25 Sep Never Felt A Calm So Deep ~ September 26th-October 2nd, 2016

This is the week of the New Moon in Libra, and it offers very soft and enriched soil in which to thoughtfully plant your seeds of desire.

This week begins in a whirl of bright colors and ends with soft glimmers of tenderness. You will awake into the first footfalls of this new season with a refreshed perspective about the world. Your days will be brightened by an abundance of beauty, inspiring a renewed devotion to all the love in your life.

This whole week will offer you many opportunities to re-discover the beauty in your world, even if you are stuck in less than ideal conditions. With both Jupiter, the Sun, and a New Moon in Libra this week, the huge influence of balance will encourage you to find delight in paradox and harmony within contradiction.

For a poetic description of the tone and timbre of this week’s revelations, I invite you to enjoy William Wordsworth’s, Upon Westminster Bridge, a Petrarchan sonnet that captures his state of numinous wonder as he beholds the city of London in a heavenly vision.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Though Wordsworth was known for compositions that worshipped pristine nature, his sonnet to the city of London reveals that the Spirit of Beauty can be found even in a place lost to pollution, commerce, and overcrowding. This poem is about how communion with beauty can happen anywhere, when the world is suddenly infused with a fresh breath of air and bright sparkling light. 

Wordsworth’s Romantic philosophy commonly rejected urban life and the trappings of industrial progress. But Upon Westminster Bridge describes a pristine morning in London, before the world is awake. Wordsworth sees the city wearing the bright morning light as a glittering garment, illuminating the elegant forms of domes and temples.

These emblems of human imagination and genius can be seen as aspects of nature, just as worthy of admiration as pristine valleys, rocks, and hills. He perceives the urban landscape through the eyes of a rural man, finding in it silence, bareness, and openness to fields and sky.

The composition of this poem is a beautiful description of the essence of Libra, which finds harmony even in discord and seeks compromise where ideals are threatened.

The city of London is painted as being an extension of nature, rather than something that conflicts with nature. Wordsworth’s ability to see London as a natural place of peace and beauty, even for a moment, is a testament to his devotion to the muse rather than to politics.

During Libra season, if you allow your actions to be moved by your love for beauty, rather than politics, life will open up to you in miraculous ways. When liberated from the restraints of conflict, the scope of your imagination can behold the majesty found at the center of all paradox and ambiguity.

Monday/Tuesday: A Sight So Touching in its Majesty

In continuation of the weekend’s mellifluous conjunction between the Sun and Jupiter in Libra, the week begins with you feeling open to a glorious sense of peace and a welcoming generosity of spirit. This is an influence that will extend throughout the rest of the week, so there is an abundance of time in which to enjoy its many gifts.

You may find yourself being the one appointed to give or the one who must graciously receive. Either way you will feel blessed by the experience. Good luck and golden opportunities abound under such influences, even for those who make the lightest efforts.

Your sincere praise, your welcoming, and your kindness for the sake of kindness are the paths to discovering good fortune.

What is also quite significant about Monday is the fact that Pluto in Capricorn will finally end its five month retrograde period. Whenever a planet stations like this, there tends to be a short period of palpable gravity that hovers over a certain issue.

Considering that Pluto is in Capricorn, you may feel an extra weight hovering upon an imbalance of power in your life. Consider where you have felt disconnected from a sense of rightful authority. Where have you been following blindly rather than heeding your calling to adhere to deeper truth?

What is nice about Pluto turning direct is that there will be more thrust behind your motivation to answer your calling and find deeper inspiration. You may just wake up one morning to find a heaven has momentarily transposed itself over your chaotic and unwieldy world.

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Wednesday/Thursday:  Glittering in the Smokeless Air

The middle of the week will bring a fresh feeling as Mars finally leaves Sagittarius and enters into Capricorn, his place of exaltation. Mars’ retrograde this year has enabled it to transit only through two signs: Scorpio and Sagittarius. When Mars finally enters into a new sign, especially one so favorable to strategy and building, there will be a palpable sense of new possibility in the air!

The over-zealous and erratic qualities of Mars in Sagittarius will yield to patient planning followed by disciplined execution. In short, your work will vastly improve over the next six weeks if you value the opportunity to benefit from steadfastness and resilience.

Rather than wasting energy on the agonies of high ideals, use the next six weeks to pare down your tasks to the most fundamental necessities that will add up to huge progress in a very short time.

Friday/Saturday/Sunday: Ne’er Saw I, Never Felt, a Calm So Deep!

On Friday, there will be a New Moon in Libra! If last month’s eclipses were like gunshots to commence a clambering horserace, this New Moon in Libra will be sweet music, the long and lustrous strings of a violin transforming weeping into song.

This New Moon has major positive aspects to both Jupiter and Saturn, plus minor aspects to Venus and Neptune. This is an absolutely ideal for setting benevolent intentions for your life. Use this time to attract renewed love, better friendships, increased wealth or a more beautiful mode of expression.

Whatever you intend to develop, you may expect many positive adjustments and renewed equanimity in your life following this period. Consider this your graceful reprieve after the torrential eclipses. You have earned this time to luxuriate in softness.

With loving Venus in a trine to day-dreaming Neptune, this weekend will be carried by two gossamer wings of gentleness. If it were possible to do nothing with your day but walk through a meadow, singing softly to the birds, that is probably what you would do under an influence like this.

If you can, I suggest you try it.

But with consideration to the many responsibilities and important activities that you probably must engage in, this is an influence that will be subtly expressed in human tenderness.

Venus in the dark waters of Scorpio and Neptune in the abyss of Pisces will open many portals to realms of fantasy and intimacy. Thus you will feel deeply connected at the soul level to other living creatures in a way that will bring out the best in you.

Observe the new shades of feeling and insight available to you now. Just as the city of London revealed itself in a new light to Wordsworth, look for deeper knowledge about the people and places that you think you already know.

You may have a life-changing conversation with someone or you may merely observe how many pains someone will go to in order to relieve someone else’s suffering.

No matter how these messages get through to you, it will feel so easy and natural to submit to wonder and gratitude. This weekend, you will experience a unique form of intimacy with the Spirit of Beauty.