferior, if we are not worth the same in societies eyes then how do we believe we are not cursed, inferior or worth the same as men.  Feminism went some way to try and bring balance, but I feel it simply tipped it in the opposite direction, the pendulum swinging.  What we need to find now is that balance.

2.  Since you already have the power to initially shape the path of mankind, how come there is so much hostility ?

There is hostility because women are angry their ancestors were badly treated for things we know now to be normal.  That the misunderstanding and intolerance has meant that we have not had the mysteries and knowledge passed to us.  I can weep for the women who died in the witch trials, for my ancestors who may have died for simply being women in the wrong place at the wrong time, for the babies that have not had a chance in life because of the cultures we have now.  I am angry that women do not play as bigger part in our history books as men do, that I have been made to feel an outcast from society for embracing my cycle and femininity.
I do not feel we can make much headway with anger, but I do feel it is justified.

It is not just a womans job to raise a child, but is is one of the most important jobs a woman can do.  Unfortunately again, I see a cultural problem.  Women since the 60's have been told they have to go out to work, be equal to men.  They need to do this along with bringing children in to the world and raising them..  If they choose work, they are called powerful, successful..  if they choose motherhood they are asked why they didn't want more out of life.. if they choose both, they have barely enough time to enjoy both aspects, and the pressure is on to be the best at it all.  All this with usually very little family support as the rest of the family are too, doing the same thing... trying to be the best at it all cos that's what we 'should' have in our lives.

It's a complicated topic, and one I feel strongly about, so apologies for the long reply!
I don't believe we as women are the most important people in shaping men, I think men need to take some responsibility for that.  It is men that set the examples to younger men of what a man is, and how you treat the women in your lives.  Women may have power, men may have power, but it's both that is needed to shape a new human being.

With love
Cat x