Now you must get intimately involved and connected with society, even though you feel clumsy in such unfamiliar territory.

Celeste Teal

June picks up on what has been brewing in May, but it will be a month that will fertilize the seeds we choose to plant for the future because this is Eclipse Season month. Through a backdrop of Retrogrades, current and upcoming, the seminal and rare eclipse of June 21 on the Solstice is ground zero for what will unfold in the next 4 years to come, with many last changes to boot.

So grab a cuppa and sit back, this is a longer post.

Let’s start with the Nodal Dragon, ruler of the eclipses

The quote above is descriptive of the North Node in Gemini and the South Node in Sagittarius. The Lunar Nodes are now in Gemini/Sagittarius bringing changes that influence the collective zeitgeist, as well as our individual lives. The North Node (also called HEAD OF THE DRAGON) and the South Node (TAIL OF THE DRAGON) are illustrative of where core issues will come up for examination, integration, and where we are each called to hold the tension of the opposites within our lives and in our society.

The North Node in Gemini points to what we need to learn and do to take us forward. While the South Node in Sagittarius reveals where we need to restructure and release outmoded ways of being that are keeping us stuck in a crumbling worldview. Being that the sign polarity is in GEMINI and SAGITTARIUS, the planets MERCURY and JUPITER beckon our attention. So the upcoming Mercury Retrograde in Cancer on JUNE 18 (9:59 pm Pacific — 12:59 am EASTERN) has added relevancy to the lessons we need to learn. June and July are months that will tug at our emotional lives, revealing much that hasn’t been processed, understood about our past, and how early childhood has affected our worldview now. But you can also take this as an illustration of how our PAST, speaking historically, is still very much in the here and now, clouding our ability to see through our outmoded ways of approaching life and societal relations.

Cancer is a sign that rules the archetypes of home, homeland, but also a sense of tribal, clannish security. The events of the world will come knocking on our doors and each one of us will need to face the emotional ball of yarn that we feel about all that is unfolding. The veil between out there and in here are gossamer thin, and we can no longer escape the fact that our historical lack of ability to address our personal, familial, and cultural wounds, trauma, pain, and vulnerability is coming back to haunt us in inescapable ways.

We can only reach the gifts of Sagittarius by doing what Gemini needs us to learn

The gifts of Gemini are curiosity, learning, and flexibility. It’s about building connections between things that seem different. Gemini is a bridge builder. The South Node in Sagg points to the negative aspects of the Centaur’s sign that need to be eliminated, so we can connect to the gifts of this sign. Whatever the sign the North Node is in reveals what we need to learn, and in doing that we get to learn and integrate the gifts of the sign of the South Node, after we get rid of what is stopping us from seeing the gold hidden.

Think of it as the need to clean your house’s basement or attic, getting rid of old things that are just cluttering, and in doing so, you find some hidden treasures that you didn’t know you ever had!

Sagittarius can be dogmatic, stuck in its beliefs, and unwilling to learn something new. It’s also about the legal system (law and order), as well as religion. It rules our relationship with foreigners and other people.

When I think of these two, I think of our need to do the shadow work with our inner other, the one that is foreign to us because we have been taught to dismiss it.

With the South Node in Sagittarius, we are called to rethink our relationship to our religious views, our beliefs, but also law and order, among other things. All of these are at the cornerstone of society and they have been diseased with corruption for many decades, if not centuries. When we see what is unfolding in the world, through the news, we can see that our societal contract, the laws, the ways we treat the other, foreigners or others who we perceive as different from us, is up for immediate revision.

One of the core gifts of GEMINI is the art of the conversation. Through conversation with others, we learn that the other isn’t as different as we thought. Through kind curiosity, we can find the common ground within and without. Gemini is about how each one of us is a NODE in the larger NETWORK that is our society. And each thing that passes through us will travel further afield than we can imagine. The creative power we have with the North Node traveling through Gemini is to remember that as a NODE in the NETWORK, we have the responsibility to how we behave as that node.

With the North Node in Gemini, we need to learn how to be in the conversation. A lost art that we need to relearn. We can start by doing our inner work and acknowledging what lives in our inner basement. We will not find the riches we desire until we face the dragon within. Facing the inner dragon, doing what Gemini teaches us, will enable us to find the wisdom and a true optimistic big picture view that is Sagittarius’ gift to us.

The lessons of the Nodes are activated for the next 18 months, but get a boost injection at each eclipse (lunar and solar) that we have in the coming months. We will be unpacking these in time, but for now, just mark June 2020 as a watershed month that will be seminal in the years to come.

The pressure cooker of retrogrades

I wrote more on Retrogrades in my May 2020 article and it’s worth (re)reading it. Retrogrades are liminal times that illuminate the cracks in the foundation that need to be addressed. Venus is retrograde for most of June, shifting directions at the end of the month. But by mid-month, Mercury will station retrograde and spend an extra amount of time in Cancer until August 5, when it will enter Leo.

With Mercury retrograde in Cancer, be prepared for a blast from the past. Whatever was buried in the secret drawer of nostalgia and labeled past can now show up again for a review. Best to focus your energies during this time towards facing elements from the past that are either helping or not your journey in life. Best to surrender to the dissolving of old emotional patterns than to fight it with demands that things be rational. June is not the most rational of months. Collectively this means we have a lot of emotional work to do.

We will be juggling our need for rational and critical thinking with emotional tidal waves and ventures into imagination and even escapism. We will come out of June with whiplash.

The long view — what we do now ripples for years to come

My mother is a retired educator and she always said this to me: when you have children you have to think as if you are preparing them for the next 200 years. What you do now, will reverberate for the next 7 generations. This always made me think about how much we need to educate ourselves to see forward the generations in the future.

The other thought I often think about, although I’m no bible studies expert, is the concept of the sins of the fathers visiting the children. First of all, the etymology of SIN means ‘to miss the mark.’ To miss what was actually the right thing to do.

So I think about how all that we think is just out there in the world’s stage: racism, greed, lust, avarice, hatred, price, etc. (in essence the 7 deadly sins on steroids) is also part and parcel of what each one of us has inherited through our family and culture’s story.

The sins and legacy of our ancestors, negative and positive, are visited upon us. We are travelers carrying luggage that is individual to our own fate and karma, but we also carry the extra luggage of what our ancestors (parents and beyond) couldn’t address in their lifetime for a multiplicity of reasons. The sign of Cancer takes us back to the past — emotional or otherwise — so that we may learn to see how history works its wisdom in spiral form. Events have echoes of past events, and until we learn to see things with a different consciousness, we are fated to keep coming back to the scene of the crime.

Both Venus and Mercury are culture bringers, liminal archetypes of transformation. Venus brings us the possibility of transformation through love and connection, Mercury through perception and ideas. With Venus spending extra time in Gemini and Mercury doing its retrograde dance in the next year in WATER SIGNS, we are in need to LEARN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, both individually and collectively.

2020 is heavy on the retrogrades, with the addition of Venus spending extra time in Gemini and with Mars’ 6-month extended visit in Aries, due to its retrograde dance in early September. This means that 2020 is a shifting gears kind of year that calls on us to get flexible, drop outmoded beliefs, and review where we place our values (Venus) and how do we deal with courage, anger, and frustration (Mars.) It’s a year of endurance, as we have already seen since early March.

Last but not least — another ingredient for the pressure cooker.

Later in the month, just as Venus stations direct on June 25, insert sigh of relief, Neptune will have turned retrograde just on June 23, and it will only shift directions on November 29. Now Neptune, like all the slow-moving planets, spends most of the year in retrograde, so it may not be strongly felt. By this point, we will have Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, and Neptune all retrograde. However, when planets station — i.e. slow down and ‘stop’ as they are about to shift direction — their energies are strongly felt.

Neptune retrograde dissolves the boundaries and submerges and dislodges the drive and perception of whatever planets it touches. Neptune works with dissolving, loss, and thus creates space for a new awareness to be revealed later. It may not be as strong and more readily felt as the likes of Mercury, Venus, and Mars, but if you are more sensitive to the energies around you, Neptune’s shift in direction will reveal itself to you via the disintegration of what used to be reliable and now seems to evaporate. Our perception of reality is shifted, as we slowly mutate into a new ego formation.

Eclipses are our cosmic regulators

The crisis produced call our attention to the cracks in our foundation that need attention. It shows where changes are necessary.

The traditional belief is that LUNAR Eclipses are about the people, as the MOON reflects not just our emotional landscape, but also the people of a country/culture. While the SOLAR Eclipses reflected the leaders of a country — leadership.

From an individual perspective, eclipses are cosmic telegrams informing us where in our lives we need to wrap up an old matter and move ourselves beyond our limitations. They call us to our personal destinies, reminding our soul that it has a gift to leave behind and it’s high time we addressed it.

Granted not all eclipses are the same or affect us in the same way. We have to always go back to the birth chart and see how an eclipse is interacting with your birth chart. Nevertheless, collectively we have a window of opportunity to address a situation or condition. So even if personally, the eclipse doesn’t affect you, it may be affecting the collective and you get to be involved in the ripple effect of what is running through the zeitgeist.

Eclipse Season

Shortly after the month starts, we have a Lunar Eclipse on June 5 at 15º degrees of Sagittarius at 12:12 pm Pacific / 3:12 pm Eastern. The Lunar Eclipse is considered to highlight the polarity of the nodes more prominently, bringing issues to a head. The Lunar Eclipse of June 5 is a SOUTH NODE one, so what is highlighted are all challenging features of Sagittarius, while highlighting the polarization already unfolding. Sagittarius is a FIRE SIGN highlights fires, uprisings, new discoveries, protests, but also creativity, leaders, arts, sports, and entrepreneurial spirit. We are already seeing these elements unfolding. This is an excitable eclipse and as much as possible we will need to tread the days before and after the eclipse with care. It is often said that the effects of an eclipse can be felt before it hits as if we can hear the roar of the airplane preparing to land coming from a distance.

Following a Lunar Eclipse is the SOLAR ECLIPSE of June 21, during the Solstice. This eclipse harks back to the eclipse of June 21, 2001–19 years ago. The rarity of this eclipse is due to the fact that it happens at 0º degrees of Cancer, considered a critical degree like 0º degrees of Aries, Libra, and Capricorn too. These eclipses are extremely influential in worldly matters, affecting us indirectly one way or another. I’ll speak more on this eclipse in my upcoming New Moon Salon on June 20 (Saturday) — details here.

Since it’s an eclipse in Cancer it touches on basic issues of security in the homeland, the living conditions, and the security of the population. Cancer is ruled by the Moon. The Moon represents in a country’s birth chart and from the world view — the people and its mood. Being that the US is a Cancer country, this eclipse will precipitate changes at a national level around economic and financial affairs. This is a cosmic telegram reminding the country of its destiny and mission. If you think of the meaning of the word FATE as an inevitable necessity, then the eclipse of June 21 is a date to be marked. Nothing may even happen on the day itself, but the point stays sensitive for a few years.

It doesn’t take astrology to help us see that we are in momentous times, with a pressure cooker ready to explode. Eclipses bring sudden and irrevocable change that clears the deck and makes room for the new to be born. But often the chaos and the jarring event can also leave traumatic marks in the psyche of the individual or country.

The last eclipse of this season will be the Full Moon Eclipse of July 4th in Capricorn. But that’s for next month’s article. June is a watershed month even if not visible at first. Stay the course, stay grounded as much as you can.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Like what you read? Share it with your friends. Want more? Sign up for my newsletter and be in the loop for upcoming events. Click here to sign up.

Vanessa Couto © 2020

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.

Voltaire

What is unfolding in the news and all around us, rising from the depths of our society’s psyche is both overwhelming and daunting. But it also holds the keys to the creation of a new way of being in the world. Birth is always messy and chaotic. The water has burst and we are in the threshold between dying and living.

Keeping our wits in these times

For this week’s Cosmic Monday, I want to take a look at the dance between Sun in Gemini and the union of Mars-Neptune in Pisces. Both of these signs are MUTABLE and invoke a sense of change and adaptability.

Although traditionally, these two signs don’t get along, as Gemini wants to hold the rational side, and Pisces the loss of boundaries, there’s a way through.

But it’s uncomfortable and edgy at first because to do so; we have to first come to terms with the rise of our emotions. We can’t think through the tightness in our chest, our tears, and our sadness. That would be Gemini’s first way of dealing with things, a point that our rational-loving culture feels more comfortable with.

How can we stay open and yet avoid the negativity, especially as we feel overwhelmed by the assault of the images that come through the news 24/7? Interesting that Neptune/Pisces has to do with photography and video, and we are being assaulted from our collective slumber through the constant stream of images.

For us to keep our wits about us and still navigate these turbulent waters, we have to bridge together the gifts of Gemini and Pisces. All around us, what has been held under by the collective seethes and roils like the ocean, and we are all susceptible to what is rising — especially this week.

Curiosity and Soul Work will carry us through

The way through is by bringing in Gemini’s gift of CURIOSITY and asking the right questions while doing the SOUL WORK, the INNER WORK that Pisces helps us bring forth. The razor’s edge for all of us now is that we have to both stay open, ‘feel the feels,’ but avoid the spikes of anxiety and reactivity that sweep through the collective consciousness. We have to allow things to wash over us, pass through us, and not get swept away. Easier said than done, and yet we must do this.

Times of crisis bring up every fear known to humanity. And fear is exceptionally contagious. Our job is to ‘flatten the curve’ by taking care not to add more negativity to humanity’s sea of consciousness. We do that by knowing ourselves, our coping ways, and how to tend to our emotional needs. We also help by recommitting to our sense of purpose for this life.

If you are reading this article and you follow astrology, I’ll assume that you are somewhat comfortable with the idea that your soul has a purpose, and you are here for a reason. As I often say, and find myself this even more recently: we are born as an answer to a question of our times. Whatever is your gift to this world, you are also part of the cleanup crew of all the things that our ancestors couldn’t attend to before. Knowing ourselves is a step towards reducing our psychic footprint to the collective pool. That means identifying and addressing our blind spots, understanding our privilege, our part in the fabric of systemic racism, misogyny, and patriarchy.

This may feel like asking a fish swimming in the ocean what it knows about water. Here is our opportunity to bring the Gemini curiosity to bear. Use it to question your assumptions, known facts, and ideas. Engage with other ideas and see what you can learn about how your ideas came to be. The message all around is that we have to educate ourselves, and that is an evident Gemini adage. Know thyself through educating yourself.

Danger at sea — stay alert and yet in the flow

With Neptune … in Pisces, those who prize their sanity will need to be clearer than ever about the dangers of the archetype in its low-level of expression. We’re going to need to watch out for fuzzy thinking and denial where deep healing is required. Escapist longings are strong when Neptune is prominent in the sky.

Jessica Murray — At the Crossroads

Neptune teaches about the illusory nature of this world. We have to keep our finger on the pulse of what is currently happening and yet also keep some distance for the sake of perspective.

But it’s not all smoke and mirrors. Neptune transforms the world one individual consciousness at a time. When we can open up to the experience, let the emotions flow through not and not grasp at them, we can glimpse the truth we’ve been searching all along — interconnectedness. The task for us as the cleanup crew is to savor the inspiration of this moment and to work through the pain and grief.

Behind all anger, the uncertainty, the violence, lies centuries and centuries of unhealed pain and grief. To work through this will take immense spiritual fortitude, as grief and pain will give us a deeper understanding of our place and purpose in these times. We connect to our medicine and gift to the world through our pain and grief. The flip side of that is that our encounter with nourishing joy.

Stay alert to what’s happening, follow that Gemini curiosity of being in the know, but tap into your inner spiritual resources to address what’s coming through you. That’s the Pisces gift, especially as Mars is now joined with Neptune, the sign of the shaman, spiritual warrior.

Challenges to our belief systems

Last week’s Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius sent shockwaves to our long-held beliefs. Eclipses don’t just hit on the day of but can have their thematic waves come much earlier. The last few weeks have been a tsunami of the need to recognize many truths about our reality. As I said in my June Forecast, this is a month that will give us whiplash.

However, a common misconception when dealing with Neptune (Pisces) and its dissolving of our ego boundaries is that we must surrender our ego. But that is not the way.

The secret to working with Neptune is to learn how to surf the wave. It’s to have a healthy relationship with one’s ego while letting it be strictly known that it is not the driver.

Look to your Sun Sign as a way to cultivate your relationship with your Ego. In this week’s case, while the Sun is in Gemini, one way we can work with our ego is through finding the facts, learning new ideas, stretching our mind towards new thoughts, and being curious: asking the questions to yourself and others.

Neptune squaring the Sun, brings out a feeling of much uncertainty and disorientation. It’s like a cosmic concussion. So we mustn’t fall asleep, we must stay engaged by being active. But active in grounded activities. Do activities that recharge your vitality, as this is a transit that can wipe one out. Plus it affects one’s immune system. So take ample breaks, deep breaths (Gemini is about the lungs), stay in communication, but know when to shut it all out and take a mental break. Work with your hands as much as possible, be it gardening, cooking, crafts, etc. This can help calm down the mental nervousness of Gemini.

There are no atheists in foxholes

Mars and Neptune can be troublesome and chaotic. Confusing, unclear, and yet times that call for the inner spiritual warrior in all of us.

Times of intense uncertainty calls us to reconnect to a Higher Power. Mars wants to fight back, to defend and take care of oneself. And yet when it meets up with Neptune it learns that it’s a meeting of the Fates.

It shows us that in the moment of death — and our world as we know it is dying — we are reawakened to something more visceral and alive within ourselves. We see fear and we know that to survive we will need to harness it.

We have to fight intelligently, not just as survival mode. Mars and Neptune together is an opportunity to activate powers we never dreamed we had. We can have super-human focus and be realigned with our sense of fate and purpose.

Our minds can become clear and understand what is truly important in life. The edginess of now is awakening all of us to remember our sense of purpose. It’s a reminder that we are born as an answer to a question of our times. How will you answer it?

Lastly…

During intense Neptunian times, we don’t know what to do for a reason. It’s a protection of sorts. We don’t know because we can’t know what we are doing. Too much thinking and explanation will feel like we are just rearranging the furniture in our heads. Neptune is about consciousness-expanding first, creating space by dissolving old ways of seeing the world, so that a new consciousness will flow into the now expanded spaced. You can’t move into a new house if the previous tenant has left all their old furniture there. You must first eliminate the old furniture so that you can come in with the new. That’s Neptune for you. Except that it does it much more subtly.

Meditate on this during this week.

Loss, in the outward sense, creates the space into which this new, expanded awareness can express itself … So, naturally, you are confused in a Neptunian time. You just haven’t caught up with yourself yet. … In a Neptune time, you need a vision.

Steven Forrest

Be gentle with yourself and others.

Needing more guidance and want to dive deeper into these topics?

Join me for my upcoming classes this month.

Mark your calendars for this month:

June 13 — The Astrology of Now
June 20 — New Moon Salon — Cancer Solar Eclipse

Click here to find out more.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Like what you read? Share it with your friends. Want more? Sign up for my newsletter and be in the loop for upcoming events. Click here to sign up.

Vanessa Couto © 2020

“Conspiracy theory is never really a problem of intelligence. It’s an emotional wound that overpowers the higher faculties of the mind — and is, therefore, best treated not with a barrage of countervailing facts, but with reassurance, kindness, and love, for it’s here that the problem invariably began.”

Alain de Botton

I’ve been thinking about the proliferation of conspiracy theories and strange attractors during this pandemic. There are a lot of conversations around fear, courage, and the dark workings of this shadowy government.

Some are paralyzed by fear; others continue to live with an attitude of devil-may-care. In the middle, stand a diminishing few who are attempting to hold the tension between COURAGE and TEMERITY.

As the Aries season winds down, let’s take a look at one of its core superpowers, but also it’s most significant shadow.

Courage is not the lack of fear. To act in courage is to have a grounding in reality and its facts. To act in courage, one needs to be prepared in a knowing that what they are facing could destroy them (figurately and symbolically), but they forge ahead nonetheless.

To act in courage is to hold the tension between the rational and the heart. One can act in courage when they have the backbone to face the facts and yet answer the call of the heart.

It’s not a devil-may-care attitude. It’s not hubris-defying the mysteries of life and death. Courage accepts the existence of death and its powers. It’s not poisoned by immature bravado.

The shadow side here is the vice of TEMERITY.

Temerity means unreasonable contempt of danger or opposition. The etymology of TEMERITY highlights its dangers. It’s related to BLINDLY, DARKNESS, GLOOM, and even OPPRESSIVE.

Temerity is not courage, because it’s blind, and it refuses to SEE with the eyes of REASON.

As a culture, we often mistake COURAGE with TEMERITY. We applaud the daredevils who defy the gods of reason and authority. They become lightning rods of belief fervor, stripping away the need for the coolness of reason.

We are a culture that exalts BELIEF over THINKING. We love to say ‘I believe…’ and the hidden message here is that because “I believe,” I don’t need to respect the voice of reason. Aspects of reason have been rebranded as ‘fake news’ and ‘conspiracy theories’ but not just the most fervent in the cult of believers, but also by those who would seem otherwise ‘rational.’

Courage is to be exalted, but temerity should be feared. Temerity is a berserker disseminating chaos and confusion. It’s easy to get confused because our culture doesn’t know how to distinguish the two.

The products of TEMERITY are dank darkness and oppressive gloom. After the first hooray, the reality of its byproducts reveal its truth.

In the basement of the American Soul, these two dragons fight each other. At times, courage gains the upper hand, as revealed at the best of times in American history and its leaders. But at different times, the dragon of temerity wins, with disastrous effects. What is even more disturbing about this struggle within the American Soul is that whichever dragon wins, so follows suit the rest of the world.

America isn’t like Las Vegas, where what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What happens in America spreads to the rest of the world, permitting other world leaders to release either their courage or the temerity dragons of their own psyches.

As citizens of America, we each hold the tension of these two opposites of COURAGE and TEMERITY. We are the thread in this cultural fabric. When we point the fingers at our leaders, we are missing the point that it’s also our responsibility (as in our ability to RESPOND) to acknowledge these two dragons that are fighting within ourselves.

When we lean towards vouching for conspiracy theories, dismiss reason, and fall on our knees at the church of unreasonable and immature belief, we are each feeding the dragon of TEMERITY. When we keep our minds flexible and present in the face of trying facts, and we respond with measured actions, we are feeding our COURAGE dragon.

What we are seeing playing out in the world stage with this pandemic is much more than a health or economic crisis. This is an age-old philosophical struggle between those who hold the tension between creating a world where there’s space for both reason and heart, and those who in their wounded fears, prefer to dismiss the need for nuanced and sensitive approaches to problems that they refuse to engage with in a conversation.

What we are witnessing is the intensification of a BELIEF WAR. One that never left us since the bygone days of the Dark Ages. We have another Crusade in our front yards. It will take much courage to face our collective anxieties about ambiguity and complexity. This pandemic is just one of the many issues that will crop up again and again until we come to terms with our two dragons: COURAGE and TEMERITY.

As for Aries. This archetype teaches us that as humans, we have the innate drive to forge ahead, to stake our claim and stand our ground. It teaches us about how we make changes, go after what we desire, and also create boundaries between self and others. Somewhere in our birth charts, we have Aries, even if we don’t have planets in this fiery sign. It’s in this place within ourselves that we see the dragons of COURAGE and TEMERITY face each other.

We need to acknowledge their existence if we want to live a better existence in the future.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Like what you read? Share it with your friends. Want more? Sign up for my newsletter and be in the loop for upcoming events. Click here to sign up.

Vanessa Couto © 2020

“…experience has shown that it is just before a planet turns retrograde or direct that things come to a head.”
Alexander Rupert — Cycles of Becoming

Mercury goes around the Sun once every 88 days. So every 116 days, Mercury is coming together with the Sun (in what we call Inferior Conjunction), and it is Retrograde.

Let’s look at the mythology of Mercury.

His Greek name is Hermes, and he was often associated with fertility in ancient Greece and linked to Thoth, the Egyptian antecedent. Later for the Romans, he became Mercury. But by the early Middle Ages, he took on also the role of the great alchemical archetype — Mercurius.

The union of all these into our astrological Mercury gives him more powers. He is the ruler of magical transformation, god of transition — more on liminal spaces soon — and transmitter of information. He is also a TRICKSTER god, and a psychopomp — the guide to the dead souls to the Underworld.

His role on our birth chart is deeply linked to how we translate data, and how we disseminate our perceptions. When we journey across a retrograde season, our understanding is shifted drastically as we contact information in new ways and process it.

Mercury is also the patron of the journeyer. So it is at that very departure moment when we are about to embark into the unknown that we meet Mercury. He is the guide of all the liminal souls, and lives that are on the threshold. So whenever we in a state of personal transition, we can expect Mercury to appear with messages from our unconscious, and a retrograde season is a collective liminal space.

The retrograde season in an archetypal way, is symbolic of Mercury/Hermes’ ability to go down into the Underworld, the realm of Hades, is the equivalent of how he brings information from our unconscious into our known ‘reality.’

It’s in the underground stage that we are processing information. It’s often a time for the insemination and active waiting for putting ideas on the ‘back burner’ for incubation and maturation.

The sense of suspense and anticipation associated with retrograde cycles mirrors the movements and cycles of Mercury. The dip into the unconscious, the mysterious alchemical transformation which occurs deep in the recesses of the psyche, and the often surprising outcome, are all part of the natural two-steps-forward, the one-step-back motion of the retrogression.

Remember that Mercury is also a messenger, and as such, he brings to the unconscious mind involved information stored deep in the unconscious and surprisingly delivers them.

Let’s talk a little about the Trickster archetype.

Those involved in channeling, healing, the therapist, the astrologer, etc. are particularly susceptible to the trickster energy. On one end, the trickster energy is the essence of serendipity. On a more serious note, it is the shaman energy, as well as the wounded healer.

Mercury, as a trickster, is here to debunk any hubris. Mercury teaches us the difference between AWARENESS (when he is retrograde) and ATTENTION (when he is direct). In awareness, one is undifferentiated from their environment. Barriers are removed, and there’s no separation between the observer and the observed.

Attention is about the separation between observer and the observed, resulting in a sharp focus on details that lead one to be actively participating in the environment.

Mercury direct is about attention, and the retrograde is about awareness — allowing us to integrate what we’ve learned into the fabric of our awareness. It’s integration period.

THE DIFFICULTY OF THE RETROGRADE SEASON is in our unwillingness to accept this teaching device. Retrogression teaches us that it is the unconscious mind that is in control, not the conscious one.

When Mercury is retrograde, something is calling for our awareness. Mercury teaches us that life is DISCOVERY, not design.

Remember he is the god of the journeyer, and if the traveler is too concerned with destination, of going from point A to B. The journeyer is in a state of discovery and liminal space.

Also, because Mercury is the guide for souls to the Underworld, he helps our shadow, that may be hidden in our underworld to find expression in our’ waking life’. We need to bring it to consciousness. So when we achieve awareness, we then need to give it attention!

Whatever comes up during the retrograde season is about illuminating what needs to surface to one’s attention, and it is very relevant to their self-development. Mercury is a civilizing agent.

Let’s talk about the MIND.

Mercury not only shows us how we receive information but also what is done with that information once it is assimilated. He represents our capacity to symbolize reality and to translate its symbols into reality. Remember he is a translator.

In your birth chart, Mercury symbolizes our ability to formulate and articulate ideas that originate in an abstract pattern. As a planet of communication, he the ‘teller of tales,’ and relates the inner perception to another individual’s Mercury.

My Mercury speaks to your Mercury — who is the hearer of tales. Communication is the creation of information in one mind by means of signals from another mind. He is a pollinating symbol, thus a bringer of civilization.

When Mercury is Direct, there’s no time for retrospection. We are in productive action. Our contemplative side is on hold. So when it goes retrograde, whatever was dormant for the prior three months will rise.

Retrograde Mercury is mental downtime, associated with re-doing, re-thinking, re-organizing, and any other RE.

He is our guide between ‘awake’ and ‘sleep,’ consciousness, and unconsciousness. So during the retrograde season, he is in a rhythm of the space between here and there, as we journey towards discovery. Knowing when to use these natural times of rest is a powerful tool.

When Mercury is retrograde, he is bringing home the knowledge of experience for us to integrate.

INFERIOR CONJUNCTION — Mercury’s ‘new moon’ moment

As Mercury moves between Earth and Sun, a seed is planted at this dark time. This is a NEW Mercury phase. It marks the time to rest, recuperate, and scale down initiatory action and allow the unconscious to work.

The seed gestates during the last phase of the retrograde season birthing shortly after Mercury goes direct, about 10/11 days later.

The ‘new moon’ phase of Mercury when it conjuncts the Sun. It lasts 10/11 days, and it is time to leave options open for new potentials and opportunities to develop. Time for research and gathering of information, not making significant decisions, even though there is an impatience in the air to get it all done. Best to use this time to lay the groundwork for the future. It’s a bit like driving with the hand brake on. It’s new beginnings combined with a sense of restraint, and that creates inner tension.

It’s time to survey the scene and scan the horizon for new tools that might be helpful in the near future, hence the association with research. This is all preparation for when Mercury goes DIRECT. This final phase of the retro season is an embryonic phase.

The Mercury Retrograde season is like a Zen master, as it teaches us to go with the flow of the tao. It teaches us to be graceful as we meet the cosmic obstacles.

• Station Retrograde: July 7 — Sunday — at 4 degrees of Leo
• Inferior Conjunction / new moon phase: July 21 — Sunday at 29 of Cancer
• Station Direct: July 31 — Wednesday — at 24 of Cancer
• Superior Conjunction / full moon phase: September 3 — Tuesday — at 11 of Virgo

In Sum

Do the inner work. Revisit the hidden corners of your psyche. Tend to the matters of home & hearth.

To Do

Plant new Mercurial seeds on July 21 and tend to these news seeds. See them come into fruition September 3. Whatever you do, don’t lose your mind. It’s introspection time.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Vanessa Couto ©️2019 — Liked what you read? Click here to sign up for my newsletter to be in the loop, plus get the Cosmic Mondays right in your inbox.

Archetypal imagination connects us to the flow of energy of the cosmos, thus giving us temporary access to the Divine Mystery.

This sentence reminds me of our collective arrival in Eclipse Season, and a Summer Season of retrogrades. Eclipses and retrogrades are like portals into another way of seeing our reality, inviting us to expand our imagination beyond the limitations of wanting to control, what is in truth uncontrollable.

Let’s first just set the parameters as a way to sue our ego’s need for control. Here are the core dates:

• July 2 — New Moon in Cancer + Solar Eclipse at 12:16 pm (Pacific)
• July 7 — Mercury stations Retrograde in Leo
• July 16 — Full Moon in Capricorn + Lunar Eclipse at 2:38 pm (Pacific)
• July 31 — New Moon in Leo at 8:12 pm (Pacific)
• August 2 — Mercury stations Direct in Cancer

Now put those dates aside, and let’s engage our imagination. This is a New Moon on steroids, and it’s potent because it is akin to opening the portal that will take us to the land of dragons. Now for you Game of Thrones fans out there, you know how powerful and destructive dragons can be. But you can also acknowledge that it’s their real power, even when lethal, that fertilizes the ground for new abundance to be revealed in time.

Eclipse season is about being initiated by dragons.

However, you take dragons to be for you, from the friendly dragons in ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ animated movie to the Chinese dragon, or even Khaleesi’s dragons, what we are being called to do is release the grip on our misguided idea that we control everything and all is under our Will. Dragons show us that our consciousness is a tiny island riding on the back of a cosmic dragon.

The last eclipse season back in January brought me down to my knees, more precisely to the floor, with a herniated disc and waves of pain riding my leg. That was not just humbling, but also a reminder that we need to engage our imagination, our ability to create a metaphor to carry us over towards healing — personal and collective.

To be literal is to insult the grandeur of the mystery of this cosmic dance and our souls. In our culture and times, we suffer from the disease of literalism, fundamentalism and a profound lack of imagination, as in the ability to use metaphor to carry us over towards life enriching symbols that bring us together — inner and outer.

That’s why I find so cosmically humorous that we have three Mercury Retrogrades a year (sometimes even four!) and the eclipse seasons. Even funnier when they are at the same time, coupled with other retrogrades of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto.

Let’s break it down.

Retrogrades are about perspective and an opening into a sideways look at how we are living our patterns. They are even more disruptive, the more unconscious and unaware we are about our lives and ways of thinking. Retrogrades are a summons from the unconscious for us to take a more in-depth look at what is underneath the rug. Especially with Mercury in Cancer, we have to look at our family/familial patterns of relationships and reflect, reimagine and reengage from a perspective that has proper boundaries, healthy relationship to empathy, and that is focused on CULTIVATING A NOURISHING SENSE OF BELONGING.

One of Cancer’s superpowers is the ability to imagine as a way to understand the other, to grasp the world around them, and to create the container-paths from which the future will become manifest. Cancer touches on our need to feel secure, not because of crippling sentimentality, but because in feeling secure and belonging, the future has a stronger possibility of becoming manifest.

So on this New Moon tend, and this is the keyword, to the emotional and imaginal corners of your life — inner and outer. Clear the cobwebs that don’t allow you to relate to your family (blood-related or not, it could be our Earth family) clear of old resentments that need to be forgiven, transformed, and/or released.

The truth is this, our psyche — individual and collective — is always looking for ways to heal, which means to make whole. It’s our stubbornness, literalism, and lack of imagination (image in motion) that creates the blockages that then put us on this karmic wheel of repeating things again and again. From a symbolic perspective — and symbol means to bring together — I see eclipses and retrogrades as opportunities to reset our psychic body back to health.

Mercury, our inner guide between our conscious and unconscious realms, will leave the Solar landscape of Leo, where we are invited to self-express and create through play, to swim the waters once again. The message is this: before we can fully self-express ourselves, share our unique gifts with the world, and step up to the stage, we have to disentangle ourselves from the sticky webs of our unhealed and unhealthy family and emotional patterns. The good stuff can stay and even help us do the healing work, but all the other ‘stuff’ that we have been carrying around way too long, needs to go.

Your healing serves not just you, but also your ancestors and this July that is precisely the deep the work that beckons us. Doing this healing will not only be for your emotional health, but it will also reverberate in your work, your business, your creative pursuits. Those around you and the future generations will thank you.

In Sum

Do the healing work. Pull off the band-aid or the duct tape that’s been holding this shindig way too long. Use the power of belonging to invite to a conversation those aspects of yourself that have been relegated to the basement of your psyche. They may be upset, but they have important messages for you and your life.

To Do

Seek healing in whatever way you can. You and everyone else around you is riding or being ridden by a dragon. Eclipse season is an initiation. Retrogrades are threshold portals to new worlds and new possibilities. Engage your imagination and step aside from being literal. Exercise genuine and kind curiosity. You will be glad you did.

Want to have a more personalized review of how this eclipse and retrograde season affects you and how to best relate to this potent dragon? Time to book a session! Let’s ride these dragons together. Click here to book a session.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Vanessa Couto ©️2019 — Liked what you read? Click here to sign up for my newsletter to be in the loop, plus get the Cosmic Mondays right in your inbox.

I love the symbolism of lighthouses — rooted, on the edge of two worlds, small in comparison to the shifting waves that it watches over, on a mission to protect those who are undergoing a journey in rough seas.

There’s something altruistic about lighthouses. Their impact isn’t about size, but how rooted, diligent, and firm they are in what they are doing.

In our own ways, we are also lighthouses for others in our lives, and most likely to those who aren’t close to us, or may even ever meet us in person.

This shows up even more so in the work you do in the world. It could be flipping burgers (done that! my first job was at Wendy’s), or being a surgeon, your work, in small and big ways affects others in a down ripple chain. Make the burger right, and you satisfy someone’s taste buds. Be present and aware during surgery, and you save a life.

Why lighthouses?

We are coming up to eclipse season and Mercury Retrograde, two astrological events that often sends folks into a cosmic tailspin, even those who know very little to nothing about astrology.

During Mercury Retrograde time, the god of crossroads and liminal spaces will be blamed from traffic jams to computer mishaps, to you arguing with your loved one while eclipses are spoken with a tone of magical fear under the breath.

Think of this way; both of these are collective liminal journeys. Which is quite perfect, because right now, the Sun journeys through Cancer, a sign connected to this in-between world: land & sea, just like the lighthouse.

How can we dance with the upcoming Mercury Retrograde and the Eclipse Season?

Remember the lighthouse within through the lens of the sign of Cancer. Cancer connects us to home, our roots, and the very seat of our being. It also connects us to our inner ebb and flow and how imagination is the moist nourishment to help us keep on trekking.

Eclipses and the next one is on July 2 during the New Moon in Cancer, is a wild card, portals that open us up to a new level spaciousness in our lives. Things may be cleared off your life’s deck to make room for what is necessary for your progress and development. Its message may not be apparent immediately or even its effect, but it comes as a harbinger of shift and change.

It’s as if the sea is now rough, unlike when you started on your journey. Look to the lighthouse to guide you through the rocky coast.

And Mercury Retrograde

I’ll talk more about it in later posts, but suffice to say for now that Mercury Retrograde is a reset from our ‘go-go’ to a pull inwards to reflect, reassess and re-imagine how we want to move on forward. Back to the lighthouse. As the sea rages, keep your compass as guidance and follow the advice of the lighthouse, but go with care and don’t rush the process.

At this stage, this isn’t enough fuel for full speed ahead. So slow down, move sideways like the crab if need be, but take the opportunity to root down now into the place that helps you feel that you belong.

Follow the wisdom of Cancer: a secure past, home base is the sign of a secure future. Yes, the unexpected is always around to spice things up, but when we are rooted in who we are, where we come from, then we can more readily step into the future.

In Sum:

Take time to settle down and go at a more manageable pace. Tend to the home and activities that help you feel rooted — like a lighthouse.

To Do:

Clear your calendar and make room for spaciousness, for this is how magic and miracles come when there’s space in our lives to receive them. A crowded ‘house’ has no room for others.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Vanessa Couto ©️2019 — Liked what you read? Want to see how this all applies to your life? Let’s work together. Click here.

Seasons teach us about development and process. To be present to the shift of seasons is to be grounded in embodied in our process of becoming. Our modern world has brought us many wonders, but it has also disconnected us from being rooted in the seasons. So let’s claim it back through looking at the astrological dance for this year’s Solstice.

Who are the leading players?

The leading role goes to the Sun, the guiding light of our development. As the Sun moves into the sign of Cancer to join Mercury, Mars and the North Node, we can feel the emphasis on Cancerian themes: nurturing, belonging, family, roots, home, the past, privacy and self-protection.

The plot thickens, as standing opposite this beach party in Cancer are Saturn, Pluto, and the South Node. This is a significant stand-off, akin to those we see in Western films with the sheriff and his posse facing the Other — ‘baddie’ or foreigner — that comes to upset the homeostasis in their home turf.

The Sun will only stay in Cancer for 30 days, but that’s enough to set the tone for this new season. Late July, it will move into Leo, and the process will shift towards self-expression, creativity, shining one’s light onto the world. But we look at the chart of the Solstice itself (June 21, 2019, at 8:45 am Pacific Time) to give us a gist of the themes swirling in the next three months.

Here’s the breakdown.

Sun in Cancer

Look to matters closer to home, to your family, to what nourishes your soul. Tend to the tender parts of your life. The Sun moves away from outward facing Gemini, seeking to build bridges and connections, to the embrace the inward facing lunar sign of Cancer. To use the analogy of the tides, the Sun in Cancer teaches us to be present to our inner tides, the ebb, and flow of our imagination, our bodies, and our closest relationships. Crabs like to hide under rocks and skirt sideways from danger. This is the time of the year, in which we are called to looking at the ‘little hidden’ corners of our lives. It’s also a time to achieve goals quietly and subtly. Work quietly in the rhythm of your inner ebb and flow.

Last, when the Sun enters Leo at the height of the season, we are (hopefully) better prepared to step onto the stage and share what we have uncovered under the rocks. Nourish yourself in Cancer so that you may shine in Leo. Then as the season winds down, the Sun will be in Virgo, and we are called to exercise discernment as to what we want to take with us further towards the calendar end of the year. It will be time to digest what the season meant and what practical steps we achieved. For not focus on the matters close to home. Tend to your inner Cancerian.

Mars and Mercury in Cancer

Mars in Cancer is the warrior back at home after between crusades. Mars in Cancer, with all the salt water and brine from the beach, may feel rusty and unable to do what it wants to do. It can either turn frustrated and sulk, or it will exercise its muscles towards (self)protection of what is close to the heart.

Now Mars will be leaving Cancer at the end of June and move on to Leo, where it can get back to its shiny armor and attend the flashier chivalry tournaments. But the cosmic dance that takes place now will have longer lasting effects on the season.

Mars is facing off with both Saturn and Pluto this week (June 17–23), and that’s not for sissies. Saturn and Pluto are in exacting Capricorn, and its easier to feel affected by the dichotomy between nurturing/empathy/self-protection of Cancer and the cold-hard-truths of Capricorn. This is a season that will bring forth a lot of emotional truths to the forefront. We may skirt sideways, but ultimately, we will have to face our frustrations and own our wounds, our addiction to a nostalgic past and tap into our emotional resiliency. Mars in Cancer harks back to mother bear behavior. That can be great, when we need to defend human empathy and compassion from the cold bony fingers of our worse selves that because of fear embraces more capitalist appetites, but it can also keep us attached to past victimizations that now need to shift into constructive action, and not be ‘carte blanche’ for neverending attention-grabbing tactics of emotional manipulation.

Mercury, on the other hand, our psyche’s connector to the inner and outer worlds, will spend a more extended period in Cancer thanks to its upcoming retrograde phase (Station Retrograde July 7 — Station Direct July 31). Unfasten your seatbelts as we will be traversing the emotional highway a little longer. Mercury will dip into Leo on June 26 and then return to the womb of Cancer on July 18. This will give us a glimpse of what is at stake here: our ability to stand as ourselves onto the world stage and the memories that tie us back to regressive behaviors. Use the Mercury Retrograde phase to do active imagination, imaginative work around the wounds that are holding your back from more fully embracing your creator self. Cancer’s gift is to reveal to us that it’s not always through the stark glare of the Sun that we find our answers. What is tender is often revealed by the moonlight and under cover of tenderness. That is what fuels our ability to, later on, embrace the sovereign spirit of Leo within ourselves.

North Node in Cancer

Think of the North Node as our North Star pointing towards where we need to grow. As it continues to journey through Cancer until May 5, 2020, will continue to be hard at work in poking us to nourish our souls and tender hearts. It’s not about us turning into mush and coming undone because of sentimentality, but learning that true mastery (what the South Node in Capricorn is trying to tell us — ‘don’t lose yourself in sentimentality, but remember your ability to master yourself’) comes from knowing our ebb and flow of emotional self-regulation.

North Node in Cancer is driving the point that to fix the world’s problems we can’t afford to do it through our outdated modes of understanding mastery, but through tending to what keeps us ‘moist,’ and not ‘brittle.’ In other words, it’s calling us to AWAKEN OUR SOULS, not allow the tornadoes of the world to leave us isolated and brittle.

Enter Jupiter, Neptune, and Venus — the sea gods beckon us

Amazingly, most of our world is made of the water, as well as our bodies, and yet, we behave utterly clueless as to the power of this element that guides us. In many mythologies, the sea gods are the earthy gods that bring us back to this present world. Their way of doing this is never straightforward, but more like a distraction that takes us away from the goal at hand. As humans, we are fascinated and yet resentful of their ability to take us off course.

Jupiter, Zeus in Greek mythology, is a sky god, but until Neptune was discovered in the mid-1800s, was the ruler of Pisces. Neptune is Poseidon from Greek myth, the ruler of the seas. Once Neptune was discovered, it was given the rulership of Pisces.

Venus, Aphrodite for the Greeks, was born in the sea. Her name, Aphrodite, means of ‘foam-born.’

At the beginning of this season, they are in triangulation to each other. Venus in connection-driven Gemini, Jupiter in big-picture Sagittarius, and Neptune in synthesis-driven Pisces. For our world that loves left-brain ways of solving problems, these three say otherwise.

Venus is a culture-bringer and a civilizing agent, teaching us that it’s through a connection that cultures are made. Jupiter in Sagittarius shows us the power of faith and big-picture thinking. Neptune wants us to honor the unseen; otherwise, it will make the unseen sweep us off our foundations through earthquakes and tsunamis from our psyches.

When we don’t honor the gods, they come to us as neurosis and diseases. We see this aplenty in our world.

So this season make conscious space for things to gurgle up to the surface. Follow the thread of your imagination and see what vistas it opens up for you. Clear your schedule, your mind from the clutter of old, outdated ideas to make room for something to rise from your depths. This is edgy, hard, and anxiety provoking. So find companionship for this task. Remember Cancer, invite others to your table of belonging.

Saturn and Neptune

Quietly in the background, Saturn and Neptune have been in conversation for most of this year. This odd couple often needs marital counseling, but one way to see their relationship and to help ourselves is this: use the power of Saturn, driven to build containers and foundations, to help you create the structures that will help you receive the imaginative gifts of Neptune.

How does this work? Clear space in your home, your office, your desk for what you are calling in, or allowing to come through. Want to paint? Write? Do something other than the daily grind? Then clear your calendar and make space for that to have room in your life. Want a romantic relationship? Clear your closet to make room for the partner to arrive.

Saturn teaches us to tend to the container that will hold the dream. Remember the house (Saturn’s structure) holds the Dreamer (Neptune and its dream world.)

Avoid negative Saturn of complaining about the lack and embrace its more proactive side: build the foundation you want. Otherwise, the magic that Neptune can bring for you will wash away, like the waves at the beach.

In Sum:

Make room for what you want. Build the foundation. Clear the clutter. Walk your emotional mastery and avoid the whirlpools of sentimentality and fake insta-meme gratitude spirituality. Step it up.

To Do:

Invite others to your table of belonging. Call for collaboration and hold others to the accountability you also will need from them. Use the past, not as a permanent vacation but a stepping ladder to where you want to go.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Vanessa Couto ©️2019 — Liked what you read? Want to see how this all applies to your life? Let’s work together. Click here.

Astrology and English came into my life when I was a child.

I must have been 8 or 9 years old when the Muse of Astrology invited me into her presence. I remember being at the playground during recess in Elementary School asking my friends: ‘What is your sign?’ I’m not sure how I learned about the zodiac signs, for astrology was not something discussed at home. Still, I remember being fascinated that each person fell under a zodiac sign, and that helped me understand who they were.

Now English came into my life when I was ten years old. That’s when my family immigrated to the US. All I knew was how to say ‘hello,’ ‘thank you,’ and count to 10. I was immediately placed in 5th grade, and my immersion in the English language started. Within a year, I went from a few words in English, to speaking in complete sentences, reading books at a 5th-grade level, and understanding the movies on television.

Four things helped me to master the language, although even to this day, I still have what I call ‘bad English days’, instead of ‘bad hair days’; these are the days when either too tired or stressed, I tend to drop the prepositions and switch ‘kitchen’ for ‘chicken.’

Four things helped me to learn and love English: a compassionate ESL teacher, my love of books and reading, my appreciation of American sitcoms and movies, and seeing English as a symbolism of a culture, something to that surrounded me and invited me to engage with the environment.

The experience of coming from another country, Brazil, and being immersed in English and American culture, has informed my approach to astrology. Not only has it taught me not to take curiosity for granted, for when one comes from a different country, one is forever under the guidance of the threshold gods/goddesses.

One might as well, embrace this position of an outsider and make good use of one’s observation skills. This experience has taught me that Astrology isn’t ‘out there,’ but it’s also all around us. I see it as a symbolic language that is to be experienced, and as a language, it invites us into a conversation.

The kind of conversation that astrology invites into is to help us see that we are part of a more significant dance and that our life’s wheel matters. Astrology helps us see that being more fully who we are is the gift we have to share with the world.

Think of it this way: your birth chart is like your cosmic country. It has its distinct language, culture, and you are its ambassador. As an ambassador of your own unique cosmic country, this sacred ground that represents your psyche and Self, it’s essential to get to know this territory, to engage in the conversation.

That’s my approach to an astrological session: it’s a conversation and a journey that we are having through your cosmic country. Each planet, sign and the aspects they make to each other defines your cosmic culture. Your birth chart is more than a potent life roadmap, it’s also your territory, and it awaits you to get to know it, explore it, and make the best out it.

I find that approaching my work with astrology from the perspective of a conversation and curiosity is more empowering and creative. While there may be challenging aspects in your birth chart (we all have something challenging), it’s more potent to engage in the conversation and not be passive. The astrological archetypes come alive when you learn their language, and with that, your life will also be enriched.

Astrology is ancient, and it has survived upheavals and transformations, to now be revitalized in a time when we have at our disposal the possibility and potential to take the gifts it grants us in a co-creative manner. The Muse of Astrology invites us to participate in the conversation and step up as ambassadors of our cosmic territory: our birth chart.

Want to learn the language of astrology, check out my ASTRO 101 Course starting on July 1, 2019.

Vanessa Couto ©2019

The week starts with the Last Quarter Moon, as her energy wanes, we are called to reflect and take stoke of the journey thus far this month. It’s a good fit since June is upon us and half of the year is wrapped up.

The mood for the Last Quarter is this: acknowledge the turning point, small as it may be. Recognize where you have come from, how far, and how challenging it has been. Use this time to shed some light onto the crossroads ahead. This is reflective and pivot time.

We start the week with the Moon in Pisces, while the Sun is still in the early stages of Gemini.

Think of it this way: it’s hard to differentiate facts from dreams. Fact-based analysis needs to allow intuition into the sandbox. Gemini tends to want more research, more asking, more information, but Pisces says, it’s all connected already, why do I need to read yet another piece of information?

The struggle is between seeing all the trees despite the forest. Gemini is connected to details; the information that gathered (hopefully) would lead to wisdom. Pisces is about SYNTHESIS. The pulling it all together and seeing that all is connected, thus transcending boundaries.

Dreams and facts may be strange bedfellows, but it doesn’t mean they are irrevocably divorced. It just takes some work from us to make it all come together. For this, let’s thank Gemini, whose one of its many gifts is BRIDGE BUILDING and making CONNECTIONS.

The way to work with this energy is this: give yourself an activity that is meditative in someway and let your brain work in the background with whatever question you have been struggling with in life and business. Then walk away and see what comes from the environment as an answer to your inquiry.

By Tuesday and through early Thursday, the Moon will be in Aries, and the feel is of let’s get things going. Take action, take that first step you’ve been hesitating and get the wheel in motivation. However, remember that as the Moon’s light wanes, the pull is inwards not outwards, so best to take action in areas of your life and business that are related to YOU and your betterment.

The week closes with the Moon in Taurus, but also in its Balsamic phase, which is all about pruning, pulling the weeds and also giving yourself time to rest and regroup.

In light of the Sun’s journey in Gemini and the waning Moon, use this time to do some mental housecleaning of old pieces of information, ideas, thoughts, to do lists and mental busyness.

Venus and Neptune in dialogue

Lastly, to thicken this week’s cosmic soup: Venus journeying through Taurus will be in a challenging conversation with Neptune. Vision, dreams, and even illusions will be attempting to make themselves manifest in the physical world. The key to solving these discordant energies between ideal and physical reality is tied to our sense of VALUE.

Not all dreams are meant to be pursued. Not all illusions are harmful. But both invite us to examine what we VALUE and where we place our energies in the making things happen. Don’t dismiss what you like, dislike, and find worth your time as something frivolous. They are important clues to your VALUE SYSTEM, and that’s what Venus teaches us. While she’s journeying through Taurus, we are beckoned to examine our value system and sense of security in this physical world.

In Sum:

A good week for mental pruning, clearing and releasing. Engage the mind in meditative activities. Avoid going on an information gathering extravaganza. Less will be more as long as its the correct information. Pay attention to your sources.

To Do:

Clear your desk, inbox, desktop, and office. Eliminate all that information junk that’s been gathering dust — physically, intellectually and psychologically. Make room in your calendar by the end of the week to take stock of this first half of the year. A new season is upon us.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Vanessa Couto ©️2019 — For more on how to work with me, click here.

We kick off the week on the heels (heals!) Scorpio Full Moon. From the manure comes the vision. Full Moons bring things into the light. It’s akin to when you go hiking, and you reach the summit of your path. You can now take stock at what it took to get to the top, survey the landscape, and now pivot towards the return journey.

What have you learned?

What wisdom will you share with others?

What might you leave behind?

What new insights and ideas will you disseminate?

For most of this week, we have elements that should inspire us to spread the news.

The Disseminating (Waning Gibbous) Moon is about communicating and spreading the news on that which you have learned. It’s about sharing your knowledge.

The shift from body to mind — Sun enters Gemini

Then on May 21 (Tuesday), the Sun moves into connection driven Gemini. The focus shifts from examining our resources and what makes us feel embodied and secure, to paying attention to our inner drive to connect to others.

Gemini is not a sign that speaks (pun intended) to just communication and spreading gossip (in its less evolved manifestation.) Gemini’s motivation is to make a connection — inner and outer, but also through our different levels of consciousness. Ultimately, it’s about connecting to the disparate parts of our psyche. Our psyche isn’t a flat surface, but a multi-layered cake of many ingredients, and we live and journey through these different parts of ourselves daily.

Gemini is here to help us connect the dots, and nothing tests our abilities more than when we try to communicate, building the bridge between our inner worldview, ourselves, and the world outside of us. Verbal communication, which is something often attributed to Gemini’s toolbox, is only one of its tools. While the Sun is in Gemini, we are called to re-envision how we build bridges across many platforms.

What do you want to share with the world? This is your time.

So do you have something you want to share with the world? An idea? A campaign? A project? A new service? A course?

It’s time to step onto your soapbox and share it with the world. Think of those old images of the newspaper boy shouting: Extra, Extra!

Take the communication medium that serves you best. But, and this is an important ‘but,’ be discerning how you share, because now more than ever, not just as entrepreneurs, but as citizens of this world, there’s a substantial educational component to how we speak. Our communication tells more than words; it informs volumes what is of value to us in this life.

Use the notorious Gemini curiosity as a compass. Ask more questions, and assume less. Hard, but doable. In these times, we need more curiosity and fewer assumptions about where people are coming from.

This is where Gemini can help.

While the Sun journeys through Gemini for the next 30 days, we can now focus on reassessing how we speak to what we do. That’s why Gemini is often linked to marketing, advertising and news — because it is about how we tell (or spin) a story.

Words do matter as we all know but often forget in the awkwardness that may afflict us. Use this week to give yourself a much-needed Spring cleaning of the cobwebs that are inflicting your ideas and your communication avenues.

In Sum:

We start a cycle of reassessing and reflecting on how we communicate. Because the words we use and how we do it, also communicates the values and beliefs we hold dear.

To Do:

Use this week to reassess the channels you use to communicate and also how to elevate the educational component of how you speak of your business/work.

Enjoy & Thrive!

Vanessa Couto ©️2019 — For more on how to work with me, click here.