In This Photo: Connie Britton, Bryan Cranston, Getty Images from this website: https://www.zimbio.com/photos/Connie+Britton/Bryan+Cranston/m7owLcxgrN4/Arrivals+65th+Annual+Primetime+Emmy+Awards

Hey crew, it’s time for our lunar astrological chart analysis of a famous celebrity. We’re making this a tradition! And seeing as its Pisces season, I prepared a dual analysis, rather than the usual single. In preparation for this article, I need to admit that finding a famous Piscean that I would feel confident and comfortable writing about was a bit of a stretch for me, and this came to me as a surprise. Am I betraying my own kind? Why is it so hard to think of a Piscean role-model, since this is the sign of creativity & fantasy-making?

In full disclosure, I’m also a Pisces Sun, but to be honest I can’t say I had the most amazing relationships with Piscean people throughout my life or that my exchanges with them are the most easy-going or inspiring. Could it be that I find it hard to accept myself fully, since our likes and dislikes mirror the contents of our unconscious? There are of course, beautiful exceptions to this rule, but often I feel randomly criticized by Pisceans or the energy between us is just ‘off’ for some reason (I attribute this to my emotionally-detached Aquarius Venus), but I digress. So when I think of attractive and awesome Piscean celebrities, Lupita Nyong’o and Rihanna popped to mind first, but I wanted to keep these luscious ladies for my Astrobabes You Tube series which allows me more space for a cinematic analysis of their charts (I’ll also be covering Hozier & Oscar Isaac in my Astrohunks series).

Keeping those actors and musicians for my YouTube series, left me with a blank choice regarding the Piscean artists I could write about in this article. The Piscean men, I could only think of Jon Bon Jovi, John Frusciante or worst, Adam Levine and Harvey Weinstein (I guess these examples show the full range of Pisces energy, which can embody the depths of human depravity and also human creativity). On the other hand, I always thought that the lesser-known Connie Britton (whom you may know from films such as Nashville, White Lotus and my favorite, This is Where I Leave You) was fascinatingly beautiful and I was always curious to see her personal chart placements, considering that she is the kind of woman who rose to fame in her 40s and 50s; this is pretty impressive, seeing how the careers of most women her age, reach a sudden death in Hollywood as they approach senescence. She is an interesting case study because she looks so refined and elegant and she makes me feel like you can grow old gracefully and remain sexy and soulful even around your second Saturn return (between the ages of 58 and 60). So I am intrigued to write about what astrological energy preserves her beauty so well, and what gave her a sudden rise to fame in the latter part of her life.

The birth-chart of Connie Britton as featured on the website https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Connie_Britton

To keep it interesting I also thought of comparing Connie’s chart to another fellow Piscean, this time a man who also found fame in the latter part of his life, in spite of consistently working as an actor throughout his youth. He of Breaking-Bad, cult-like fame, Brian Cranston also had supporting roles in the infamous Drive (featuring my soul spouse, the actor Ryan Gosling, whom Brian surprisingly shares a lunar placement with, that being a fatherly Moon in Capricorn). Most notably, Brian also stared in an episode of Murder, She Wrote, although many people know him from the TV series, Malcolm in the Middle.

So, what makes these two Piscean actors so alluring and productive in their older age? Well for one, they share a Pisces Sun and this is the placement which marks the end of the astrological wheel and by extension the ending of the soul’s journey through life. Pisceans, much like Aquarians and Capricorns feel more comfortable with life, the older they grow, since they are the final signs of the zodiac. They are also among the wisest energies around, if they choose to live at a higher vibration. Connie has her Pisces Sun in the 7^th house which is traditionally the house ruled by Venus and governed by the sign of Libra. Her Sun is also conjunct Mercury and the asteroid Lilith, representing the Wild Feminine Archetype. This adds an extra sheen of mystery and sexiness to her Neptunian beauty. I can see that Connie’s life revolves around her relationships, around love and her contractual business partnerships, with this 7^th house influence. However, she might be perceived as the villain, or cast out of initially benefic agreements and even made to feel like ‘the other woman’ in her own love life and romantic entanglements. This is Lilith’s influence which can bring some ruin in a person’s life due to stigma and the prejudices of other people projected onto the Lilith native. Since her Lilith is in Pisces, I can see that some religious prejudices might stand in-between Connie’s success as an actress and her successful romantic life. By the way, as a fun side note, both actors were actually featured together in an Emmy Round Table discussion and photo op in the LA Times, so it’s interesting to see I’ve chosen this comparison despite not being aware that they were paired together in the past.

Brian, on the other hand, has his Sun in the 10^th house and it is standing there all by itself. This means that his life revolves around his professional role, his public image and the relationships he has with his mentors and those that he works with. Capricorn is the one who governs over this house and Saturn is its natural ruler, so Brian borrows some of these traits in the light that he radiates around him. Curiously enough, both Connie and Brian’s mutual Piscean solar light is also underlined by the same lunar placement: they both have Moons in Capricorn! This is another indicator of a person who blooms later on in life, and it also shows a person who might’ve had a stunted emotional development due to some hardships incurred in relation to their father in their childhood. The father could’ve died too soon, might’ve been absent or there was an early and painful separation from the father figure. The father could not supply the role of the provider so the person born with a Saturnian Moon had to work from an early age to provide for themselves and their family. This made in turn, the mother responsible for the care of the child and placed the child in the role of the ‘substitute father figure’. It’s interesting to note that a lot of successful people who radiate a sense of warmth and joy in their work, and after the age of 40, have this placement too. Another case in point is Pedro Pascal or the actress Christina Ricci, who are increasingly in the spotlight and getting more substantial roles.

The birth-chart of Brian Cranston as featured on the website https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Bryan_Cranston

Another fascinating aspect is that although Connie has her Sun conjunct Lilith, Brian has his Moon conjunct Lilith! This offers Connie a confident intensity that might intimidate her peers and it offers Brian a darker emotionality which translated so well in his role as Walter White, the man who literally finds himself in the claws of Lilith’s ruin; overcome by his inner darkness, he becomes bad to the bone. This aspect is amplified in Brian’s chart by the fact that his Moon sits in the darkest house of the zodiac (the 8th house) and it is also joined by Mars, the God of War, the red planet of sexuality and aggression. So don’t believe the hype! Brian might not be the good guy next door that he pretends to be in his interviews (and judging by his friendly and intelligent Gemini Ascendant), since behind that competent façade lies an individual with amazing survival instincts and quite an impressive sexual appetite. Paired with the Piscean fertile imagination and capacity to hold secrets and endure physical pain, I can only imagine the depths of Brian’s sexual prowess. While for Connie, her lunar light is more moderate since it is joined only by the Vertex, a point which is linked to the fated events that will be continuously discharged in a person’s life throughout their life. Seeing as this placement is in the work-prone 6^th house, Connie is emotionally attached to her work and she will have a lot of karma to process with the people she works with and with the way she handles her daily routine, her personal responsibilities and her health.

Another interesting aspect to look at in relation to a person’s destiny and how old age might somehow promise success is the placement of an individual North Node, the point of destiny in someone’s chart. I see that Brian has his North Node in Sagittarius in the 6^th house conjunct Saturn. So his destiny is to work and organize himself better, to be of service (6th house) and to endure some hardships & setbacks (Saturn) on his inevitable path to success and prestige (Sagittarius). As you may have noticed by now, Saturnian energy seems to figure prominently in his chart, and it gets more interesting the closer you look. His destiny is one marred by personal limits followed by lucky breaks. He truly has to put effort in feeling optimistic, lucky and like he is allowed to grow in this lifetime. Saturn guarantees a slow release of Brian’s abundance, prosperity and popularity which happens only in time.

A comparison of both of their charts taken together. I highlighted the most significant placements I discuss in this article

While for Connie she has her North Node in Taurus (another marker of sensual beauty) and in the faithful 9^th house. The detail to look for is the fact that her North Node encourages her to pursue material wealth and personal stability in her life and it reflects beautifully in her public role as an actress that grew her wealth and popularity in time. Because her North Node is conjunct the MC (or the Midheaven), which represents the most public point in a person’s chart and the one which denotes the professional legacy that one leaves behind in this lifetime, she is bound to establish an important artistic legacy. So, she is destined to be remembered as a sensual and talented actress, who achieved fame in time, slowly and after appearing in some wholesome roles. ‘Traditional’ roles are the ones that suit her the best, seeing as Taurean energy is all about preserving the status quo. In addition, I can see that Connie had to put effort into developing her style and beauty and had to work on her relationships with other women since these Venusian aspects fall under the tutelage of her Taurean North Node. Another interesting example of this Taurean influence on a point of destiny can be found in the chart of Pamela Anderson, who shares this placement in common with Connie and who is making a powerful comeback at the moment during her nodal return (as the nodes of the Moon are travelling along the Scorpio & Taurus axis in between 18th January 2022 and 19th July 2023)

I think I’ll stop here with my brief take on the charts of both of these charismatic and talented actors. After writing this post, I realized that I do look up to certain Piscean roles models and that bizarrely I tended to overlook them or to take them for granted. Must be the hazy, Neptune effect. Piscean energy tends to be subtle, diffused and quite modest, so I’m not entirely shocked that my mind went blank when thinking of Piscean actors to write about; but the more I concentrated, the more I could see clearly that I do enjoy the work and artistry of many of them. I hope that the current transit of Saturn in Pisces, happening across both of their Sun signs, will benefit them and bring them some interesting material rewards for all the hard work they are doing in bringing unique characters to life and entertaining us all. Let me know in the comments below, who is your favorite Piscean celebrity? And if you enjoy such topics make sure to follow my blog, since I will provide you with the chart analysis of a famous celebrity each month.

With universal love,

Lexi

*The title of this article is a play on Ryu Murakami’s famous novel ‘In the Miso Soup’ (1997)

Image from https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weeknd

Happy Valentine’s Day! My gift to you is the birth-chart reading of a man who glamorizes toxic love affairs in his catchy tunes. After all, the real meaning of Saint Valentine’s Day is the undying faith in Divine love which was set against the backdrop of the bloody massacre of Christian folk, so I thought it makes sense to focus on a sensual artist who is not afraid to sing about the nastier side of love. So here is the second instalment in a string of birth-chart analyses which I randomly decided to create last month after I astrologically fan-girl-ed over David Lynch and his film work. Now for Aquarius season, I picked Aquarius Sun Abel Tesfaye also known as ‘The Weekend’ to sit under my astrological scalpel. My choice is odd because for some reason or the other I actually don’t have very strong feelings for The Weekend; if anything, he fascinates me, the kind of fascination you feel if you would look at an alien life-form unfolding in front of you from a relative safe distance. I don’t necessarily enjoy what I see but I can’t look away. Then again, the experience of feeling alien-like and emotional detached from others is peak Aquarius energy, so what I might be feeling when I listen to him and see his videos could be just his Aquarian uniqueness on display, or a carefully manipulated spectacle of weirdness, soulfulness, poetry, drama and depression. So, despite not being a big fan of The Weekend I really enjoy some of his songs and can appreciate his unique vibe.

Before I dive into the many interesting things which color his Airy Aquarius Sun in dark and deep emotional shades, I wanted to share with you a personal memory that links me to his music. He always seemed to me to be the kind of artist which men tend to listen to more than women, even if women (and especially the models he sleeps with) figure prominently in his lyrics and his entire artistic imaginarium. So, I ended up associating The Weekend with a steamy love affair I had a couple of years ago, via the Internet, with a man who was obsessed with Abel. I met this man (a Taurus Sun) right before taking a work-trip to Barcelona. Because he couldn’t come with me, he tried to establish a sensual and emotional connection with me via music, or said more precisely he sent me lyrics from Abel’s repertoire. The Taurus would also send me photos of the way he styled himself to look like Abel. It was a random, passionate affair that lasted the entire duration of my 2-weeks trip to Barcelona and I didn’t take it too seriously; sometimes it’s just nice to feel wanted and searched for, because back in the day romantic escapades would relax me and take the edge off my work-related stress. I thought it was funny that the Taurus I was involved with believed Abel was his masculine alter-ego. The obsession was funny and fascinating and I quickly understood that if a man you date had him as an idol, well the relationship will most likely be short-lived. This is because Abel is not only peak Aquarius but also peak Millennial (being a member of the Pluto in Scorpio generation or those individuals born between 1983 and 1995 – yes, this includes me too so I’m calling myself out).

In spite of his talent, voice and showmanship, Abel is known for being the poster boy for suave seduction artists, with his penchant for glamorizing secret hook-ups with models, an obsession with work, fame and power and his excessive drug use and tortured soul allure. Don’t get it twisted though, I don’t fault him at all for choosing to live an intense life-style. He has a Moon in Scorpio and a Sun in the 8th house. I get it, believe me. On top of this he is a fixed Air sign, so he needs to move, explore and bend the minds of others through his erm… ‘personal and deeply intimate’ research. I believe that each one of us is given a body and a life and to use as we please, as long as we don’t intentionally harm others (even if in some cases this harm is subtle and difficult to assess in the moment). In Abel’s case I guess with talent comes a level of emotional disarray and relationship chaos, as all artists tend to experience in their lives; and for most of this energy, there is of course an astrological explanation. I like for example how candid he can be about experiences that people deem to be shameful or scandalous, and how he seamlessly draws inspiration in his music from the darker experiences of love, sex and fame. And when you have a natal Moon conjunct Pluto and Lilith in the darkest sign of the zodiac (Scorpio) you are drawn to human darkness, sexuality taken to extremes and experimenting with risk and self-destruction, like a moth to a flame. Based on his astrological markers, Abel’s life is the embodiment of basic instinct. I personally think it will take a while before Abel learns to appreciate that love can be tender, peaceful and subtle and that a lack of passion or drama doesn’t necessarily equate to a loss of heart or excitement in love. We often need time to process such life lessons.

So based on the personal experience I had with the Taurus and occasionally dancing to The Weekend’s catchy tunes and randomly keeping track of his on-and-off relationship with the beautiful Bella Hadid, I started wondering about his natal chart. When I had a look into his inner cosmos I thought it was too good to miss out on an astrological analysis. Here is his chart, courtesy of astrodienst.com:

Astrological Chart of Abel Tesfaye born on 16th of February 1990, to be found on https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/The_Weeknd

I guess you can quickly spot the weird particularities of Abel’s chart. First of all, he has a lot of concentrated energy in one part of his chart which covers his 6^th, 7^th and 8^th houses. This means that those are the areas of his life that he needs to focus the most on in this lifetime, in order to fullfil his destiny and pay off any karmic debts incurred from previous lifetimes. The 6^th house is the house or everyday routines, health and work done in the service of others. We see there a stellium of 5 luminaries in the most karmic sign of the zodiac Capricorn. We also see that he has his Venus perfectly conjunct his Descendant line, which is one of the major points of anchor in a person’s chart denoting a need to work at love, to understand what it is and how he can give it and receive it from other people; that is because the 7^th house, which often carries the Descendant, is all about equal and fair arrangements, contracts and long-term personal commitments. This is also known traditionally as the house of love and marriage. However, with so much Saturnian energy present there for Abel, love is a chess game that will test his patience, one which he will gain access to in the second part of his life, after he gathers some relational experiences and overcomes some powerful karmic challenges. In the process of achieving this he will encounter poverty, loss, separations, disease and drama. He will have to deal with people of low quality before he is able to experience true love, or if he finds his true love there will be many things blocking and delaying the fulfillment of their life together and some of these things will also be self-sabotaging behaviors and beliefs regarding self-worth and keeping the faith in unconditional love (some voices speculate that Bella is his true love, although Bella has a delaying aspect of her own, a karmic Saturn in the 7^th house which blocks her access to romantic love and fulfilling relationships until the later part of her life; people are not able to see Bella’s true worth as a human being no matter how beautiful and intelligent she might be, but I wouldn’t discount a potential memorable get together of these two in their 50s).

The Weekend with Bella Hadid in Givenchy at the Met Gala in 2016. More here: https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/met-gala-2016-the-weeknd-and-bella-hadid-go-matchy-matchy-in-gi_n_9825436

Coming back to the Weekend, his North Node – his growth zone – is in Aquarius in the 8^th house conjunct his Sun and Mercury, an aspect which automatically places his South Node – his comfort zone – in the 2^nd house and in the sign of Leo. His destiny is placed in the house of healing, magic, sexuality and power and I can see that with a Sun touched by the North Node, he isn’t in control of his confidence levels and personality because this is something he is slowly growing into in this incarnation. This aspect can also show somebody who is frequently overcome by his Shadow Self and he has to learn how to develop self-awareness (see for example my analysis of Amber Heard who shares this placement in common with the Weekend: https://youtu.be/bNJFuDs8QKI). All this being said, is it any wonder that he is projecting a bad boy image, when his entire life path is about integrating his inner demons, sexual obsessions and meeting his Shadow Self through intense transformational experiences?

Not only that, but with a 2^nd house South Node, Abel is a natural born star, since Leo – the sign ruled by the Sun, the astrological vortex of charisma, strength and sexuality – resides in his house of physical pleasure, creature comforts, work and money. People with karmic 2^nd house placements usually have beautiful bodies and sensual voices and they are artistically talented. However, I see that Abel needs to expand beyond this comfort zone as he is learning how to communicate his needs in an emotionally detached way, and to learn how to respect other people’s opinions and to work with them as part of social groups of support. He is also becoming a person who could easily shock others with his personal transformations. Abel will need to figure out who he is and how to lead and teach others without force or domination but through knowledge, by being humble and by including others as part of the artistic empire he is building. This placement also shows how Abel got his big breakthrough which happened on Youtube as he started uploading songs in 2010. So, his music and natural talent (South Node in the 2^nd house) spread because a group of subscribers on a social media platform enjoyed his music and shared it (Aquarius in the 8^th house).

Another fascinating part of his chart is his Ascendant, which is in shy and emotional Cancer (an aspect which I believe contributes strongly to his artistic talent). The downside of this placement is that people with strong Cancerian energy tend to associate love with pain, as much as they are incurable romantics. In addition to this, his Ascendant is conjunct the asteroid Chiron, or the Wounded Healer Archetype. This means that he attracts a fair amount of painful experiences in his life, but also opportunities to heal others with his emotions, even if he might feel like he is not emotionally nourished by those very people he attracts and is attracted to. Moreover, his Chiron and Ascendant are loosely conjunct Jupiter which is placed in the 12^th house the house of self-undoing, sacrifice, bed pleasures and secrets. This is also the house of creativity and the imagination, and whoever has Jupiter placed here always gets second chances from the Universe, from spirits and unseen benefactors. It’s almost as if the Weekend has this strong magnetic forcefield around him that attracts all sorts of dark experiences but he is offered spiritual protection as long as he keeps creating art from said experiences. To be honest, with a Saturn in the 6^th house he will be continuously pressured into working in the service of others, while also being kept in stable health in spite of his self-destructive tendencies. So, I see an individual who needs to make sense of life in some form through the use of entertainment and his romantic liaisons. I see that he carries within a tendency to serve his romantic partners while not truly understanding his personal boundaries. He wears his heart on his sleeve but he does it too quickly and much too intensely. This could breed resentment in his close partnerships, because if his needs are not met as fast as he meets those of others, and if he doesn’t learn to communicate clearly with others, he might become emotionally explosive due to build-ups that could destroy his long-term relationships in a matter of seconds.

Abel also has a Moon in Scorpio in the most solar light of the zodiac, the 5^th house! In essence, a Scorpio Moon is dark enough but this darkness is amplified by the fact that his is also conjunct Pluto (the natural ruler of Scorpio) and the asteroid Lilith, which represents the Wild Feminine Archetype (for a deeper explanation, check out my work on Lilith here:https://youtu.be/k67DRDLVxo0). Not only that but his Moon is squared by his North Node in Aquarius. Usually any aspect between the North Node or Rahu (considered by many Vedic astrologers to be a malefic energy) talks about emotional chaos, frequent ups and downs in his mood, and a certain internal chaos that pushes one into difficult emotional experiences. This is also contained within his moody Cancer Ascendant, which can often make him seem like he contains two very different personalities inside of him (and one of them could especially come out when he is intoxicated or inebriated). So, when The Weekend (aptly named after this 5^th house lush and leisure-bound energy) croons that he is ‘Heartless‘ and when he says that “I don’t know why I run away, I make you cry when I run away” I tend to believe him. Although it’s my impression that in ‘Save your tears’ he’s actually telling himself to preserve his tears, and not his jaded lover. This is not just art and entertainment but a clear mirror held up to his psychological landscape. No wonder that his videos are creepy and bizarre as much as they are glamorous and entertaining, because Abel is dealing with an inner conflict between his inner light and dark tendencies, on the path towards learning how to unconditionally love himself and thereby love others.

Furthermore, I see how Abel manages to combine his Leo South Node with his 5^th house Moon in a spectacle which is reminiscent of the polarizing energies found in David Lynch’s chart (which I analyzed last month). A Moon in the 5^th house shows an individual whose heart lies in well…partying. This is a man who enjoys the drama, who revels in the opportunity to celebrate romance and short-term affairs. But the higher vibration of this energy is seeking God through the depths of his feelings, because this solar house contains a direct link to Divine inspiration. Since Abel’s Moon is enhanced by Pluto and both are in the secretive, magnetic and sexually fearless sign of Scorpio, you can clearly understand why a man who does not necessarily have classic good looks pulls in so many love affairs and lewd sexual relationships and why he might enjoy singing about having sex with a model on the kitchen floor while her boyfriend is out of town. He’s letting us know how indescribably erotic fatal attractions can be and that there is something utterly alluring about seeing your self blow up the pressure of social expectations rather than living up to them. This is after all the myth of Lucifer’s fall from grace & why we can’t get enough of bad boy stories. Becoming a hero and saint could be an exclusive experience which only a few of us can tap into in a lifetime, while fucking up is something we can all identify with.

His planets also make some interesting aspects. In spite of all these karmic, emotionally dark and spiritually intense energies, his aspects are not as bad. We see a good number of oppositions between his stellium and his Ascendant, which describe a focus in his life on the relationship between understanding who he is and how other people relate to him. He’s also tasked with doing a lot of Shadow work in this lifetime, seeing that he is destined to make some personal mistakes due to the improper use of his Ego (Sun conjunct North Node). Conversely, he can resolve all of these mistakes by thinking and communicating (Mercury conjunct North Node).

And then we reach the core of his chart and main opportunity of growth through trauma. We could just write a whole article about his Venus in Capricorn, which means that his love life is ruled by Saturn and amplified in its karmic energy by the conjunction made to his natal Saturn in Capricorn, sexed up by his Mars, electrified by his Uranus and romanticized by his natal Neptune. A Venus in Capricorn brings a struggle to know one’s worth and to recognize it in others. This is the classic case of a person who either loves others so much and get frequently abandoned or deceived or used by them, or the reverse a person who only cares about money, sex and pleasure and ends up using others and thereby blocking their chances to feel love and have a spiritual life. A Saturnian Venus helps one build stamina and it gives you ‘love homework’: you can learn how to set boundaries, refuse poor quality sex, focus on the spiritual aspects of your relationships, be giving even during difficult financial times, stay patient and focused on your personal commitments. A higher vibrational Saturnian Venus says “I will never give up on love and my person no matter how hard things get” while a lover vibrational one thinks that “What’s the point? Everything I love always hurts me, so I might as well just stop caring”. The important thing to remember is that Saturn dries up things, so inherently it brings with it stunted emotional growth.

The person with such a trait can do themselves the favor of admitting they are on some level immature in their emotional expression and in light of this awareness they can humbly open themselves to learning about love, beauty, relationships, money, worth and how to create equal give-and-takes in connections. Once they do so they can become the love and wealth teachers of many. But of course, the learning takes time and diligence, and the results once worked at can be splendid. A fully formed and matured Venus in Capricorn demonstrates unbreakable energy in love. They are there to stay and nothing can shake them of their throne. They make excellent parents, loyal co-workers and dependable lovers. Now having 5 planets in one area of the chart creates a vacuum effect for the Weekend, overwhelming any of the other areas and bringing imbalanced energy in his life. So he is left to come up with ingenious solutions to all this karmic distress that he tends to experience from other people (both work-mates, relatives and sexual crushes – he gets all this drama from all of them since his 6^th, 7^th and 8^th houses are so active). So, when The Weekend sings ‘there’s so much trauma in my life’ and “say I’m there for you but I’m out of time” I also nod and point to this part of his chart.

Not only that but he also has an aspect which is infamously magnetic in personal relationships: a Venus conjunct Mars! No wonder that he can’t feel his face when he’s with her because love and violence are intertwined in his life. This aspect by itself, gives Abel such a strong personal charisma and creates a romantic forcefield around him, helping him pull in effortlessly the sexual interest and loving energy of both men and women (remember that his Moon placement and Jupiter conjunct the Asc are already doing this for him too). However, because Saturn is present there, I see that he attracts people that could be superficial and spiritually empty, driven by material and financial goals only, people that could be either be too young or too old and he will undergo a significant amount of loss in his connections. Yes, this is also the placement of someone who most likely will find love and true fulfilment with an older, wiser and wealthier partner since Saturn rules over old age, wisdom and material successes and describes an older spouse. I hate to say it, but The Weekend’s energy will only darken once Pluto will begin transiting his 8^th house from March of 2023 and up until 2044. I genuinely hope he will survive this transit since Pluto-Sun transits are known to bring about death and painful loss.

Lastly, I want to mention that Abel has a Midheaven in Aries. So, his public image is associated with everything Mars and Aries-related: sexual conquests and stamina, being the best in his field or at least the most productive and dynamic, being a role model for other men, being quite selfish and the prototype of the lone wolf and truly a pioneer in his area of activity. He also has his Part of Fortune conjunct his Midheaven and this means that he actually benefits by being seen in this way, even if unfortunately, he tends to put out this ‘bad example’ energy. In addition, these natal energies in his chart are activated by the transit of the Great Benefic, Jupiter which is taking place at the moment and up until the month of May 2023. I guess this is why I am writing about him! (as a side note I’m also having my Jupiter return in Aries at the moment and it’s taking place in my 6^th house; so I am working on an article about The Weekend’s public role which is also ruled by Aries – hope this makes sense, because I just think astrology is amazing and its little synchronicities like this that make the work so enthralling).

Jupiter pulls in a lot of attention and popularity regarding his public image. So it’s not a surprise that he released a hugely popular song from the soundtrack of the second Avatar movie in this period. But Jupiter could also enhance his Ego and create some exaggerations related to his image, especially since his soft, Cancerian and baby-faced Ascendant sits at odds with this rebel, bad boy, public role. As a funny side note his hair might also look especially good and voluminous this year (and judging by his Leo South Node, I don’t think he ever had issues with loss of volume to his hair). And on this note, I think I’ll stop here since this analysis is extensive enough. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite songs of his, which is a collaboration he created with Lana del Rey who is a Cancer Sun/Leo Moon/Capricorn Ascendant. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Abel worked with her judging by their strong synastry: his South Node on her Moon, his Ascendant on her Sun and her Ascendant on his Capricorn stellium. As always, I remain firmly convinced that coincidences are just astrological magic in action:

With universal love,

Lexi

Cards from the Starcodes Astro Oracle Deck, available here: https://amzn.to/3IjHCi7

The root of the zodiac, the 4^th house is ruled by the Moon and the sign it governs, Cancer or the Crab. This space represents our individual memory box, the most intimate, emotional and private part of our astrological and psychological Selves, that place within which we retreat to find safety and meaning in life, to connect with our ancestors and to feel at home and nurtured. Under the numerological energy of the number 4 – which stands for a solid foundation, a spiritual bedrock and a reliable and trustworthy vibration – this astrological house combines something solid with something infinitely vulnerable, much like the Crab itself, the symbol of this lunar house, a crustacean with a hard outer-shell and a soft and delicious, inner body.

In this article, I want to provide you with a primer for what a 4^th house transit of an outer planet can do to your inner world and how it might help you use your feelings, memories and experiences of safety (or lack thereof) to make important changes to your inner psychology. This is a difficult house to talk about, mostly because it is a hidden and deeply private one, much like the 12^th or the 8^th house. Usually, the things we experience in the 4^th house are those we dread to share with others because they can expose our paper-thin sensitivity to the harsh outer-world and it can expose us to judgment. The things we experience in this ‘at home’ house are emotional and hard to put into words especially since they work upon the individual in a slow, back-and-forth, unconscious way. When you have a 4^th house transit, your relationship to your Self, to those things you keep secret and that which you hide within, to what makes you feel emotionally stable and safe, will be incrementally changed in long-lasting and diffused ways. Almost as if you are operated upon with ‘ghost instruments’: you emerge out of a subtle experience with scars that are slow to heal and with an interesting & spiritual story to share.

To illustrate how this energy can be experienced I will share one of my crew member’s experience of having survived the transit of Pluto to the 4th house in Capricorn in the last 14 years, and also my experiences of having the transit of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius in my 4 house in the last 2 years. It is my hope that by sharing our reflections on the personal experiences we had of the transit of Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn to this soft root of the zodiac, you would be better prepared in knowing what to expect in case you are also embarking this year on such a transit. Before we dive into our personal stories, here is a brief description of what each planet represents on a symbolic and psychological level:

Jupiter is the luminary of good luck. It takes roughly one year to transit through a given astrological sign, although in some cases it could speed through in just 6 months (like in the example of Jupiter in the sign of Aries, a transit we are collectively experiencing in 2023). Jupiter usually brings ease, harmony, growth and a lot of abundance to the area of the chart where it transits through. However, some traditional astrologers believe this planet can be rather malefic because it gives you short-term luck, it inflates the Ego and it can get you to take things for granted or to exagerate and over-use life’s experiences in that part of your life where Jupiter is present.

Saturn is the planet of boundaries, limits, karmic payback and constraints. It takes approximately 2 and half years to complete its transit through a given astrological sign and during that time things tend to ‘dry up’ for the individual; there is a slowing down of things, a general heaviness and a sense of repression and restriction that one would feel throughout the transit of this grounding energy. Saturn is not fun to deal with, since it demands tangible efforts in return for material rewards and it only rewards commitment and hard work. What we fail to commit to will be replaced by a feeling of ‘time is running out’, ‘we are getting older’ and with an overall pessimistic overlook on life. When we live up to Saturn’s pressures through hard work and determination Saturn makes a deep wish of ours come true in the most tangible form possible. Ancient astrologers favored Saturn because it was a slow moving energy which allowed us enough time to prove ourselves and it stabilized that part of our astrological chart where it transited, allowing only pure energy to filter through in or lives, as long as our intentions were correct and moral.

Pluto is the misunderstood luminary of personal transformation. Pluto’s transits are irregular and slow and can take up between 10 to 25 years in a given sign. This celestial body’s energy is extreme and it can feel like not much is happening and then all of a sudden everything is changing in that area of your chart where Pluto is transiting. This luminary works in a subtle and psychological way with pockets of intense energetic growth and material power followed by vulnerability and emotional realizations. Pluto brings up to the surface our dark desires, our sexual energy, our pent-up and repressed feelings and instinctive behaviors that are very hard to control. It shows our conditioning, shadow aspects, our ruthlessness and instinct to survive. When Pluto calls in an area of your life you should get ready to let go of the old and to expect some deep and unforgettable change there, usually of the kind that liberates your soul from previous taboos.

Cards from the Numinous Astro Deck, available here: https://amzn.to/3HNTKpS

Since I sketched the personal attributes of each planet, I will now dive into the personal experiences I mentioned above. The person I will affectionally refer to as “H.” has shared with us her perception of what has changed for her on an emotional level as the powerful energy of Pluto washed over this intimate part of her chart. It is perhaps important to mention that the 4^th house also contains in most natal charts, the Immum Coeli or IC, a line of destiny which connects the private to the professional (as it is sitting opposite from the Midheaven, or the MC, usually to be found in the astrological 10^th house). The IC usually refers to the process of establishing roots, and building a foundation in our lives. It is the inner psychological architecture of who we think we are, as it guards over the memories and past experiences which have shaped us into the present being we are now. This point in our chart speaks to our emotional rawness, hidden treasures and what we retreat into to seek safety in the world. When we lose someone dear to us, when we become parents or shift our location, we often call upon our ancestors for strength. We would also trace a line in our stories that links us back to the present moment in time in an effort to give meaning to what we are feeling. The IC points towards whom we are in secret. So this is why it is a revealing act to talk about what happens to us in this house, as such important energies are entering it to shape our inner psychology in long-lasting ways.

H.’s experience with Pluto

H. mentions how her 4^th house is empty and it is governed by the sign of Capricorn. In the following she offers some useful background to how her life looked like before the transit: “Before Pluto began this transit I was trying to be the person that my family, religion, and culture told me I should be. I grew up in a very conservative part of the U.S. and I was spoon-fed a very patriarchal worldview. Part of me knew that this wasn’t who I really was or how I saw the world. I wrestled with what I knew in my heart was true and what I was told was true. Along with that, I was dealing with the deaths of my father and my brother. Both deaths had a deep and painful impact on my family and on our relationships. So, the stage was set for a lot of change in my life. I didn’t know if I was completely ready for it, but I believe on some level I knew that I needed it. Where I am now in this transit feels blessedly different than how I felt at the beginning. I’m still working through emotional knots and tangles, but I feel a lot more clear about who I am and what I want.”

In relation to the Immum Coeli, H. reflects on some of the astrological education she had prior to having a lived experience of this transit and its emotional effects: “I once read that when Pluto crosses the IC it can sever roots (family ties, relationships, etc.). It makes Pluto sound cruel, but it’s actually not. What Pluto did for me was to cut through and release me from roots that were already dead. I tried fighting it, but I clearly got the message that Pluto expects a certain amount of surrender. When I finally did, that’s when I began seeing the gifts of the transit. The most significant change came as Pluto was crossing my IC. I joined what is called a group “healing container” that was being led by a life coach whose work resonated with me. It was all about inner child healing. It was exactly what I needed after years of pushing that vulnerable part of myself away. I began seeing patterns in my own behavior I needed to change and began learning about boundaries. It was a time when I began peeling back a lot of layers and feeling a lot of repressed emotions as well. In all, it was a very powerful season. It also led me to get honest about relationships in my family that needed healing or weren’t working. I ended up having to let go of a few relationships which was hard, but necessary. Later when I started reading about Pluto in the 4th, I checked my chart to see where it was during this time. Pluto was 1 degree past my IC. I got chills when I saw that. Pluto didn’t wait. It went to work straight away. I’m grateful now that it happened this way though. It gave me a firm push to finally make decisions for my well-being that I’d been resisting. I was also shedding a lot of cultural conditioning. I stopped attending the church I grew up in and became more open about my politics and my feminism. It was also the time I began allowing myself to be curious about tarot and astrology. All these old culturally implanted prohibitions and fears were beginning to be shed. I was told by my mother that I had become “the black sheep of our family”. It was a comment that stung at the time because it meant that I was no longer the “good girl” who my family approved of. It took time for me to feel the hurt and work through it. But now, I feel proud of myself for being honest and making choices that were right for me and in line with who I really am.”

This next paragraph speaks volumes since the core of a Pluto transit is that it changes someone’s life on such a deep level: “I definitely retreated deeper into myself during this period. I was meeting parts of myself that I had suppressed for most of my life. I learned to let myself really feel and to cry without feeling embarrassed. I decided to take a sabbatical from work and the busyness of life to just be with myself. I kind of felt like the Hermit in the Tarot. But, I look back on that time now and I feel so much gratitude. It was both a painful time, but also a beautiful time. I see it as a rebirth in a way. It was when I finally learned to have real compassion for myself and to mother myself (that) I began to really see myself. I started actually liking myself. This is the power and magic of Pluto. You face the dark, you walk through it, and you start to change. You may feel at times that you aren’t changing. It may feel like you’re walking in place. When that happens keep trusting the process. Pluto will not strand you in one place, I promise”.

Some astrologers argue that Pluto in the 4^th house could be bring a deep, soulmate love in an individual’s life and that there might also be an emotional transformation in terms of losing a parent (usually the mother) while transforming into a parent yourself. However, H.’s account is different then what other theoretical views of astrology propose: “Love came before this transit and it has definitely been an important part of my life as I’ve been traveling through it. Pluto was in my 3rd house at the time we were married. It was also the time when I uprooted myself and moved halfway across the country to start our life together. Later, I realized just how vital that decision was for my healing. Choosing to replant myself elsewhere seemed impulsive to my family, but it felt right. Maybe Pluto was already preparing me for what was to come in the 4th”.

H. also is brave enough to reflect on the less positive aspects of Pluto, an energy which is often linked in astrology to covert violence, sexual intensity and toxic secrets: “The most negative aspect of this transit was that I had to walk away from a few family members who I thought would always be a part of my life. It was the painful realization that not everyone you love will want to make the journey with you, or should. Pluto in the 4th is a tough teacher, but it can leave you with a lot of clarity about who you are in relation to your family. If you’re willing, you’ll come to see what works and what doesn’t. Who truly has your best interest at heart and who doesn’t. I’m definitely not the same person I was when Pluto arrived in my 4th house. This transit was the beginning of knowing and embracing who I really am. It’s also been a time of realizing my own power. You can’t put a price on that kind of gift. So, please don’t fear a Pluto transit in the 4th or any house. If you trust it and give yourself a lot of compassion you will come out of it knowing yourself in a way that you didn’t before. It can change you in some very essential and beautiful ways if you let it.”

One aspect I was highly interested in was if H’s relationship with safety changed (if at all) during this intense and prolonged (14 years) transit: “My relationship with emotional safety did change. My family bonds and my place within my family seemed stable and I never thought I would not feel safe with or understood by them. But, as Pluto moved through my 4th house I began getting honest with myself about how I really felt in relation to my family and all those other 4th house issues. Who would I be if I was no longer a person who believed in or identified with the faith or values that I was raised with? Who would I be if I wasn’t the daughter my mother approved of? Naturally, being confronted with these questions led to me feeling more emotionally vulnerable. They were taking me down to the core of what I thought was my identity. Ignoring these questions and all my feelings were only going to give me a false sense of safety. If I wanted to get down to the core of who I really was and live authentically I had to answer them. So, I started learning to as they say “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” with my vulnerability and sharing my truth. I’m still working on that. This was yet another Pluto sponsored opportunity for me to find my own ground and re-root myself there. It hasn’t been an easy process, but it was what I needed.”

And lastly, I also want to break through the metaphorical 4^th wall and mention that our combined astrological transits actually contributed to bringing us two together. We worked together precisely because Pluto created the desire within H. to explore her cultural roots and to dive deep into the occult and spiritual energy of her ancestors. In my case, Jupiter was expanding my online reach and helped me increase my channel and business. As it transited in both the signs of Capricorn and Aquarius, it pulled both of us into its super-attractor orbit. H.’s desire to work with someone to help her explore her past met my skills in providing such a service. I find this serendipity fascinating and experiences such as these ones are what strengthen my belief in the perfection of astrology and are what make my job so magical and worthwhile. Let’s hear what H. has to say about exploring her cultural roots: “I was looking over what I’ve written and I didn’t really touch on the ancestral aspect and how that’s been healing. I think that our ancestors do speak to us throughout our lives. But, it was in this transit that I really began feeling this need to connect with mine beyond just their names and dry facts. There are three ancestors whose stories have a deep resonance with me (…). It was during this transit that my connection with these women came alive. Through those connections, I feel I’ve received some healing. My past life readings with you have been a huge part of this. There are some very interesting parallels between my life and theirs that go beyond DNA. When I read about them or think about them and what they survived I feel strengthened to do what I need to do in my life. I now see that my need to connect with them was a path to re-rooting myself into my mother ground and aspects of my culture (French/Cajun/Creole) that I deeply love and wanted to hang onto. It’s easy to ignore our deeper roots and think our ancestors are just dead people with nothing to say. Dig a little deeper into their stories and you might be surprised at the connection you feel and the stories you find (…) Discovering this (during this transit) feels like something has come full circle in a way. Ancestral synchronicities are truly amazing.” I really want to thank H. again for being so open and clear in her reflections of this powerfully vulnerably 4th house transit.

Cards from the Heavenly Bodies Astrology Deck, available here: https://amzn.to/3YJ7WaD

My experience with Jupiter & Saturn

I will share in the following how the transit of the planet Jupiter and Saturn have felt as they moved across my 4th house in the last 2 and half years and formed conjunctions to my natal Venus in Aquarius. In 2021, for roughly one year, Jupiter brought an incredibly soft and soothing energy in this domestic area of my chart, providing me with safety, a stable and thriving income, physical nurturing and stable emotional undercurrents. At the beginning of this transit I put in the paperwork for the establishment of my spiritual business. I attracted helpers from all walks of life (lawyers, accountants and administrators) who provided me with the tools to legally register my work and work from home. In addition, I was more or less pushed into a relocation which I initially perceived as ‘stressful’ but I realized after it happened that the relocation helped me increase my safety and personal worth and helped me feel like a wave of quality experiences had entered my life. I moved from a cheap location on the outskirts of my city, into an apartment in the city center which truly made me feel both ‘in the center of things’ but also ‘quite grounded and centered’. I experienced a lot of inner peace as well as I was finding that I actually enjoyed spending a lot of time on my own and really enjoying the calm and the stillness in a post-pandemic landscape. In the middle of 2021, pandemic restrictions gradually eased up in Bucharest, but I decided that spending time at home or close to the home, and working from home were the things that made me feel the happiest. The rent I was paying was also very cheap compared to the location of the flat and my relationship to my landlady was smooth and positive.

There were improvements to the building in which I lived such as getting a new intercom and a new elevator (but this heavier structural change actually completed in 2022 with the effort of Saturn in Aquarius). Because Jupiter transited in conjunction to my natal Venus, it also enhanced my beauty and self-esteem in a seamless way. I am a person that always had to work hard to be valued, respected and seen as beautiful. I have a natal Saturn conjunct my Moon in the 2^nd house, which makes me struggle to build a worthy sense of self and accurately assess my beauty, worth and femininity. However, Jupiter in Aquarius brought so much healing and ease in how I perceived myself and for a year, my relationship to my beauty routines, to food and how I relaxed and nourished myself was powerful and easy. I managed to change my hairstyle from black to blonde in a risky move that could’ve affected my personal image in a detrimental way, but the risk actually increased how the public viewed me and raised my views and subscribers while also attracting a romantic connection with a man who came from the upper class of society. I still had to work hard for my income, to overcome many petty problems and to continue to set boundaries within my personal relationships but for a whole year it was like being given a ‘free pass’ on the things I mostly struggled with so far in my life. I ate well, and felt active and healthy and felt like I glowed from within, reassured that the Divine is on my side and that I can overcome anything as long as I had this powerful connection with a heavenly force within me. I became increasingly aware of how my inner emotions coloured the fabric of my everyday experiences and learned to value my moods and affect. I also slept well and felt good while resting, my skin was healthy and my emotions were balanced.

A year after, as Jupiter switched from Aquarius into Pisces and left only Saturn in my 4^th house, I suddenly felt like a ton on bricks dropped onto my chest. Spiritual objects started breaking in my house, doing yoga began feeling painful as trapped emotions were somatised as painful knots in my body, my relationship to my landlady developed in arguments over raising my rent and false accusations that I was trying to steal from her by not paying my bills, the building in which I lived has constant noise from the builders that were changing some aspects of its internal structure. My work-from-home situation turned into a chore rather than a pleasure, and the stress and responsibility of owning my business erupted on my skin in frequent rashes. Worst of all, I felt that my internal relationship to the Divine and my sense of safety in the world was compromised by the war that erupted between Ukraine and Russia and threatened to expand to my country and the Republic of Moldova. Because of the war and my ridiculous empathy to what was going on, I stopped eating during the day and ate at night which completely messed up my circadian rhythm. Not to mention as well that daily accounts of the horrors of the war brought back painful instances in my life when I also felt crushed under the dominance of someone that wanted to constrain my freedom. I knew that this was Saturn testing my determination to persevere in spite of challenges, to put in daily effort to find safety in spite of everything around me and to deal with painful emotions from my past relationships that I didn’t have time to deal with in the past. Saturn slowed down the flow of my work orders and it limited the support I had received from my subscribers and crew. Saturn freezed any new friendship or romantic connection from forming, as it allowed me the space to feel all my feelings in order to process the pain and transform it into wisdom. I woke up daily with a feeling of diffused pain which by the end of the day I had to somehow process in order to get some rest at night. Some days I just couldn’t shrug off the pain and went to sleep with a screen in front of me trying to numb it with entertainment. The positives were that I was released from paying rent, a friend from my past suddenly re-emerged and my parents proved a source of deep strength and support when I was feeling at my weakest.

I had always been a good sleeper but in 2022 my relationship to my unconscious world, to my inner light and Divine feminine energy was stunted and only with effort, prayer and daily discipline was I able to feel my way back into it and to keep doing the work I love so much to do. As I was processing some tissue-deep pain which I struggled to consciously understand, I was harassed on the streets of my neighborhood and all that beautiful solitude turned into a dark, fever dream. Saturn increased my need to seek safety and made me painfully aware of what I was lacking in my life in terms of emotional nurturing, a solid foundation and something to call ‘home’. So in an effort to make a change I overcome my pride and temporarily sacrificed my independence and sought safety in my family’s home. Psychologically I felt like I needed a shell to be able to do my work and feel centered and to save up the finances for that shell, my home, I had to make some sacrifices. So I moved in with my parents in the Autumn of 2022, which was a decision that was not at all easy. At the beginning of this relocation, I felt a mix of feelings that were overwhelming: from nausea, to the shame that I am turning to this option at 35 years old, to relief that my parents were still there for me and took me in with opened arms even after years of icy conditions between us. I had never had a close and warm connection to my mother, and while my relationship to my father was slightly different, they formed a unit together which for a long time I perceived as limiting me in life, restricting me and criticizing or trying to control my every move and freedom. But these past couple of months Saturn had me organize my daily routine alongside theirs, had me sleep in my old teenager’s room (just that this time without my sister and redecorated in a pink, womb-like color), had me go grocery shopping with my mother as we reminisced about past relatives and memories prior to my moving away from the home to another country, when I was just 20 years old.

To say that now I see my parents, my home, and my neighborhood in a different light is an understatement. Some days I burst into tears and its hard to tell if I cry for gratitude and relief that a deep parental wound is finally stitching inside my heart or because I feel that I failed in life to establish Erik Erikson’s intimacy vs. isolation stage which would see the mature individual falling in love and becoming a parent at my age by now. But Saturn has been showing me my shortcomings as a daughter so I can do the repair-work and it is helping me see as well the points in common I have with my mother and father, and that we often struggle with the same things. I now know that what I couldn’t accept about them was something within me that I was desperately running away from (aka my Shadow self).

In the past year, I felt a need to keep to myself more than ever, to go within and to reflect on my past decisions, my romantic experiences, my childhood and what brought me to this point in my life and my early conditioning. I see my parents for what they really are and this makes me have a real emotional connection to them. Our relationship continues to veer from annoyance, to gratitude to anger to enthusiasm quite frequently, but now I just accept the emotional chaos of life. I stopped expecting perfection and I am gradually learning not to control and censor my vulnerability so much. I feel that in spite of the immediate pleasures that Jupiter brought into my life in 2021, like money and popularity, a good image and great physical shape or living independently in a rich neighborhood, I was still living among strangers, I was alienated and separated from my deep Self. Saturn might have humbled me and frustrated me this past year and it certainly sent me back to drawing board of my soul as it placed me in circumstances that obliged me to unpack my emotional baggage, but at least it is healing my heart on some level. Saturn is slowly making me feel as part of my family again, like the prodigal daughter who returned home after 15 years of self-imposed exile, even if my stay here is temporary.

These two outer-planetary transits of Jupiter and Saturn gave me the courage to speak my truth and to understand the truth of others. Through difficult conversations, by enduring moments of isolation, by feeling alienated from everything and then returned to the safe nest of my original family, my thinking and mindset changed. In this process, I changed my mind about love and what really matters on an emotional and unseen level. If Jupiter granted me outer beauty, Saturn then dismantled it and got me to reflect upon and to regain my inner beauty. And in this process my soul is healing. As a consequence I have never felt more tired than I did in the last year. A soul tiredness that I worked daily to overcome by facing my inner fears and by acknowledging my emotions. I am grateful that this process is almost at its end, as Saturn will move from Aquarius and into Pisces in March of 2023.

Now, Pluto will be next to enter the constellation of Aquarius in March of 2023 and it will cross over my IC around my 36th birthday which happens to coincide with the Spring Equinox. Based on H’s experience I can see that this transit will get me to find powerful ways of blending my inner healing with a sense of regained beauty and self-worth, and it will hopefully help me settle into my own home and to find deep love once more. Often times, the difficult transits of Saturn and Pluto are blessings in disguise and even if you have to put in more effort, the rewards are longer-lasting and more enduring than what Jupiter gives you for just one year and only to take it away after. Jupiter can also exaggerate things and make them worse than before its transit, while Pluto could come to unleash you from repression much like Saturn can give you the necessary kick in the butt to repair something that was torturing you for years. So, with all this being said, I welcome the new soulful experiences that Pluto has in store for me and decide to leave my Pluto fear in the past (I’ll hand my fear to Saturn since that is its expertise).

As the 4^th house is the landscape of our inner psychology, whatever deep changes happen here while the outer planets are transiting will be reflected in our immediate environment (literally our bedrooms, kitchens, flats, houses, buildings in which we live and dwell). This means that the tendency to own a home, to find your protective outer shell, to relocate, to redecorate, to move into someplace new, will be intense and hard to control during such a time. And this will be influenced by a decision to build a new foundation in your life, on something more authentic to your inner Self. It’s usually the case that when you build a life on the choices of your heart, your actual root as a human being on Earth, then you can create something that will endure throughout time and withstand any vicissitude. I’ll let you know how this story unfolds, and in the meantime feel free to share your personal stories in the comments below.

With universal love,

Lexi

Movie still of Kyle MacLachlan and Sherilyn Fenn in “Twin Peaks.”Credit ABC. Original website: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/arts/television/twin-peaks-anniversary.html

Because I love astrology and I love you all, I’m thinking of starting a habit on this page, one in which I analyze the birth-chart of a given celebrity each month for you. The only rule to this new astro habit is that the Sun of the celebrity has to match the season. As a test run, I thought I would look into the chart of the movie director David Lynch, a Capricorn Sun who matches the current season we find ourselves in, Capricorn Season (which officially began on the 22 of December 2022 and will end on the 20th of January 2023). This post has also been inspired by the fact that I recently finished re-watching Twin Peaks, the television series that undoubtedly launched the career of David Lynch, an American film-maker with a taste for stylish, macabre and deeply mysterious storytelling.

Lynch’s work tends to polarize people, who either feel incomprehensibly drawn towards his his twisted cinematic universe or struggle to comprehend it and give up in a frustrated rage. I will also admit to not truly understanding his often convoluted storylines (see Mulholland Drive), but I enjoy the atmosphere that he creates and the mystery he keeps taking his viewers in. You may say what you want about his creative work, but you must admit that it is intriguing, at least. And mystery seems to be his destiny seeing as Lynch was born on an astrological cusp, the one between Capricorn and Aquarius and fondly referred to as the Mystery cusp! However, I personally don’t believe that cusps are something we should pay attention too as practitioners or consumers of astrology and for a recall of why I think this, see my previous post: https://spiritualsocial.wordpress.com/2020/07/25/heres-the-issue-with-astrological-cusps/

Coming back to Lynch, I think he is one of those people who is able to create such an absorbing and unique set-up, on the foreground of which the stories of his beautiful and yet distraught characters slowly develop. What I like about Twin Peaks is how small it starts and how eerie and cosmic it becomes; how the first season is so incredibly good and how its second season is abysmally bad. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series – which by now is vintage and has aged relatively well – as viewers, we begin with a murder in a local town called Twin Peaks (a place strangely associated in my mind with Stardew Valley or Ridgside Village), a cosy, sleepy mountain resort closer to the border between Canada and the USA. However, we end the series with a deep-dive into the Underworld of that quaint town and a string of unexplained demonic possessions.

So naturally, I pulled up Lynch’s chart to see if there is anything astrological that points towards his attraction to small and quaint towns that hide creepy paranormal possessions and to my small surprise, I found some fascinating aspects and destined placements. See below his chart:

Lynch’s movies, his image, and his slightly elitist ‘cinema d’auteur’ vibe made me question for a while what are the astrological energies which compel a person to create such a visual imaginarium; I do believe in divine timing and maybe I waited so long to look at his chart, because the planet Pluto, currently transiting across his Sun is creating a powerful magnet of interest and attention towards his persona. I hope Lynch is well and that he is able to survive the end of a Pluto transit, because few people who have had this Pluto-Sun transit have managed to survive it (case in point, Capricorn Sun Betty White who passed away in December of 2021 and more recently Capricorn Sun Jeremy Renner who is struggling with a debilitating amputation caused by a snow plough accident).

Aside from Twin Peaks, you might know David Lynch in relation to his work on Dune, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Inland Empire, or Eraserhead, all famously filmed some considerable years, if not decades apart. So we know he is a slow worker, that he takes his time and that usually whatever he creates makes a splash in the collective unconscious when he launches it. With this point in mind, the thing that stands out from the beginning in his chart is his powerful and energetically concentrated Sun in Capricorn at the anaretic degree, the 29th, conjunct Venus and nearby Mercury in the cozy and hard-working 2nd house. So that’s were his fascination for quaint stable and traditional towns comes from – the 2nd house is the house usually ruled by moral Taurus, a house in which we focus on pragmatic things like money, food and creature comforts. We can see that Lynch’s life revolves around work and the accomplishment of his physical needs and he might also (I suspect) be quite selfish about how he accomplishes these thigs since his South Node (or his astrological comfort zone) is in Sagittarius and in the 1st house, the house of the Self and of the personality and life opportunities we attract. His North Node or his growth zone is in the 7th house, the house of Other people, love marriage and settlements. I think we can see now why Lynch was married 4 times 😉 So learning to negotiate, to show his feelings by talking to others, learning how to reach agreements and settlements are all part of his destiny and of his uncomfortable growth zone. We usually tend to be obsessed with the house and sign in which we have our North Node, so we see that Gemini and the 7th house is his point of attraction. I mean I still fondly remember the image below of Lynch and his leading lady, Isabella Rosellini (a Gemini Sun) from their time filming and promoting Blue Velvet:

I also thing that the fact that Isabella is considering cinema royalty having been born of two movie legends and becoming an accomplished actress in her own right, tickled Lynch’s fancy since Capricorn Sun’s usually love status. Another fun fact is that his leading male star, Kyle McLachlan who worked with Lynch in Dune, Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, is a Pisces Sun with Saturn in Capricorn and a 6th house in Capricorn which fits so beautifully with the director’s personal planets. They are karmic partners indeed seeing as the Sun, Mercury and Venus of Lynch fall into that professional area of Kyle’s chart. Lynch famously started working on a different project during Twin Peaks and most attribute the decrease in quality of the show’s second season to the fact that he stopped investing time, attention and care into it. To be honest, I agree because it is mostly in the episodes which he personally directed of the second season that the atmosphere and sense of ‘story continuation’ seemed to have returned. Taking time to care for others and to put effort into shared alliances, agreements and contracts is also where Lynch’s karma lies, since he has the planet of difficulty and karmic lessons (Saturn) in the most caring sign of the zodiac (Cancer) and his Mars is also conjunct his Saturn in Cancer in the house of sex, death, blood and magic, or the 8th house. Its perhaps interesting to underline that with a Mars conjunct Saturn combo in the sensitive and shy sign of Cancer, neither of the two traditional ‘malefics’ Saturn and Mars, are doing particularly well. Saturn is about restrictions, limits and discipline and Mars is about aggression, directness and courage and in the motherly and receptive energy of Cancer, these kind of butt heads. Such an energy can be beautiful for storytelling but also quite repressed and frustrated in personal connections.

The fact that his North Node is at the chaotic anaretic degree (the 29th) and so close to the border into the 8th house, tells me that Lynch’s personal life might have been chaotic, gossipy and strange and this inspired him to bring such experiences onto the silver screen, because original work usually stems from reflections based on lived experiences and our lived experiences are constantly influenced by astrological transits. I mean the man has Uranus, the planet of weird and wonderful events in the house of other people and it is retrograde (which makes it more intense and concentrated in energy). I think that Lynch constantly attracted in his life random, episodic, short-term relationships that taught his about the extremes of mental health. This Uranian energy combined with his combo in Cancer leads to the creation of a the kind of work which others may perceive as moody, crazy and messy, yet emotionally impactful. So, obviously Lynch will naturally put in a lot of work and effort towards the understanding of the occult, with such heavy and masculine energy in the house of the magic and witchcraft. We see his focus on identity transformations, questioning religion, investigating incest, depictions of sexual and domestic violence, jumps scares and soul possessions peppering his work. All of these darker aspects pertain to Scorpionic energy evident in his chart both in his Mars and Saturn 8th house placement but also in his two other important aspects.

So Lynch also has a Scorpio Ascendant paired with a Virgo Moon perfectly conjunct the Midheaven, in his public 10th house. We first notice compatible Earth and Water synergies which might explain his fertile & creative flow. However, these are also heavy, karmic energies and you can feel that existence to him has not been a proverbial ‘walk in the park’, since his conscious mind and communication style (Mercury), his capacity to love and earn money (Venus) and his energy, vitality and sense of confident identity (the Sun) are obscured under the tight grip of stern Saturn, the astrological ruler of Capricornian energy who sits opposite from his Capricornian stellium in his 2nd house. Saturn disciplines ones energy in a rough way (see my earlier post about Moon conjunct Saturn celebrities for a refresher), by frequently getting the native to make mistakes in order to learn. Saturn also gives one a great ambition to become somebody and an impulsivity to match (since Capricorn follows after passionate Sagittarius on the zodiac wheel), which the individual must learn to master and apply to the creation of physical and material goods, services and outcomes. And Saturn also slows things down, creating obstacles and energetic impediments on the path of a native, who must concentrate all their skills, willpower and determination to make something tangible with this innate creativity. I think Saturnian energy beacons so strongly out from Lynch’s work, but also from his personal life, as he only got better with time and after a couple of flops.

A Venus in Capricorn takes time to understand the flow of giving and receiving in a personal connection, so they might need to go through a couple of them in order to purge their Ego needs and become empathetic, compassionate and wise. Remember that David has been married 4 times, and he is still linked to his latest wife, which could point towards the integration and ripening of a Venusian energy that became better with time, with patience and after a couple of problematic marriages. In addition, a Sun in Capricorn is the energy of a person that matures slowly in time, after some life experiences have taught them how to lead others, how to ‘boss’ up and apply themselves efficiently to the task at hand. We can easily see the many mistakes Lynch has made with his controversial ‘Dune’ movie and the cinematic progress he displayed in Inland Empire. Some would argue that technology was not his friend back in the day and now he has better equipment to film, but I find that misses the point of understanding how Saturnian energy works – it’s a slow drip, it allows ample room for mistakes, it gives one a period of youth as a stage of apprenticeship in life, after which more mature, solid and respectable rewards can come though if the individual has done the work. Otherwise, Saturn can floor one with financial debts, diseases and social isolation. I think that’s not David Lynch’s case, and he has his work to prove it. And this is the final word of any Capricorn, the reality of the fact that their work when done well will outlive us all.

I think I’ll stop here as I can continue to write about this chart for another couple of pages. What do you think of David’s chart? Do you enjoy his movies? I hope this was useful and interesting to read and feel free to recommend Aquarius celebrities’ for next month’s analysis.

With universal love,

Lexi

Photo by Thula Na on Unsplash

Recently, I was looking over my diary entries and noticed a pattern. I have this habit of reflecting on the position of Moon, the sign and its house on the first day of the year and then analyzing at length how the year played out for me. I started this habit in 2020 and I think I can safely share this trick with those of you who might be interested in forecasting the year ahead. It could be that there is an obscure astrological name for this method but so far in my astrological studies I have yet to identify a ‘lunar map method’ to the new year based on the chart of the Moon on the 1st of January. Anyway, feel free to use what I describe in the following to check what themes 2023 will bring in your life (& you can apply this method to any year following on from 2023).

We started off 2023 with an Aries Moon transitioning into a Taurus Moon, as the night switched from 31st of December and became the early morning of the 1st of January. According to the energies present at that lunar shift, this is how your year will play out: by the themes associated with Aries and Taurus and the houses in your chart where you have these energies. These will be the most prominent areas in your life this year. Of course there will be other transits and aspects influencing your progress as the year moves on, but what I am describing here is how you will unconsciously feel throughout the whole year.

Case in point: 2022 was a year in which we entered with the Moon in the sign of Sagittarius and we experienced everything from excess, to confusion to rampant fears. It was a year of exaggerations, a year which tested our belief in the Divine and one in which many of us struggled to find their personal freedom or to exist independently in some way. It was also the year of many global life lessons: from sudden and relentless outbreak of wars and insurgencies, to growing concerns about the destruction of the environment, to soaring prices on the market, the death of a monarch in the UK and finally the football World Cup. Sagittarius rules over wealth, high-ranking military energy, monarchs, nation-building and the global environment. With the tensions brought about by Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces squaring the Moon in Sagittarius with which we began last year, we felt a mix of confusion, excitement and dread. Personal and collective actions were undertaken on the spur of the moment, but yielded no clear or solid outcomes. It was an emotional year, hard to define and to extract wisdom from. It was what I’d like to call ‘the big Wrap-up’, that feeling once a large and fun event is over and you are left to clean things up and mop up the floor in preparation for the next day. Here’s the chart for the 1st of January 2022:

Now for this year, there’s a slightly different rhythm at hand. We began 2023 with the Moon in Aries conjunct the asteroid Chiron, the Wounded Healer as it was moving into Taurus, which was conjunct the planet of surprises (Uranus) and the malefic North Node (a point of destiny and obsession). So the energy with which we entered 2023 is coloured by these themes of healing and greed. Now you might not benefit from this energy at all or you could feel an overwhelming burst of blessings depending on how cozy you are with Aries or Taurean energy and how these play out with the energies inherent in your own natal birth-chart.

To create your birth-chart and see in which houses you have Aries and Taurus (and yes, we all have these somewhere in the chart, even if you don’t see any planets or asteroids in your Aries or Taurus houses) go to this trusted resource and simply input your data: https://www.astro.com/cgi/genchart.cgi Alternatively, I’ll be happy to help you out, so feel free to order a birth-chart reading by writing me an email at macht.alexandra.georgiana.pfa@gmail.com

Ok, short & personal ad-break aside, let’s return to the chart of this year’s lunar entry placement. See below the chart for the date of the 1st of January 2023 generated from astro-seek.com’s database:

Immediately, you can see that this year’s energies are more harmonious due to the abundance of blue lines which represent trines and sextiles (aka friendly energies between luminaries). Last year’s lunar entry chart presented us with a tense aspect (or a square) between the Moon and Neptune (which can lead to lies, deceit and delusions and also an increase in the use of alcohol and opioids) and another tense square between Mercury and the North Node (denoting misunderstandings, arguments, punishing words and criticisms, in addition to an obsession to bring fake news and misinformation to the masses). We saw such energies play out in the media where in one month the public received some news that contradicted the decisions made one month prior, or in which we saw political disagreements that led to terrible actions such as in the war between Ukraine and Russia, or mass uprisings in Iran, the flip-flop firings at Twitter’s headquarters or on Youtube, where many struggled with free speech and demonetization issues due to malicious censorship. Communications felt toxic and perilous last year due to this tense square energy between Mercury and the North Node.

Nonetheless, this year we see a lot of friendly aspects as the Sun is sitting in a beautiful harmony with the Sun, the Moon and the North Node which means that positive conclusions will occur and we will be able to fulfill more goals as a collective (globally and within our own nations, local communities and families), and then we also see how Mercury & Pluto are supported in friendly sextiles by the combined energies of Jupiter and Neptune, bringing a sense of healing and growth in our overall collective atmosphere. However, health and healing could be challenges posed by the energies of 2023.

Let’s return to how you can work with this available energy. I can give you my own example to see how you can analyze your own chart. Even if you see that on the 1st of January the Moon is in Taurus, it’s important to also look at the placement of Aries in the chart since the switch happened close to midnight on the 31st of December. The Moon appears in the first day of the year’s chart as being in the sign of Taurus but you can clearly see it is at 9 degrees which confirms its ‘recently shifted’ status. Compare this to the Sagittarius Moon we had last year for New Year’s Eve at 23 degrees and you’ll see a significant difference in the ripe energy that the Moon was disposing off last year. This year the Moon was in first decan Taurus so this is a youthful, playful energy while the last decan of Sagittarius is a wiser and heavier energy.

So how would knowing where the Moon was on the 1st of January help you out? Check where Aries and Taurus are in your chart and see if you have any planets there. Look at the aspects made (red or blue lines) and also check the number of the houses they are in. For example, I have Aries in my 6th house and Taurus in my 7th house. The 6th house is the astrological house of work/health/daily routines & responsibilities while the 7th house is the astrological house of partnerships/contracts/our nearest and dearest. In ancient astrology the 6th house was malefic and pertained to the realm of magic and practical alchemy, while the 7th house – ruled by the number considered to represent divine perfection – was a blessed house of love and unions. So, for me in 2023 the themes of health and partnerships will be in the foreground…and guess what I began the year celebrating at home with my parents and we all got sick of Covid 19 (yes, my family aptly survived the 2020 pandemic just to catch the virus on its dying legs just as 2022 was wrapping up). I have Jupiter and the North Node in Aries in my 6th house and my 7th house homes my natal Mars, Eros and Vertex in Taurus. This means that any challenges that will come my way with my health and at work will be quickly resolved this year since my natal Jupiter quickly resolves issues and protects me and those I work with. Uranus and the Moon are making a conjunct aspect to my natal Mars which will mean that I might deal with more men this year, men who might arrive in my life spontaneously to provide me with surprises, emotional events and a sense of safety. We’ll see since I’m not getting my hopes up in any way as I decided this will be my year of ‘low expectations’ and practical focus on what I have to do at work, but it might be that some long-term romantic commitment could happen in my life in a random, unplanned manner.

Having said this, please go back to your chart now and see if you have similar placements. If you have Saturn in Taurus then this year will be a foundational one for you, and you could need to work more but the results will be long-lasting. If you happen to have Venus in Taurus then this will be the year of your glow up, a year of pleasure, beauty and love. If you have Mars there, then your ambition, drive and willpower will be maximized and you will feel energized to do loads. If you have Mercury in Taurus then 2023 will be a great study year for you, and you might finish writing a large project or completing lots of paperwork.

There are of course some epochal changes taking place in March of this year, so I’ll return with more insights as the year progresses but for the time being I thought it was interesting to share with you some of the things I observed by taking note of how the astrological energy played out in my life so far just by paying special attention to the lunar placement in the chart of the first day of the year. I do think there is no wiser learning then experiential learning 🙂 I hope this quick lunar hack can help you to rapidly assess how will 2023 play out for you.

With universal love,

Lexi

In case you scrambled up your schedule and are wondering why you might’ve accidentally spilled coffee on your laptop or why updating your smartphone’s system made it actually crash, I am here to relieve the pain of responsibility by letting you know that you may now blame your daily malfunctions on the current retrograde of the quick planet Mercury, travelling across the signs of Libra and Virgo, a retrograde which started on the 9th of September and will finish technologically harassing us on the 2nd of October. All technological mishaps aside, this retrograde however is a fun and imaginative one, seeing as Hermes/Mercury loves being in the fair and analytical sign of Libra and also in the hard-working and detail-oriented sign of Virgo. Both the cosmic Virgin and the astral Scales are highly rational, calculated signs that love predictability and control, and Mercury will thoroughly enjoy creating small problems that irk and irritate them for the next 3 weeks – at least with Mars in Gemini supported by Saturn in Aquarius, there will be a swift resolution to any sudden issues that could crop up and threaten stability (since Uranus clunkily remains in incompatible Taurus until 2026). Poor Libras, especially those 25 to 29 degrees late-decan Librans, who already have a nasty power-square from Pluto in Capricorn, now they have to deal with tricky Mercury too. I send you all my love, fellow Venus-led soft warriors! Case in point see how Libra Sun, Kamala Harris, the vice-president of the US, has to handle buses of immigrants left at her doorstep.

Now, I’m a Libra Ascendant and I personally feel like this retrograde released me from certain blocks which were brought about with Saturn’s retrograde movement that started last June and sadly continues until the end of October. I now feel liberated and strangely inspired to retake the classes, ideas & projects I put off throughout the whole of summer – mainly because it was exceedingly hot in Bucharest during July and August and my flat was uninhabitable, while my reading and writing discipline was compromised. But now Autumn is here and the September clouds have stormed in, which puts me in an excellent mood to awaken my dormant grey cells 🙂 So I started imagining things, as I was reading through some of my astrological collection of articles, website, images and eBooks. And I want to take you with me on an imaginative exercise. I want us to think of a different way in which we could structure our activities, not according to the reason of some ancient capitalist (I’m looking at you Benjamin Franklyn and your daylight savings time), or some weird Gregorian Christian calendar that served the interests of a niche group of monks. No, I’m talking here about maybe bringing back some old pagan, folk celebrations that were ritualistic and community-binding and not only numbers on our computer screens and celebrating holidays by indulging in consumerist euphoria to worship the birth of baby Jesus, among other things. I’m referring here as well about recapturing the meaning of why we schedule our lives around days of the weeks that are named after planets and yet we often make fun of astrology and of the existence of a link between the cosmos and our lives here on Earth. This being said, let’s silence for a short period what we know to be ‘true’ and let’s imagine what might be ‘possible’ in terms of how we structure our work & resting times, weeks and yearly celebrations. Here’s a potential re-ordering.

• What if we took Mondays and Sundays off, to truly enjoy our inner darkness and outer light? In this way we could avoid the dreaded ‘Monday mood’ and honor the Divine Lunar mother’s energy in combination with the Divine Solar Father’s energy (or flip them, if you’re German). It makes no sense to keep punishing our workers to show up bright and bushy-tailed, early for work on the day of Moon, a day that energetically screams ‘Leave me alone! I prefer privacy and I feel anti-social today!’ (wink at sensitive Cancerians, frequently affected by such moods).

• What if we started the working week on Tuesdays, the day ruled by energetic Mars, and settled our taxes or closed our booking accounts on Saturdays, on the day of Saturn, the strict teacher and disciplinarian? Because it brings bad luck, travel could be forbidden on Fridays, which usually contains a breezy and receptive energy anyway. So Fridays or the Days of Goddess of Love, Beauty and War Freya/Venus/Hathor could be reserved for creative brainstorming and fun and pleasurable activities that help workers learn how to communicate with each other and enhance their social bonds as a team, because after all we are all human beings and not constant human doings. Friday’s could be about bonding, talking, relationship-building rather than quickly jumping from the workplace to the pub (I’m looking at you Pisces).

• To further honor feminine cycles, which are normally overlooked in the business environment, what if women who menstruated had the option to take a 48 hours period-leave, to soothe their inner Divine feminine cycle? This option is something that the Australian and New Zealand governments are actually considering and funding it has been in discussions for a couple of years now, so fingers crossed that optional menstrual leave becomes a thing as soon as Pluto enters Aquarius.
• What if we took the usual three periods of Mercury retrograde per year off and went on holidays or did some private research? Now I know that this could be too much to ask, since the ultra-productive wheel of turbo-capitalism cannot just sit still for 9 weeks a year for each employee, but we might find ways to schedule a lessening of production, or shift our attention towards conserving the planet – i.e. work can be done in retail, transport, in shops, supermarkets, factories, enterprises during normal Mercury direct cycles, but then employees get to do research for the company, plant trees, clean the air, or some sort of different activity that helps the environment, gets employees to do something different to avoid employee boredom or repetitive motion disorders and helps us all to understand that there’s more to existence than just production. There’s also conservation.
• What if we began counting the calendar year on the 21st of March at 0 degrees Aries, rather than begin it on the 1st of January at roughly 10 degrees Capricorn? This might be something we could apply to the Western world, since the Eastern part of the world already lives by slightly more spiritually advanced rhythms. We would begin the year in Spring and with the energy of the Spring Equinox and surely that makes more logical sense then starting the year massively hung-over in the deep dark and frost of January. As a collective, we might not need to push ourselves to feel motivated, we could just flow with the energy of renewal which Aries season makes abundantly available to us.
• What if surgeons were state-mandated to never operate on a New or Full Moon? I can tell you that having first-hand experienced being cut open on a Full Moon conjunct my natal Sun in Pisces, that such a day is not the best course of action for operations. In spite of his experience, my surgeon’s hand was trembling and he seemed hyper-ready which is never a good sign. After the surgery the wound healed slowly and painfully and I suffered some minor complications, but other souls on the operating table might not be so lucky. Moral of the story: try to schedule an operation around any other time and in order to avoid deaths or complications that could be avoided, let’s keep doctors away from knives during days with either too little energy (New Moons) or too much energy (Full Moons).
• What if instead of worshipping the birthdate of a nation or following some political landmark, we reorganize our bank and traditional holidays around equinoxes, solstices and eclipses to mark the opening of powerful energetic portals and to help us cope smoothly with what are transitional points in collective conscience? We would also organize a Love Fest during Lion’s Gate Portal, the 8th of the 8th, one of the warmest and heart-opening moments of the year, and replace it with Saint Valentine’s Day, which takes place in one of the coldest and (weather-wise) weirdest month’s of the year. So instead of wrapping red ribbons and drizzling chocolate kisses on the celebration of the masacre of a Christian martyr who secretly married Christian couples…you know, we could dance to & praise the power of Innanna/Ishtar, the Queen of Heavens. It just makes more sense.
• What if we did a lot of fast-processing jobs while the Moon’s energy was growing from New to Waxing Gibbous and finally Full Moon, and then we tended to the details and spend more time processing things and information as the Moon’s energy was decreasing from Full to Balsamic and finally to the New Moon. Companies could settle new employee goals each New Moon of the month, or schedule the day of the New Moon per quarter. Then watch as their returns grow without that much effort. If that clichéd logo ‘Work smarter and not harder’ keeps floating around in the collective consciousness infected by biz-talk then why not apply it to harnessing the power of the lunar cycles to improve your business goals?

This revised calendar actually makes more sense than what we perceive to be the modern ‘rule of reason’ in the Age of Information & might reduce the rampant rise in some prevalent mental health problems, because we would adapt to what already feels natural rather than force ourselves to constantly push against the astral energy as we blindly obey patriarchal traditions. Just some food for thought. Or maybe I’m too optimistically idealistic. I know some of you already are living according to these energetic gateways and astrological transits, and you are pioneers, keep doing this great work that might inspire others! As usual, please let me know what you think in the comments below. What other changes have I missed?

With universal love,

Lexi

Under the energy of the present Full Moon in Pisces, I thought I would write about a specific feeling, an emotion which is usually associated with the watery realm of the God of the Sea – Neptune/Poseidon, the natural ruler of the astrological twelfth house in the zodiac and of Piscean energy. This feeling is regret.

Regret is a languid feeling, giving birth to heavy, melancholic moods that combine a deep sense of shame with romantic longing and the hope of future forgiveness or reconciliation. When we fall under its spell we mourn what we have lost, while silently hoping for what could take us by surprise and harpoon hope back into our lives. We wish for a mending of some sorts and while we await, we feel ‘liminal’ as romantic regret becomes our eerie bedfellow.

Nonetheless, feeling regret reminds us that we have a heart. And we’ve all fallen prey to this feeling at some point in our lives. Unsurprisingly, some of us recovered & crawled our way back into the light to comprise playlists such as the one I am discreetly sharing with you below.

When a feeling is shared it feels less heavy. Similarly when a feeling is sung it becomes something other than itself. Musicians are alchemists of the soul: they take our regret and either amplify it, mute it or dispel it. They take human pain & transform it into beauty.

And because regret needs company to jumpstart the healing process, here is a list of songs that hopefully will feel like a balm to your tired heart:

Lana del Rey (Cancer Sun) “Blue Banisters” : https://youtu.be/fN0OmdJUl0I

Arca (Libra Sun) “Anoche” : https://youtu.be/1YW94Psk0Jg

Oliver Sims (Gemini Sun) “GMT” : https://youtu.be/x0sqQloesWg

Rhye (Mike Milosh – Aries Sun) “Hymn”: https://youtu.be/Yvir5zYK0DU

Mansionair (Jack Froggatt – Cancer Sun) “Violet City”: https://youtu.be/miC82O_a5GI

Air (Nicolas Godin/Capricorn Sun & Jean-Benoît Dunckel/Virgo Sun) “Playground Love”: https://youtu.be/hFuu5wPFv1M

FKA Twigs (Capricorn Sun) “Daybed”: https://youtu.be/0TqxKWFyBdo

Son Lux (Ryan Lott – Aquarius Sun) “Your Day Will Come”: https://youtu.be/_iefpSDLEug

Young Fathers (Aloysius Massaquoi – Gemini Sun) “Tremolo”: https://youtu.be/MkBfw2r8OIo

Coldplay (Chris Martin – Pisces Sun) “The Scientist”: https://youtu.be/RB-RcX5DS5A

The National (Matt Berninger – Aquarius Sun) “Quiet light”: https://youtu.be/xiiXhHQ10XY

November Ultra (Nova – Scorpio Sun) “Come into My Arms”: https://youtu.be/jTlpKlpKt_A

Snow Patrol (Gareth Lightbody/Gemini Sun) & Martha Wainwright (Taurus Sun) “Set fire to the third bar”: https://youtu.be/bfa9yxCpWoA

Olafur Arnalds (Scorpio Sun) “Zero”: https://youtu.be/3qP6LU_MBhU

iamamiwhoami (Jonna Lee – Libra Sun) “Thin”: https://youtu.be/FyNOy_BjpQA

I hope you enjoyed this collection and remember to leave your romantic, transcendent impressions in the comments section below.

With universal love,

Lexi

I just realized I wrote a post I forgot to publish and for some reason it made its way back to me as I was sorting out through my drafts. I release it now in the hope that some curious cats might find value in it:

From the outskirts of what has been a painfully slow and difficult period, I report back on the state of ‘ugly restlessness’ that the Venus retrograde in Capricorn (conjunct Pluto, Mars and Mercury) spread in the collective for us. We began 2022 under this energy and so far this year proved to be traumatic. Whenever we have a stellium (*a cluster of planets in the same astrological sign) in the sign of Capricorn, we usually deal with loss, death and disease (much like in 2020 when Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn met in this sign, we were faced with mass deaths created by the Covid-19 pandemic). There is a reason why astrologers throughout time associate the sign of Capricorn with the image of the Grim Reaper and the Devil, and that being that Capricorn takes something away from us, before it can rebuild on a stronger foundation. I also need to say that part of my role as a lightworker is to shed light on difficult aspects of life, dark things and dark experiences, uncomfortable emotions that deserve to be acknowledged and transformed. If you believe that walking the spiritual path is all ‘love and light’ you are mistaken. Actually the more you try to slap on the tag ‘love and light’ without dealing with the darker undercurrents of the human experience, the more you’ll create a psychogenic pressure cooker that will unleash Pandora’s box in your life when you least expect it. To live only in ‘love and light’ is paradoxically to be dominated by your Shadow Self – and remarkably the sooner you come to terms with your human flaws, limitations, obsessions and desires the more you start to infuse your life with the light of truth and creation. What makes living such a fascinating experience is how we pendulate between dark and light and work with the grey areas in life, also known as the infamous ‘it’s complicated’ terrain. In life, we will spend most of our living energy striving towards something, recuperating from something or letting go of something, so we can use our remaining energy to build something new and to maintain what we’ve gathered so far.

The past Venus retrograde which ended this weekend, was a period of 40 days and nights, where feminine energy was externally depleted, and beauty was not obvious but skin-deep. This happened in order to focus on the self-esteem that is built from within. Those of you who were born with a Venus retrograde in your natal chart might be familiar with this energy, as beauty/love/money aspects in your life that require more effort, that are earned by focusing within first and then manifesting without. Whenever an astrological retrograde takes place, reality shifts a bit and we experience optical and visual illusions. During a Venus retrograde you might wake up and look at yourself in the mirror and see all your flaws, only your imperfections and you could feel old, tried and drained. However, as soon as the retrograde is over the same mirror-image changes and you start to feel ‘cute’ again, to think that ‘hey, I do have nice hair or nice eyes’. This is because retrogrades focus the energy within, into that beautiful inner realm that lies beyond the capacity of our visual field but exists nonetheless (like many things in our reality that we like to take for granted due to the inherent limitations of our visual field – case in point, Roentgen radiation).

I think the best representative of this inner beauty/outer beauty Venus retrograde energy is the Norse Goddess of Death and Despair, Hel (pictured above). Half human, half monster, her face depicts the beauty dichotomy and sends us thinking: Who are we when we don’t base our self-esteem on how we look? And would we feel better about ourselves, if we were just living in a state of inner beauty? And would the world around us, people and society, react respectfully to us even if we didn’t spend time crafting our external image?

Let’s talk about how ugly an individual sometimes feels when living in the midst of an energetic burnout. How food seems to lack color, sexual desire disappears, as more space is created in the body for mysterious aches and pains, a perturbed sleeping schedule which might involve waking up several times a night and cold sweats in the morning, pins and needles in the shoulders and neck invading the body right before bedtime. In the midst of burn-out we might not even be aware that it is happening, and it usually takes a disease, an event or a malfunctioning limb to set things into perspective. What brings about a burnout? Excessive stress from work and the effort needed to survive. And what is Capricorn ruling over? Well, the word of work. We have all been on some level traumatized & burnt-out by the depleting energies of Pluto in Capricorn and now on its final degrees, the effort intensifies as we are all collectively pushed into revolt exactly at the moment when we feel we cannot give anymore and we expected some solace (or divine intervention).

This retrograde therefore showed us at a skin deep level (since it was conjunct piercing Pluto), almost at a bone level (Saturn rules over the structures in our life, such as our skeleton), the pains and aches of the economic system we live in that requires us to function and work over-time for meagre salaries that cannot be spent to completely nourish ourselves, our bodies and our souls. In addition, the global capitalist system purports values which are about image-management and self-obsession rather than valuing inner beauty, and even more so it values traits on the job market which fall in line with a masculine energy: competitiveness, confidence, self-marketing, self-promotion, leadership, power, constant movement and change to seek novelty etc. The feminine keeps being under-paid, under-valued and attacked. These commodified values are affecting our relationships, our bodies and our capacity to balance masculine energy with feminine energy, and the past Venus retrograde brought these things so close to home it hurt. It is timely too, not only because Saturn the ruler of Capricorns governs over time, but also because this is the final Venus retrograde before we shift into a new era, the Pluto in Aquarius era. (And what followed after this retrograde ended its Shadow zone, was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent raping and killing of Ukrainian women).

Keeping this in mind, what are the lessons that the Venus retrograde in Capricorn conjunct Pluto, solidified for us, after 14 years of Saturnian collective stoicism, effort and darkness:

• That forceful, faster and emotionless might not be the best course of action forward. Sooner or later something or someone will crack under the pressure. And it might be your mind or your body.
• Honour feminine energy & take time to rest, because no matter how much the neo-patriarchal system of social relationships – which we still find ourselves living in – disdains it, people who rest are indeed more productive. People who rest have the power to fight back.
• Build something slowly and carefully over time to reduce the cost and shock of something just randomly dissolving in front of you when you least expect it, due to a fault in the foundation: this can be metaphorically applied to your workplace, your health, or your marriage. Although, a spontaneous invasion or a terrorist group could easily destroy all that you built, so try to not get too attached to objects.
• Don’t blindly follow tradition just for tradition’s sake. Transform it until you feel it has a deeper meaning for you and then you can ‘obey’ it because it resonates with your soul and not with what somebody else tells you to obey.
• If a relationship doesn’t work, let it die. If a person will not change, let them go. If your money is depleting, slow down the roll of spending and conserve it.
• You can live well with less.
• Your addictions are not you, they are the inner demons you didn’t take time to slay. And the side-effect of the daily personal hustle needed to maintain neo-capitalism.
• Love, creativity, peacefulness, integrity, faith, feeling good – they all matter. Not everything that is tangible and marketable has intrinsic value. Some things are just unquantifiable, eternal and intangible.
• The survival mantras of “I am strong” & “I can do this”, which characterized the first part of this Pluto in Capricorn transit, have now become “I approve of myself” and “I accept myself”, under the decade-long influence of Neptune in Pisces. And this summer, in 2022, as Jupiter enters Aries, they will become ‘I have no fear’ & “I had enough”.

With universal love,

Lexi ❤

It is a difficult experience for me to write about this book mostly because its topic invites you to be still and meditative. I found myself taking breaks after each chapter and falling into a state of peaceful transcendence, where I felt calm and connected to something immaterial. It’s rare that I have such an experience with a book. And in partly this experience is created because of the many useful prompts, questions and practical exercises that the author offers the reader. Diane Dreher (a Psychology Today contributor whose work has been featured in USA Today, Entrepreneur, Redbook, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Science of Mind, among others) begins her soothing ‘The Tao of Inner Peace’ by describing how :

Peace, Lao Tzu realized, is an inside job. Only when we find peace within ourselves can we see more clearly, act more effectively, cooperating with the energies within and around us to build a more peaceful world.

– page xiv, in the Introduction to the Tao of Inner Peace

Later on in the book – in a chapter where the reader is invited to consider how to manage the flow of chi (life force) in one’s body through breathing – Diane further explains the practice of inner peace as detachment:

Detachment doesn’t mean turning a cold shoulder to the world. Far from it. It means transcending ego, caring without getting caught up in day to day commotion. Watching life’s changing panorama with patience, acceptance, and good humor

– page 17 from The Tao of Inner Peace

In clear, unadorned language the author reaches to the core of some simple but often neglected truths. Similarly, I thought of these words written by one of favorite spiritual teachers, Alana Fairchild, from her oracle book ‘The White Light Oracle‘, where the yogini’s role is clarified in relation to the practice of inner peace:

“In numerous spiritual traditions of the East, such as those from Nepal, Tibet and India, the yogini is a female, spiritual adept, a practitioner of deep yoga that awakens a powerful connection with one’s real inner being. The yogini holds space for healing and enlightenment, moving through obstacles and challenges with wisdom, patience, commitment and often great joy.

– pages 97-97 from Alana Fairchild’s The White Light Oracle Guidebook, Blue Angel Publishing

Indeed, it takes practice to become an ‘everyday yogini’ as oftentimes people will try to get us out of a state of inner peace and provoke us into battle/arguments/drama. But it is nonetheless important to continue to practice this role, if we would like to create more peace on Earth.

The author, Diane Dreher describes how her spiritual journey began with both an interest in Chinese brush paintings but also with a disappointment, a fall from the Garden of Paradise, like it usually happens for most of us placed on the spiritual path. In an interview, she talks about how her college boyfriend rejected her for wanting to pursue both a relationship with him and her own professional interests. When we encounter a person who limits our personal growth in some way and wants to make us subservient to their Ego, we meet the point where we understand that the Divinity in us is not respected. This painful ‘trigger’ moment & the decision we take to respect ourselves in that moment might push us onto a solitary path of deep introspection but it also connects us to our inner Self, and ultimately it helps us live a life that feels good on the inside. I think that finding inner peace is a life-long process and whenever we meet a spiritual teacher who can tenderly help us along the way, then this is a highly fortunate encounter. Diane Dreher is such a person and the way she adapted the teaching of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching (the Book of the Way) to modern concerns about respecting and healing the Self, is a blessing. I hope you’ll enjoy this powerfully unassuming book as much as I have.

‘The Tao of Inner Peace’ is published Penguin Random House: https://www.dianedreher.com/index.htm

With universal love,

Lexi ❤