Winter Solstice 2016Dear friends, I have neglected you terribly and there is so much to catch up on.

First of all – Mercury has turned retrograde (December 19th through January 8th) so all of the usual warnings apply.  Of course I have been wildly disregarding my own advice and doing lots of online shopping to catch the holiday sales.  We’ll see how that turns out!

Mercury retrograde periods, especially this time of year, are excellent for reflection – for looking back at the past year to see what changes we would like to make in our lives.  With Mercury not turning direct until January 7th, we may want to continue the reflection period into the new year and begin implementation after the 8th.

The astrological Winter Solstice occurs when the Sun reaches 0 degrees Capricorn which just occurred this morning, December 21st.  These seasonal shifts are also energetic turning points: our bodies’ circadian rhythms adjust with the seasons by detecting changes and offer opportunities for us to let go of the past and evolve towards our best and brightest selves.

Finally – and I will be writing much more about this in the future – we are seeing the effects of Pluto everywhere in the world today.  The darkness of political power grabs, assassinations, mass murders in holiday markets, and the potential destruction in the US of our political system.  We have been dealing with Pluto, planet of death and regeneration, for quite some time as it moved through a cycle of a challenging square to Uranus – rebellion and change.  Right now Jupiter has entered the equation and is facilitating the expansion of Pluto’s destructive force and exacerbating the Uranian need for dystopia (look it up) and chaos.  On top of all of that, the new planet Eris, goddess of discordia, is tied into the dance which virtually ensures that it will be quite some time before things settle down.

We have choices in times like this.  We can either spin out in fear and anxiety (“when in worry and in doubt, run in circles scream and shout”) or we can find our center in our own beings and seek to know the Universal wisdom that lies beneath all of the insanity that swirls around us.  Chaos begets chaos…rage begets rage.  But if we find the true light within us and share it with those around us, that light can illuminate the entire planet.

Even the darkest night will end,
And the sun will rise again.

~ Rumi

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