Mars, the action planet, takes a bigger role in the coming week. Hair trigger tempers abound and the simmering heat around those actions can help or hurt you. You decide. Yup, that theme continues. React or create and the stakes are dialed up because the eclipses brought our shadow out to play. This is not to shame you with your shortcomings but instead you can see where your own actions fail to get you the results you might like.
In fact, try something a little out of the ordinary. Don’t act from a place of trying to get results at all. Instead, what action feels most ‘you’. Try to detach at all from outcomes, let that go. With this Mercury Retrograde, things are going to go sideways no matter what you do. Really experiment with what feelings prompt what actions and do they still team up together or are you tired of that pairing.
Try a new way of handling trigger points and people when you stay just with what fits this moment. Like shoe shopping you may have to try on a couple different ways of handling those challenges. Don’t try to map too far out ahead, things ahead are out of focus through the end of August. You just put old habits on new information and it probably doesn’t fit. Like shoes, you’ve outgrown the responses that served you up until now.
Time for a larger response, a roomier shoe to walk through life wearing. It’s also a good place to notice how much of what you do is conditioned response rather than actual engagement with current information. Always good to be as generous with other people’s shortcomings, when it comes to flare ups this week, as you’d like them to be with yours. Keep your eyes and heart open for successes too. Be each other’s cheering squad and watch the traction improve with each ounce of grateful or glad recognition. Besides, it feels good to have progress shared and celebrated.
Watch out for finger-pointing, there’s always more of them pointing back at you then at the other person. Tempting but not the most productive way to move through the murk ahead. Better to keep your eyes on your side of the street and those who are succeeding along with you. Doing this builds inner momentum rather than staying stuck in less productive rants as Mars travels back through old relationships and events. It may feel good to blow off steam just don’t linger there. Your inner work pays big dividends and the momentum you gain pays off when Mars and Mercury go direct closer to the end of August. The Cards and the Stars will help.
Thank you,
Lisa Greenfield
Card of the Week: Ace of Wands, Spark of Life
Perfect card for the choice ahead of you this week, will you choose inspired action or a flame that burns. The Wildwood Tarot speaks of this Ace as ‘the spark of life that requires you shape, direct and persevere’ when it shows up. What will you shape, direct and stick with this week even if it’s unfamiliar or you aren’t sure of the outcome? Fire is our intuitive connection to the divine, so where the spark shows up you are invited to co create with the Universe and build your trust for your intuition. Fire is the element that most requires others, Fire needs fuel. Intuition is what serves mankind, not just an individual. Which is why you can imagine what you want that spark to be as you shape it but you don’t have the final word. It can cause teeth gnashing to surrender the element of control but what you get instead is collaboration.
There are forces at work to enlarge and expand that spark so you don’t do it all yourself. You can enjoy the rich bounty of community and shared creation or you can fume that you don’t get to call all the shots. Again, you decide. The end results will definitely exceed your expectations and you may even enjoy your part of the effort more if you choose to release control. I invite you to try it… Patience with the results, because the biggest part of the result is who you are when you partner with others.
Monday: Two of Arrows, Insecurity
With this pesky two the question to keep close at hand is ‘what motivates that thought’. Is it fear, scarcity, competition and how much judgement is in the picture with those motives? Spend a little time questioning what you feel and what you need before you respond to something from a limited understanding of what’s actually happening as the Sun has some adjusting required in aspect to Venus. Practice a little patience if someone rushes to judge you as well. Keep the scales in mind today and with a little reflection and a pause long enough to do that you can get to a much kinder place tonight when Moon trines Jupiter. Otherwise, the same influence will escalate any tensions and blow them out of proportion. It’s such a little bitty two after all.
Tuesday: Page of Stones
Thank goodness for the grounded energy of this solid Page today. It helps in a week of ups and downs, surprises and reactions. There is mostly help today with the Moon and Pluto in easy aspect, so changing the old story about what things mean get’s easier. Once you do that a little Moon Venus opposition may surprise you at what your new likes and dislikes are when they aren’t clouded by old stories of what you thought something meant. With Jupiter bringing expansion to Ceres, comfort food is always a nice addition but even more nourishing is the better story you tell yourself about what things mean. Now that’s a tasty meal and no calories either.
Wednesday: The Journey
The Moon is busy today, first meeting up with Neptune to have us test the deep waters of the collective unconscious. Quite likely that you feel waves of emotions that you have no idea where they come from. I wouldn’t waste much time analyzing unless you focus on what your stories are around those shadowy feelings of anger, fear, suffering. Does blame or shame come up when those darker emotions surface, or are you able to simply acknowledge them as part of the landscape? What actions go with those stories?
Because the Moon also meets Dark Lord Pluto, you can detach from unnecessary suffering when an unpleasant emotions pops up. It helps to remember that what you love requires you to feed yourself a kinder interpretation of anything that happens. As much as your mind can paint a dire picture it can also paint a rosy one. Balance the two and the truth emerges somewhere in the middle. This card in the Wildwood Tarot is ‘the funeral of illusion’. The Truth is what you decide those facts mean to you – good and bad. Learn to interpret them from love and not fear.
Thursday: Three of Stones, Creativity
Voila, we end yesterday with the invitation to tell yourself a better story and today the Three of Stones says you do it better than you realize! Both the Moon and Mars stand out to expose where actions no longer match the new stories. It’s a halting progress with two steps forward and one back, but hey, you still gain ground. The Great Awakener, Uranus provokes some impressive breakthroughs unless you try to stay in old patterns. If you are stuck, today is a day for blow ups and blow outs if you insist on trying to work from a perspective that’s done and dusted.
New reactions are needed to go with a bigger understanding of what what something means to you and what motivates those feelings. Slow down and take it a step at a time today. Saturn is in the picture which means you want to begin as you mean to go on… Savor this moment. Okay good, now savor the next moment. Good. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Friday: King of Bows
In the Wildwood Tarot this card represents Integrity. The definition of integrity is “the state of being whole and undivided”. Time to take the trauma and disappointment that dynamited parts of your soul into fragments and consciously remember when you were whole. That place is still there inside of you, underneath whatever scars were left behind. Today you can decide to release the place where you’ve justified bullying or hiding out of fear and powerlessness. You have the power and it sits in how you react to anything that happens. Your whole heart survives and still longs for life.
Life requires risk. You survived your trauma. You learned, grew and it added more than just scar tissue to your world. Time to see what you gained as well as what you lost. It’s there, you just have to take time to see and celebrate it. Bring yourself back to a state of Integrity, Saturn and Mars are going to give you lots of practice and Chiron shows up to highlight what scarred and scared you. See it, rewrite your interpretation with more of your strength and resilience in the picture. Take that with you when a tempting situation requires you to risk.
Saturday: The Sun
Today starts with a lot of adjustments around ego driven behavior and fear. You can’t think or bluff your way through this without cost. Vulnerability is required. Being powerful doesn’t mean always being right or having all the answers. The Sun slowly adds light or slowly diminishes it, this is not a short sprint. This card in the Wildwood Tarot highlights the Inner Sun. Where is the spark inside of you that can’t be extinguished? What feeds that light and what does that light feed?
If what you use now to feed it exists from too much of an ego driven place (results hungry), it’s a sign your inner light is low. That’s when you crave validation and get heated when it isn’t offered the way you want to receive it. By nightfall as the outside light dies down the inner light is fed with those new stories you’ve practiced this week. Share it with others and the contrast will help you see where you and those you love can dial up what you love of life and let that radiance light you up.
Sunday: Four of Vessels, Boredom
Well talk about ending the week on a downbeat, right? It’s a reminder from the Universe that every in breath is followed by an out breath if you want to keep on living. The Wildwood Tarot describes the lack of engagement (my definition for boredom) as a soul sickness. Fours are a firm foundation and vessels represent our emotions. Chiron and the Moon ask the question today, where are you locked in a cycle of justified suffering at the expense of your life. Yes you’ve been hurt. Yes you have suffered. Don’t dismiss or belittle your pain. Instead add more life to the equation. Depression zaps all motivation but when you ask a question of the Universe it absolutely has to answer. So wherever you are disconnected, feel cheated or left out, ask the Universe, “how does this serve?”
Note of caution, don’t limit your question to “how does this serve me?” You need to understand that your pain may serve a bigger purpose. For example, the mother of a child killed by a drunk driver started an organization that had some good effect on preventing more senseless deaths. Your wounds have much to offer if you will only open up to their benefit as well as their anguish. Try it. What have you got to lose except some misery?
