Full Moon in Virgo on 3/19

Wow, this just adds to the wild roller coaster of astro happenings.

We've had Uranus (the planet of unexpected change) move off of Pisces and into Aries, where it will stay for the next 8/9 years. To read my previous article on that, click here.

Pluto is still in Capricorn, shaking up status quo.

Our Full Moon in Virgo closes out the energy of the month and asks us if we have what it takes, where as New Moon energy (always at the start of the month) opens the energy and give us a chance to manifest.

The effect of the full moon – or any moon at all – lasts for just about two-and-a-half days. I’ve written about New Moons and their pure manifestation power (our last New Moon was in Pisces, encouraging us to manifest Piscean skills: compassion, spirituality, and imagination, mass healing on a grand scale. Another astrologer wrote in her blog that "the Virgo Moon longs to be of service" while the Pisces Sun just wants to heal and talk to spirits and feel compassion.

This particular Full Moon is also a Supermoon. What's a Supermoon? Tomorrow, the moon will be the closest it has been to Earth in 18 years - a lunar perigee. Read more about it here. Interestingly enough, astrologer Robert Noll stated that the Supermoon can, about two weeks prior to its date, cause earthquakes. While Space.com disputed that here, I still find that to be slightly chilling and amazing to me, as I think about the recent Japan disaster.

Whether or not the Supermoon is "responsible" for the recent disasters in Japan, I think the most important thing to come out of this Sun in Pisces/Full Moon in Virgo dynamic is learning how to work with our Sun Pisces compassion in a practical Moon in Virgo way.

See below. The key words are in black.

Pisces Sun INTENDS to bring compassion and healing to situations.

Pisces New Moon (earlier this month) longed to MANIFEST compassion and healing.

Virgo (Full) Moon longs to bring practical know-how to CONCLUDE a situation.

Do we merely pray about it or do we combine Pisces compassion with Virgo practicality?) This configuration reminds us to blend our hearts with our ability to create results through work (Virgo). So while praying for Japan and the millions of people affected is wonderful (and a very Pisces thing to do), according to this dynamic, we may also want to see about donating to that area of the world - and letting the current Virgo moon direct our path of compassion.

As I wrote in a previous post, "Full Moons provide the template for these wishes and dreams. Full Moons dare us to see if we reaaally have the guts and the power to make good on our manifestations. They give us support."

Now, the Full Moon in Virgo (3/19) asks us if we’re CLEAR (Virgo key word) and PRACTICAL (Virgo key word) enough to manifest our DREAMS AND COMPASSION, not just in aid to Japan but in all walks of our lives.

Creating a balance between Piscean/Virgo elements is important in the next 2.5 days. In other words, finding a way to allow our current Pisces Sun (our will) to interact with our Moon in Virgo (emotional need) will mean balancing the need for both compassion and imagination (Pisces Sun) and practical, technical know-how (Virgo Moon).

We will have felt this for about two weeks before the full moon (usually the first half of the month, between the New Moon and the Full Moon).

{So, if you have a Sun or Rising in Gemini, for the last two weeks you'll have felt the affects of this in your 4th house of home and family. So you'll be thinking about how to improve your home or family relationships, and will have be drawn to improve your home life during this two week full moon cycle.}

Astro Manifestation Mad Lib

Are you _____ (Virgo word) enough to manifest your dreams of _____ (Pisces word).

Some examples might be

Are you DETAILED enough to manifest your dreams of DIVINE LOVE AND HEALING?
Are you PRACTICAL enough to manifest your dreams of BEING A HEALER?
Are you CLEAR enough to manifest your dreams of IMAGINATION?



If you know your chart, look at where your Pisces and Virgo planets fall. That's where you'll feel this New/Full Moon shift.

I wish you all clear Full Moon intention and Virgo power on this powerful Supermoon weekend.

Have questions? Want to book a personal reading? Contact me here.



Best,

Marissa

Blazing Blog!

As many of you know, I am a weekly co-host at Bob's Blazing Tarot Blog. Bob Decker, the host, is a fantastic reader and certified hypnotist.

In the latest episode, I discuss Uranus in Aries. (You can also read my post about Uranus in Aries.)

 



To see the complete list of Blazing Blogs, please go here.

The Debby Connection (and Writing Prompts)

[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignleft" width="231" caption="Pencil Sketch of mom Debby, done by my father in 1976"][/caption]

 

My mother's name was Deborah. When she died of cancer in 2007, she left me some of her precious books, among them Gibran's The Prophet and a well worn copy of Creative Visualization.

Over the years, my dead mother has shown herself to me in odd ways. Every time I do a professional event for the spiritual and intuitive side of Happy Ganesh , always and without fail the first person that I meet is named Debby, usually Deborah.

Always.

(At the last event I did, I found myself talking to two young women who were both "daughters of Debby." Predictably, their mothers spelled their names Deborah. I was not surprised.)

The day I moved into my office space, her favorite song was playing on the radio.

When I questioned a rocky relationship, I opened a book to a handwritten note of mom's, scrawled on an aging yellow sticky note, which read: "It matters how we treat the people we love every day, not just on holidays."

Recently, I wasn't sure how to proceed with certain career goals. I'd been looking for - and found - mom's copy of Creative Visualization, a book published in 1978, years before The Secret and Esther Hicks's work came to fame. Since I teach visualization and manifestation, I'd been looking for that particular book, never dreaming that it survived the book purges to Goodwill. But it had. I was fearful about my career, feeling worried, wondering how I would keep my head above water. And it was in that place of fearfulness that I opened the book, looking again for answers from my mother. Another one of her sticky notes, tumbled to the floor, all the glue long since gone. When I picked it up, it read - in her backhanded, rounded print, "To thine own self be true." Amazingly, she'd drawn a small heart after the words.

When I have questions for her, things that only a mother could answer, she seems to collect herself across the gap between life and death to just show up. It's pretty amazing.

Sleepless a few nights ago, I pulled another book of hers off my shelf. God, Sex, and Women of the Bible by Shoni Labowitz, a feminist rabbi. (My mom was pretty cool, I have to say. I feel lucky to have had a mother who read stuff like this - and who shared it with me!) Sometimes I ask books what I need to know, as if their wisdom will help me find answers. I asked this particular book. I opened at random - of course - to the Deborah chapter.

Color me unsurprised.

I've been wondering about, among other things, career improvement. Crossroads. What do I do? That's what I asked. The book "answered" "Once you have discerned what you want and it feels right in your soul, then ask: What do I need to do to get what I want? Then go for it! Passion moves a woman like nothing else can."

That's her way of reaching me. She knows that books are one of my favorite escapes and it makes me happy to know that she will show up in that favorite place of mine, to give me faith.

Writing Prompts

What gives you unexpected faith?

What phenomenon answers your prayers/wishes/dreams?

Have you had experiences where you believed (or in some cases, flat out knew) that your deceased loved one had come back to help or support you?

 

(Crossposted from happyganeshwriting.blogspot.com)

Fun Fridays: YAWP and Perseverance

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Each Book is a Ray of Light. Someone created it."][/caption]I got a rejection letter today - that's two this week. It happens and I've learned that the stack of published stuff outweighs the pile of unpublished. And I love what I do. And I keep going.

Why?

I keep going because I live for the sounds of words, rippling through the air like music. I love words. I love how each word is a poem is like a musical note, and the entire thing forms a symphony. I do this because books, words, novels, and stories are our history. They are proof of our humanity, our shared passions and secrets, our hopes and our ordinary days. When you write a story, even if you are the only person to see it, or if you have a readership of millions, that's your heart, your love, your baby, your truth out there in the world. And your voice, my voice, our voices, our collective voices - they matter.

I began to look for inspiration. Here is what I found.

1) Finding your creative nerve is important. In this fantastic scene from Dead Poets' Society (1989) Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) inspires shy Todd (Ethan Hawke) to find his "barbaric yawp." That's the first step to creating. You have a YAWP, yes you do. Let it out!



"I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world." - Walt Whitman

2)Don't give up. Show your moxie! Rock and roll legend Joan Jett (after she quit the Runaways) was rejected by 23 (that's 23!) record labels before getting picked up. As a reminder, Jett would be the woman who did this.



3) Believe in Magic: Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling worked as a temp for eight years and wrote in between making copies and getting coffee for her boss. She was considering taking a job teaching French when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published. She is now one of the richest women in England, if not the world.



4) Don't Give Up (It's Worth Repeating):Horror megastar Stephen King worked as a English teacher, getting paid a whopping $19,000 a year and  living in a trailer with his wife Tabitha and their first child before his first novel Carrie (1976) was published. Now? He's Stephen King. You've heard of him, right?



5) Follow the Beat of Your Own Drummer: Katherine Hepburn is now seen as an icon of style, strength and women's rights. Yet in the late 30s, she was labeled "box office poison." Then she did The Philadelphia Story and, hello fame. (First she performed on Broadway and bought the rights. Smart!)



6) Be Yourself. There Is Room In The World: Leonardo DiCaprio was told by an agent that his name was too "ethnic" and he would never be famous unless he changed it to something like "Lenny Williams." DiCaprio is now one of the largest names in Hollywood and I assume that agent is slinging hash in a diner somewhere.

Here's Lenny Williams - I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio - in Inception.



Tips and Writing Prompts

1) Keep going.

2) If you love what you do, you're already a success. - my dad (and someone else before him, I'm sure.) What do you love?

3) Keep going some more. Where do you stall? Where do you start?

4) Read about people who did what you are trying to do. You will no doubt find out the several ways that this person was rejected or told by others that he or she couldn't do it/didn't have the chops/wasn't enough. This is only true if YOU accept it.

5) If you're a writer, walk into a bookstore and see every single book in there as one success story. If you're an artist, every painting that you look at for the next week is one ray of light. Don't think about the competition, the economy, or all the "reasons" you have to stop right here and now.

6) Yawp. Loudly. When was the last time you did this?

In the 1977 film Julia, about the life of playwright Lillian Hellman (played by Jane Fonda), her lover, writer Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards) says to her as she battles writer's block, "It's a great time to stop. No one will ever know that you existed." Ouch. Thanks, Dashiell. (Hammett may have been the hard-drinking granddaddy of hard boiled mysteries such as The Maltese Falcon, but I imagine he was not known for his breathtaking sensitivity.)

Still, what he meant was that no one will come to your door and politely ask you if you are ready to embrace your YAWP, if you are ready to live your honest life, or if you are ready to follow your dreams. YOU have to YAWP. I promise. You must do it. You must find that place inside you that believes with all of your heart that you have something worth saying - and that it is worth it for others to hear. And even if they don't want to hear, you commit to saying it. It is your truth and your choice, always.

It's your move and the world is waiting. More importantly, you are waiting. You are. You are waiting to step into your truth and your creative expression.

7) When was the last time you allowed yourself creative expression? Cooking? Singing? Painting? Acting? Writing? How did it feel? How did your body feel?

Go for it.

I wish us all the loudest and fiercest of YAWPS this weekend.

Love.

Creative Writing Prompt: Rainy Morning and Staying Put

[caption id="attachment_160" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Windy Tree Thursday"][/caption]

How often do we ignore a change in the weather? Not open our doors and windows? I do it plenty.

One thing can change your day. The heat of the sun. Cold rain. The smell of dirt as we plant something in the garden.

 

I began the day carefully and slowly, questions building in my head as they do every morning. I get dressed on the second to last day of vacation and come downstairs. I'm prepared to go out jogging in the newly windy Florida day. Instead, I read a book, I lounge. I lazily take advantage of the time my university is off school.

I gave up running. A storm kicked up. The kind of windy, barely-supressed, rainy, flesh-tingling storm that opens gardens wider and makes you feel a little more alive.

I did something I haven't done since starting to revamp this house. I opened the back windows to catch the Florida storm. (We had to commit to new windows a few months ago. They were needed, thirty years of water and wear had destroyed the old ones.)

I turned the small couch around so its facing the back garden. I pulled back the drapes and opened the back door. It feels stiff and new in my hand, the factory newness reflecting off every shiny surface of it.

Now, the cold, clear air blows through the living room. The Bougainvillea tree is scattering dark purple petals over the yard. Some flower fragments have danced their way up to the closed screen door. Every time another gust of wind comes through, I can feel it all over.My nose feels it and responds accordingly. Twitch. Twitch. Breathe.

I can smell the cold and the rain through the open door. A neighbor is smoking and even though he is smoking in his yard, just next door, I can smell a much-watered down version of smoke. Every few seconds the wind pulls the sheer curtains tight against the screen and then they dance back, flapping wildly.

If I hadn't turned the couch around, I would have missed this. The smell, the cold rain. Glorious. I'm not thinking about my questions or my worries - or the how, what, why, how can I, what can I, where.

I'm here.

Creative Writing Prompt: Nature and Me

1. When was the last time you connected with nature?


2. Where were you?


3. How did it feel?


4. Did it change your day for the better or worse? How?


5. What colors were active in nature that day? Describe them.