Happy Birthday Leo (from PWW 623)

LAST WEEK'S spectacular Full Moon in your opposite sign Aquarius blurs the thin line between fantasy and reality. But it does so in a moment where so many other seeming contradictions can be resolved, and put to your best advantage. What recent events reveal, if nothing else, is the power of maintaining the tension in situations that are not ready to resolve themselves -- until they are ready.

And if you have learned anything from recent events, which are indeed a kind of indicator of the way things are going in your life, and they way they are likely to develop, it's that there is great benefit in allowing things to happen when the time is right. It would not be fair to say that they "happen by themselves." You have done plenty to expedite and develop the process of your life. But a spirit of allowing, including allowing the timing, is definitely a strength you have earned.

It takes patience and maturity to sustain the tension of opposites. But it grants those same qualities to do so. Given the planetary setup, you may have been persisting in this for quite a long time, not recognizing what you were doing. There seems to have been a gradually developing process that has two main ways it manifested.

One has been giving up something in yourself for the sake of your relationships.

The other is seeing the better aspect of everyone you have come to encounter, no matter what their situation.

It is possible that these years of your life have come with a vague sense of isolation, or even one not so vague. The presence of Neptune in your opposite sign can be a bit existential. Yet what has changed recently is the sense of contact. Mostly this has emerged from your awareness of your own presence in situations where you might not have felt it before. It's as if you are more certain you exist and make a difference; it is less easy for you to deny your impact or the fact that others appreciate and are conscious of you.

I recognize that none of what I am describing is typically Leonine. But does anyone really know what a cat is going through? This kind of stuff is subtle -- and because Neptune is involved, not particularly easy to identify, name or point to. It's more something vague that has been existing in the background, which is now more obvious for dispersing a bit than it was for being there. It's a little like when an electrical motor or a fan stops and suddenly the room is silent, and you realize the sound was there.

That is a small energy shift; what is changing now represents a much more encompassing threshold. It would not quite be accurate to say that you have changed in relationship to any one person or situation, but rather, in relationship to your whole external environment. It's as if that environment has become part of you. The release of tension is akin to have taken on, absorbed or become a quality that you had, until now, perceived as outside yourself.

There is a bit of alchemy to this; not a transformation but in truth a change the substance of your being. The result is not merely that you can identify the point of view of certain others but that you have begun to see the world that way, indeed, you may live in a different world now than you did just a little while ago. This could be compared to a seed living in one world and then, after experiencing water and beginning to sprout, being in a different world with a different relationship to the environment.

This same principle can apply in your life many ways, as the substance of ideas and material reality is likely to be the thinnest it's ever been. Indeed, dreams can be transformed into reality -- so dream well.


Planet Waves for August 2006
for Flaunt magazine
 
ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 20)
Who needs discipline when you have obsession? Your brain heating up and is about to become so hot and so focused you could cut a figure 8 in a steel boilerplate. But if you take a more gentle approach, you'll get subtler results. A little persistence is all you really need, and the willingness to live every day a little bit differently, for a different reason, and with a different result.
 
TAURUS (Apr 21 - May 21)
There's no right or wrong way to dance, unless you're in the New York City Ballet, which you're probably not. Therefore, shake your ass to the music. If you feel inhibited, push on the inner walls of the restriction. If they're made of paper, burst through, or flick your Bic. The only thing between you and yourself is an idea of what you're supposed to be, and you'll be a lot happier without it.
 
GEMINI (May 22 - Jun 22)
It's taken more than a month to sort out a series of financial questions, but you're setting your sights too low. Money is not about how much you have now, it's about how wide you can open the flow, how effectively you use the energy, and moreover, what you value. Do you really want to be invested in ExxonMobil? Doubtful. But now that you've decided what's meaningful to you, make it count.
 
CANCER (Jun 23 - Jul 23)
Confused? Not any more. Feeling like a child? Only in the sense that you believe there's such a thing as happiness. Feeling like the world is a restrictive place? Only until you figure out that your imagination has the ability to wash away any obstacles you may face. Your confidence can come from ignorance, not just intelligence. There is an especially pleasant form of wisdom in not knowing, and it makes awareness that much more precious.
 
LEO (Jul 24 - Aug 23)
Certain aspects of your most private life have been exceptionally difficult to define or put into words, though the stronger this feeling gets, the more you may feel you understand. The less cut and dried you demand life to be, the more you sense the truth about this relationship intuitively, and the more you recognize that what may be many years effort have really led you to a sane and healthy place.
 
VIRGO (Aug 24 - Sep 23)
When you feel fear, it can be enormously powerful, almost as strong as you are -- but then we both know, not quite. When you sense the size of the universe within, you may want to turn away and resume to normal awareness, because that empty space is so vast and egoless. Take your time doing that now. If you can get someone to hold this space open with you, take the opportunity.
 
LIBRA (Sep 24 - Oct 23)
You've finally arrived at the moment where it's free to give yourself over, to commit to your own life entirely. Not needing others is one of the strangest and most beautiful feelings there is, and it often arrives with the sense that you really exist as an independent entity. Then, having given yourself permission to exist, you have a chance to relate to everyone equally, by choice and not from compulsion.
 
SCORPIO (Oct 24 - Nov 22)
Where there was once a fight to gain authority, you seem to have the basic respect you need and deserve. For what ever strange reason, it seems like people are focusing their attention on important issues that have long deserved attention. This is a far cry from the petty matters that so many people around you have been preoccupied with for so long. It is true, a new era of relevance is beginning.
 
SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 - Dec 21)
Opportunity abounds, in direct proportion to your faith in life. You have broken down a certain barrier that for many months seemed to separate you from your intuitive guidance and spiritual foundation. But the breakthrough revealed that you were only growing closer to that guidance and strengthening that foundation.
 
CAPRICORN (Dec 22 - Jan 20)
With all the give and take, push and pull, up and down of the past couple of months, you must be longing for a time where all the accounts are settled and life is on level ground. This is attainable, but it's far less as a state of the world and much more a state of mind. You are close to it now, and all you need to do is slip into the freedom that there are some things of which you cannot be certain.
 
AQUARIUS (Jan 21 - Feb 19)
There really is no explaining relationships, and no matter how much we may try to understand, analyze and assess, at the end of the day, acceptance is what prevails if there is to be any peace of mind. You seem to have tried every method but this one, but now common sense is prevailing, and with it, a moment of freedom from your own mind will grow if you allow it to.
 
PISCES (Feb 20 - Mar 20)
There are those times you look back on the past and realize you were at a turning point. The territory you're covering is just such a place, one you might be particularly disinclined to notice -- without astrology to tell you that you are growing in some unusual ways that you have profound power to influence with your imagination. Focus on what you want, because this is the time to create it.