Buckle up, buttercup, it’s going to be a bumpy week ahead and you will feel so much better about you on the other side of this stretch. The last couple years we’ve had this stressful aspect between expansion that comes through partnerships, great awakenings that lead to a complete overhaul of who’s the authority in our life (Jupiter in Libra opposite Uranus in Aries, square Pluto in Capricorn) that finally winds down. But not before the planets this month light you to be sure you’ve gotten the lessons – especially as it relates to others in your life. These are the bumps…
The great news is, you’ve already covered this territory. Now a difficult choice or conversation is one more chance for you to see how good it feels to make a decision rather than just react from old patterns. From here, you create different outcomes than you have in the past when you struggled or suffered through these moments. This week gives you more information on where those pesky little pockets of doubt and insecurity still sit so you can do another sweep of mental and emotional housecleaning.
Those fears and doubts don’t disappear in one fell swoop. There’s a lot of your life where you haven’t experienced your expanded capacity for compassion and strength yet. This next few weeks these triggers will show up, particularly in relationships. Time to get your kind inner voice out for you and others, followed with a backbone and boundaries that clearly communicate what works for you and what doesn’t. You will come out of this testing time with an awful lot of good growth.
View this as a test of your inner guidance system. Achieving clarity takes a few attempts for most people. When you find yourself judging another, or triggered by them, this is the best time to see your own value, really know that what you feel and want matters. When you do, it’s easier to let them have their own issues without fear that you have more responsibility than you actually do for their challenges. We are much more helpful to each other when we can let each person grope their way to understanding themselves instead of trying to fix them or us.
This is the best foundation to deal with others from so you can have conversation that inform and share rather than reactions which leads mostly to separation. While other people contribute to your understanding of how valuable you are, that core knowledge is ultimately yours to decide and work with for your life.
Check your efforts, a few of your personal successes in this arena may have slid by unnoticed. You may already show signs you can ace these moments of doubt and claim a hard won victory over old outgrown limitations on how loved and lovable you are. The Cards and the Stars can help…
Card of the Week: Ancestor
This card is perfect for this week because one meaning is the Keeper of Secret knowledge. With Pluto in tense aspects with so many planets this month, those secrets are going to be outed. This week it’s about underground ideas and beliefs, many we inherited, and a fitting-room session to see if they still work for us. Some won’t be a good fit at all. You’ll be flinging them to the side on the hunt for something that is a much truer version of you now. There’s a little discomfort in kicking long standing interpretations out. They feel oh so familiar and there’s some relief knowing exactly how they work. But wait a minute, do they really work? Be aware of the ideas or habits have slowly started to pinch or pull at you but the easy familiarity of following this well-worn path felt soothing. Change happens when the pressure of not changing outweighs the pressure to do it differently. The greater your cost is to stay the same, the more quickly you move on to those new ideas, people and places. This is why you are going to be aware of your discomfort this week. It shines a light on where you may have ignored these corners up until now. Let the challenges help you continue to stretch and grow as the authority in your life.
Monday: Five of Stones
This five combined with the Heirophant points out your unconscious thought patterns challenged today are here to uncover more of your strengths. Wow, is that on point for the Astrology or what? We have both the Sun and Mercury (Our Personality and communication style) in a pushing match with Pluto – the Deep Transformer. Since the Moon is also in a tough place with Neptune I can bet that you will be mostly on your own today. Those resources you hoped for, cheerleading from friends, or confirmation that all is well might be out of immediate sight. It’s your chance to step in and put your inner guidance system to work for you. Where does your mind go when you get delayed, denied, rerouted or isolated? Is it a snap reaction and if it is, how uncomfortable are you as the day goes on with that choice? There is rich insight to be mined and then applied in ways and directions that much better serve you. This Five also encourages you that you are closer to the goal than you think. Persist and you succeed.
Take Action: Take at least one or two pauses today to pay attention to your reactions and actions so you identify those stretch growth spots.
Tuesday: Knight of Arrows
This is the fastest moving of the four Knights and represents the Mind. He represents the ability to mentally separate yourself from a situation and review it from more detached place. In the line up this week between the Five of Pentacles and tomorrow’s Star Card, it offers assurances that you can break up with the scarcity mentality that had you anyplace but in the center of your life. There’s a stack up of aspects that add resistance when you try to stay stuck. Those places you felt less loved than you wanted, less acknowledged or seen is paired with some fear there isn’t enough for everyone to enjoy an abundance of love, recognition and connection. This swiftest of the Knights can change direction, rather quickly too, and take you towards that abundance. Your job is to let yourself go a different way. The aspects get easier as the day goes on so give yourself time to make this shift.
Take Action: When you find yourself back in an old familiar and uncomfortable pattern, ask yourself this question: ‘What else is possible’?
Wednesday: Pole Star
This card is has such promise of dreams come true. There’s just one big caveat that goes with this promise, though. You have to do the work. You must ground great ideas and inspired visions of what’s possible with the day to day efforts to back up those lofty goals. The very best way to accomplish the most in is the right collaborations. Do you know how you are sure you’ve got the right collaboration? You’ve experienced some that weren’t so great. With a little help from Venus in a dance with Uranus and Mars square Saturn, your heart’s wish and the obstacles and delays you experienced in going after it in the past suddenly have a lot more valuable information to offer you. Those historic defeats, delays and reroutes are visible in ways you didn’t previously understand. Ah, the light dawns and by day’s end you get it and can put those insights to all kinds of wonderful ways that can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Take Action: Look at least even one painful failure from your past with fresh eyes. So how much you learned.
Thursday: Two of Stones
This card in the week’s line up goes to the heart of the relationship issues Libra highlights now. Where have you spoken the truth and not been heard? Or where have others told you what is right for them only to fall on your deaf ears. There’s bound to be some on both sides. No one side is perfect. The Moon is square the Sun, Mercury, Saturn and the North Node so unless you are equally ready to own your part in anything that failed, including a conversation, you hit a roadblock. It’s a BIG roadblock. You won’t be able to ignore or pretend it isn’t there. The good news is, apply a different approach and your words and actions pay off fairly fast when it comes to feeling better about yourself or others. The bad news is with Moon square Uranus, it’s going to land a bit of a shock to your system. The light’s go on and they may have you blinking fast in the bright lights.
Take Action: Keep an eye on the balance between you talking and listening today.
Friday: The Stag
This card and combinations reminds you of autumn. Things fade and begin to die before they go bare and quiet but appearances can be deceiving. There is tremendous growth inside that bare tree. There are no aspects today, a nice break after the celestial storms of the week. The Stag is the Strength Card in traditional Tarot. So today it’s a chance to catch your breath, relax and review how many hurdles you’ve cleared this week. It’s all too common to underestimate yourself and overestimate the challenge as a survival tactic. After all, this way you are over-prepared for any potential threat. Instead today, take a good look at where a fear of repeating an old mistake misses how far you’ve come from then. Some risks are much more reasonable now and you can approach them and deal with them to a better outcome.
Take Action: Choose at least one past failure you know you could replace with a current win and take a little risk there.
Saturday: Four of Arrows
Fours consistently reveal (or insist) where things are on a firm foundation. The Arrows represent the mind so today you may wear yourself out going back and forth between old thoughts and new revelations you have to incorporate after this week. The aspects help in some areas and pile more ‘aha moments’ on to other spots. But have no fear, or at least not too much, because as the day moves on you realize you can corral those pesky doubts and send them in healthier directions. The message sinks in, ‘practice makes perfect’. Let these fears and doubts give you a great chance to build mental muscle. The caution with this card is to pace yourself. Be careful about who you talk to and what you watch today. No need to load up the worst news or chat with alarmists. You benefit from rest and strategic pauses.
Take Action: If you catch your mind racing, drop into something mindless for a little break.
Sunday: Three of Arrows
This card pops up on the day when Mercury is opposite Uranus, with a wholly-unexpected, fresh view of where you feared a loss when there was much more to go around then you realized. Jealousy is rooted in a fear of loss. Today is a great day to understand that what is yours can never go to someone else. This may challenge what you believe, but it’s absolutely true. When you feel yourself jealous or envying another person you don’t see the whole picture. Loss of love when you are an infant means the difference between life or death. It is a completely overwhelming fear that can consume us. Yet it’s not real. You are not a helpless infant anymore. There are far more choices available than the one you feel you lost in your current situation. It takes time and practice to talk yourself off the all or nothing ledge when jealousy rears its ugly head. Today Mars has help to offer, so pay attention to your actions if you’re triggered. If you catch yourself in this bad mental neighborhood and acting out, this is great insight into the root cause of those feelings.
Take Action: Talk to a friend today for bigger perspective about those relationships that stir up the little green monster in you and where you are better off than you realize.
