Category: Astrology in Action

I can’t spell! I was an average student in high school but I decided to work really hard in my last year  in order to get into University. I wouldn’t say that school was difficult for me -I was smart, but my spelling and grammar were my downfall. My father tried to correct this in my youth by assigning extra homework from an English textbook he called English First Aid; not even first aid could help. I coasted through high school and university with average marks but it wasn’t until my third year of university that I really felt the sting of my difficulties: I handed in what I thought was an awesome paper – I mean, I thought it was a stroke of brilliance! When the marked paper came back, it had a big -D written across it accompanied by the words “you need to go back to grade 7 – atrocious spelling and grammar.” Really? I thought. Did he even read my paper? THAT was an awesome paper.

Then I got my very first “real” job in one of Canada’s top three law firms. In law firms, spelling and grammar are everything. But I was hired as the human resources assistant so it didn’t matter. Or so I thought! The very first all-staff email I sent out had a spelling mistake – and almost every single Legal Assistant, 53 or so of them, sent me an email to let me know. They cared about their reputation. They didn’t like costly mistakes. And a spelling or grammatical mistake could do it. I quickly learned to check and double check everything I sent out to the company. After all, they were paying me.

During those days I had trained myself to write so perfectly that  after I left and went to work for the government, I ended up thoroughly impressing my new General Manager. General Managers can be pretty intimidating, so when he called me into his office to speak to me about the briefing note I wrote, I was nervous.

“Did you write this?” he asked, holding up the paper. He was a serious ass dude and  I contemplated denying it for a half second.

“Yes I did,” I said. My hands trembled slightly as he opened his mouth again.

“There are no mistakes… very well done!” Then he invited me to play with his top collection on his desk – I was in!

The next several years, I will call ‘the assistant years’ as I had assistance. I worked with people whose job was to make my work look good so I got lazy – I didn’t have to think about it. It was taken care of and, more importantly, no longer a part of my job description. And, you guessed it, my spelling and grammar quickly took a downturn.

But what makes me so bad at spelling and grammar?

In astrology, communication is represented by Mercury. Mercury rules education, learning, speaking, writing, and singing. Great writers or communicator usually have Mercury elevated in their chart though a nice aspect to Jupiter or Venus might help, too. Mercury in aspect to Jupiter can give the ‘gift of the gab’ and the license to say almost anything. Oprah has Mercury in a trine to Jupiter and Neptune. She is the queen of talks show and Neptune ensures that her topics have a spiritual nature or spiritual agenda.

Challenges to Mercury in the birth chart can show up as learning differences or difficulties, an interrupted education, stuttering, or other communication difficulties. If these show up in your life, you likely have Mercury in aspect to Saturn or Chiron.

Though they may experience pain in association with communication or education, someone who has Mercury in aspect to Chiron may have the potential to heal. Khalil Gibran was not formally educated in his youth, but had Mercury in aspect to Saturn, Pluto, Uranus, and Chiron. His book The Prophet is considered by many to be a spiritual and healing inspiration.

It could also be that one of these two is situated in the third house (which is ruled by Mercury) which reflects my story: I have Saturn in the third. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t intelligent – I’m pretty smart if I do say so myself! Mercury says nothing about your level of intelligence. It only speaks of challenges. And where there are challenges, there are lessons. Saturn in my third house also promised problems with my education which definitely happened. I was studying for a Master’s of Science and life events ran interference. Luckily I had enough credits to be awarded me a graduate diploma, which is post graduate education in its own right, though not what I had intended. Pluto was squaring my Mercury at the time!

Just because there are challenges does not mean that you cannot overcome. I did briefly overcome my spelling and grammar issues. Erin Brockovich has Mercury square Mars and opposite Saturn. Despite hardship, challenge, and struggle, she was able to win a big insurance claim without a law degree – now she holds three honorary degrees!

What is your experience with your Mercury? Do you feel gifted or a challenged? Check your birth chart to see what’s going on with your Mercury. Sign up for the threemoongoddess.com newsletter and you’ll get a free one.

 

 

How is your grand cross going?

Spot in the middle of this grand cross I found myself in hysterics…. Yes laughing and really enjoying myself.

Quite frankly, I was worried (maybe I still am).  While Jupiter, Mars, Pluto and Uranus line up to square each other at 13 degrees of the cardinal signs, they also gang up on my Venus (also at 13 degrees).  Venus is about love, beauty, money, what we values , our attractions and our attract ability.

Here is what is happening so far.  I’m in the midst of a online course (Marie Forleo’s B-School) for Internet marketing. So as this grand square makes numerous aspects to my Venus, I find I am in deep thought about how to make money (or more money), what my worth is to myself and more importantly, others (in a marketing sense). I am pulled and feeling tension about what to spend money on and my mind is being blown about what is possible.

Here is the thing. Not only is this happening for me on a personal level, I am watching what is happening in the big picture, on the sociological level.

Let me explain. But first let me give kudos to Marie Forleo’s B-School. It is not only an amazing course; well thought out, supremely presented and extremely valuable, it’s also a collection of courageous women who are changing the world. After all, “change the world” is one of her tag lines…. But I can assure you it is not JUST a tag line. It’s a reality.  Far beyond the course content is an amazing community of women; smart, spiritual, incredibly intelligent and business savvy women starting online businesses and rocking the business world.  These are women who are truly stepping into their worth (Venus), sharing their gifts and making money (some more Venus). This little group of

women ( around 12,000) isn’t the only group of rising entrepreneur women. There are pockets sprouting up all over the place. If you don’t believe me, check out all the articles on the matter, the first of which outlines the astonishing stats.

 

• Entrepreneurship.org released an article on the growing number of women.
• Virgin Entrepreneur’s article  
• Entrepreneur.com calls them Stiletto networks (tight knit circles of trust)
• Forbes article 
• American Express open forum article 

What is the reason

So here is how it worked in our little community. One woman (Licia) hired another (Laura) for copy editing. It wasn’t cheap, but sooo worth it. Laura hired Licia back, but for a cheaper incredibly valuable service, psychic coaching .  Laura the copy editor was so blown away and inspired that she decided to give Licia a shout out on our online community. As I mentioned, this is an online community with around 12,000. It’s exclusive. You can only be in that group if you’re a B-schooled…. But exclusive is the only part of it that sound like the old boys clubs. You know the ones. The patriarchal ones that are run by those old school rules that are currently running those organizations that are currently crumbling. … Ah Pluto. Anyhow, lot’s saw the post, lot’s booked with her. I happened to be in the midst by virtue of the fact that I happened to check out both of their websites the week before because of a brief discussion that happened in class and out of the hundreds of posts, I happened to jump online at the time of the post… So synchronicity? Whatever it was, I was able to play role of objective observer, quality checker, truth verifier, before and after fact checker… And her time sold out! women are doing well? The internet is one big community, with smaller mini communities. It’s a all about communication which we do well and love. And it’s all about nurturing and helping one another.

Other things happened at the some time. A collection of women converged to brainstorming business ideas, forging new friendships, nurture one another ideas and most importantly, laugh.

What cracked me up the most is that after making back the $2000 Licia spent in no less than a week PLUS having people annoyed because she didn’t have an online payment method, even asking “Where can I pay?”  her husband started to wonder if he could become a “man of leisure”

There are men in this trend. But so far, not many.

There is a bigger astrological reason for all of this and we can see it in the grand cross. Pluto transforms, eliminates and transforms and it’s Capricorn, the sign of structures, business and the status quo.  Currently those structures are hierarchal, patriarchal and logical. Yes there is more coaching, more empowerment, and supposed caring in these structures, but by and large… Not really.

On the not so funny side, as Pluto moves through Capricorn many men are finding that they are becoming unintended men of leisure. Otherwise know as unemployed.  However, Patriarchy does not equal men necessarily. So this is happening to women too. What’s happening is more about the structures and less about the gender of the person (that being said, most of the leaders in the patriarchy are men). I can’t tell you how many horrifying stories I have heard,  have counselled, advised and coached people though.  I  also went through my own drama about a year ago. It’s why I created thecorporateculturedetox.com (soon to be launched). What’s happening with the grand cross isn’t a role reversal where the women are wearing the pants and the men are wearing the apron. But instead I am seeing a  real restructuring. Where women still get to be feminine AND make money (many mom’s and wife’s running business). Not ball busters. Not necessary lesbians and certainly not man hating.  And the men still get to be masculine AND have their emotions. (the men who have embrace their emotions…  In really brony fashion are also doing well) and are not necessarily gay (sorry, I’m just pointing out the stereotypes here!)

I focused on the money, worth and values side of Venus here, but I should mention. As the cardinal grand cross become exact on my Venus does impact one other thing. My love life…  I’ve been ignoring it, but for that I have decided to hire Licia who’s specialty is past lives. If you haven’t read my post on past lives you can do so here.

As for the values and money part of Venus, I’ve decided I’m worth it enough to hire Laura. Stay tuned for the website makeover!

 

Venus goes Retrograde from Dec 21, 2013 until Jan 30, 2014.

Have you ever been stopped at a light or in a parking spot and all of a sudden you notice the cars beside you moving; but then you look up and realize, it’s not them who is moving, you have forgotten to put your foot on the brake and actually it’s you that is moving? Okay, maybe you need to be a manual transmission driver to have this experience, but basically this is what is happening with Venus Retrograde, which starts today. Venus looks like it is moving backwards, but in fact, it is the movement of the Earth and the distance of Venus that gives it the optical illusion like it is going backwards. Nonetheless, the experience still has an impact on our consciousness much like what happens when your car is rolling. We get a little disoriented and need to take some time to evaluate what is happening. Venus is about love and money, so Venus retrogrades will have us doing a reassessment on these topics.

Venus is doing its thing in Capricorn.  With Venus in Capricorn, love is about money and status. We may fear rejection and for that reason we may try to control, project a good image or try to prove how worthy we are of love by accomplishing. On the financial front, Venus in Capricorn can be good for business, but again fears can send us into materialism and status seeking. With the retrograde, all of these issues will come up within our relationships for re-evaluation.

A couple of days ago, I was shopping and the salesman, sizing me up, realized that I was likely single, asked me if he could ask me a question about single women. “Sure,” I said. He asked why women these days only want men who have money. These days? Was this not an age-old problem?  Somehow the two are always intimately intertwined and this is why I believe Venus represents both love and money. In the days of old, the man earned the money, the woman stayed home and without access to the financial power of earning her own money, of course she made sure her Love also had a well-lined pocket.  But since the World Wars, which let’s face it, is really quite recent, women’s role in the workplace has completely and totally changed, so has her economic power and her dependence on men. Love is being redefined, but nobody seems to realize it. Men are confused about what women want and so are women!

My parents had an old eight-track tape player in the car when I was a kid, and my mother used to kill a Dennis Brown tape  “money in my pocket, but I just can’t get no love”.  I think this retrograde period will have us really assessing what we are building our love and commitment on.  Women are singing about being independent women and men are singing about loving the independent woman. But if the currency of love is no longer tied to money, what is it tied to? Does love have a new motivator? This is the question for Venus Rx in Capricorn. The question the sales guy asked had clear cut reasons in the past.  The fact that a woman wanted a man in the past for financial security was something that made him feel needed, secure and counted on. Now it just seems to make him feel used. The financial reasons for love have changed; but have we psychologically caught up? And has our relationship dynamics caught up? Why do men still feel women want them for money? And do women want their cake and eat it too?

Even the concept of economics seems to be changing. Business is not just about how much money you’ve made, but also how much impact you’ve had on the environment and on social good. In other words, how much love does your business seem to have? Is your business just about money and the bottom line? Venus Rx in Capricorn will also have us reassess our ideas of financial and economic currency. It will be particularly transformative for both love and money because as Venus started its shadow into the retrograde close to Pluto (the planet of transformation) in Capricorn and at the end of the retrograde cycle it will be right beside Pluto again before it moves forward.  Also, Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, which has been linked to karmic situations, so we may find that we are working though some karma or what feels like it during this period.