You’re sitting at the foot of a mountain. At your side, wiry and steady, Saturn the Timekeeper is neatly folding up the multi-hued garb of Sagittarius the Philosopher that he’s worn for 3 years. On 12/19/2017, he will be donning the commanding robes of Capricorn until 12/17/2020.
“I have 3 questions for you,” he says, in a voice like quiet thunder. “One: How have you proved yourself to yourself this year?” Two: What new beliefs can you can commit to and live by as a result?” Three: “Are you ready to climb this mountain?”
You look up, straining your vision. The mountain, defined by stark shadows and hungry light, is tattooed by the fall and rise of twisting paths. Dense clouds bodyguard its peak. Simultaneously, you’re struck by twin jolts of emotional lightning-excitement and fear.
Say “yes,” to the challenge of Saturn in Capricorn, and you earn self-respect, dignity and wisdom. Remain at the base of the mountain and emotional arthritis may well set in. You know which choice is right for you.
Standing, you strap on your backpack. It is sturdy and well equipped with determination, focus and faith. In parting, Saturn presses a small bottle into your hand. It is unbreakable and will never run dry. It is filled with the elixir of courage.
Now, your first step. Beneath your feet, the mountain trembles, a growl of welcome. There is no turning back. Nor would you want to.
Eagle-eyed Saturn squints into hazy sun as you ascend. He knows that you will succeed.
So do I.
In fierce joy and celebration,
Joyce
Prepare for this extraordinary journey and 2018 with an Evolutionary Astrology reading. Gift certificates are also available online at https://joycevanhornsf.com/shop If you’d like to purchase a 30 minute reading for only $95 (holiday offer only), call/text me at 415-518-5818 and I’ll send you one through email, the USPS or you can stop by my office. They never expire.
Tag Archives: faith
Trump: Disillusionment & Deception-or Divine Intervention?
Neptune the illusionist…Neptune the inspirer. It is simultaneously smoke and mirrors and the high, holy possibility of something good this way comes. He casts his spell upon us now, summoning up that which we might not have anticipated.
I did not cast my vote for Trump. I drank and ate things I normally wouldn’t consume as I watched the election. My heart startled awake with disbelief and fear when I heard “President Elect Trump.”
However, this is a new beginning. Trump is one man. We are many. And, in our souls, in our true selves, we are love. Just that one simple word. Even Trump.
How can we possibly define someone as evil and someone as divine? It’s impossible. So now the road we didn’t expect to take is the one we are compelled to travel. I am putting on my hiking boots and packing the essentials: Faith, love, the expectancy of the best of each moment.
Each time a cat reaches his paw out to say, “I adore you,” I am awash in that. When I take in the glory of the day, the nature abounding, the friends I hold dear, the clients I am so blessed to see, the cosmos that guides me so unfailingly…I am inspired to even greater compassion, to remember that I am blessed with a sense of humor and a gift for speaking the truth as I see it.
Which way do you wish to turn? You can’t go back. So take my hand, and then the next person’s hand, and let’s dance. Feel the blood pumping through your veins, the pulse of aliveness. This isn’t a war to be won. It’s a time to cultivate inner peace and appreciation.
Neptune whispers, “Dream. Imagine. Inspire. Let go.” I let my eyes blur and watch the landscape soften. And I sense, I know, that it’s all okay. That what seems like a dirty trick that pulled the rug out from under my feet is actually a harbinger of positive change and healing.
Thank you, Neptune, for gifting us with this time of weird magic. Thank you, Neptune, for helping me see through the eyes of my heart. Thank you, humanity, for the embrace I feel from each human being who is hurting, confused or angered.
We’re all together now, even if it feels as if we’re not. One final word from Neptune: “Yield. Just be. Breathe.” And that’s when the healing begins.
Venus (Love) & Saturn (Endings): A Story of Two Miracles
This is a story of two miracles.
Anger having cooled, outrage quiet, I woke to a fresh-faced January morning last year with a curious sense of peace. It might have been acceptance wed to sorrow after my father’s death. For a miracle moment, I understood that I had cursed enough, cried enough, railed at the gods enough. I felt a tug of curiosity about what might come next. There is no script for grief.
Later that day, I saw my friend Robert, a fellow Sagittarian, for acupuncture. We go back over 20 years and always had an easy camaraderie. He was married to Val, an outspoken Leo, for nearly 50 years; they met in Vietnam as 19-year-old marines. I’d always been closer to Robert than Val, and not just because I saw him more frequently. As long as I’d known her, she made me nervous: the permanent line between her brows, hands often clenched, the defensive swagger of a sailor. We’d socialized a few times but never gotten close. In reflection, she was my doppleganger, although I wore makeup and heels and she did not.
Robert had just been declared clean after a fierce bout of cancer with complications. “What are you going to do now?” I’d asked last November. “Well, I’ll probably semi-retire in about 4 years when I’m 70. I’ll spend more time at our place with Val.” A healthy few acres of land in Shasta County, it suited their respective rough-hued individualism.
It was just six days after my dad died that I called Robert to make an appointment. I asked him how he was, as friends do.
His reply came after a long pause. “Well, Val’s in the hospital. She just had a brain tumor removed.”
I stuttered to shocked silence, which Robert filled with calm explanation: “It started as uterine cancer and metastasized to the brain.”
“Is she terminal?” I blurted.
With a bitter bark of a laugh, he answered: “We’re all terminal.”
Val was sleeping in the other room when I arrived at his office. An hour later, off the table and dressed, I asked if I could see her.
“I think she’d probably like that,” said Robert.
The door to the other room opened and Val, a bit coltish on her feet, rose from a futon and into the main office. “Want to see my scar?” she asked with an impish grin. Without waiting for my answer, she turned to show me the ragged tattoo arcing across the right side of her skull, evidence that she had won this first round.
“Pretty impressive,” I commented gently. With balletic grace, she sat. “That’s as far as I can get.” “That’s pretty impressive, too,” I said.
For about ten minutes I sat with her. I felt as if I were in the presence of all that was holy and whole. Val, no longer defiant. Val, weaponry cast off, vulnerable. She was beautiful and I told her so. She nodded, eyes shining, not because it’s polite to take a compliment, but because it was true.
“I have people praying for me everywhere,” she said, delighted. “Doing ritual. People I haven’t even met.” She closed her eyes, tuning into a voice only she could hear. “I can feel the love.”
The words that I’d said to my dying dad I now said again to her: “Yes, it’s always about love. Love is all there is.” I basked in her aliveness, her wholeness, the holiness of the moment.
The ultimate truth and power of that simple sentence, which never grows stale, hung between us. Then she laughed. “Yes,” she said, glowing, “that’s all there is.”
What I saw in Val was what I’d also seen in my father’s dying eyes: the Universe issuing a playful invitation to live now, love now, be now. For whatever time she, or you, or I, have left, this message is the most powerful I have ever been privileged to receive.
Two miracles in two weeks. Life is good, and so is death.
Grand Cardinal Crossroads 4/22/2014
The other day, rain-bruised clouds muscled their way into San Francisco. The air grew taut. The fur on the cats was wiry with static. Manic winds taunted the garden and potted plants trembled, trying in vain to furl their blossoms against the onslaught. Then the storm detonated: madcap lightning lacerated the clouds and rain made a frantic break for freedom, followed by a bellow of mutinous thunder.
When the storm wore itself out, the City let out a collective sigh of relief. In its wake blossomed clear skies flaunting blue belly. Flowers, raucously stained with spring, straightened their spines. The air tasted like the first, crisp bite of a Gaia apple. There was a sense of easy camaraderie on the rain-stripped streets. People met each other’s eyes, smiling, knowing that we’d been witness to, and subtly charged, with the weird and wild magic of that event. We’re all in this together, was the unspoken thought. We are tribe.
Just like this storm, April’s Grand Cardinal Cross is building and intensifying and peaking on the 22nd. Four compelling cosmic forces-Uranus, Pluto, Jupiter and Mars-are escorting you to a crossroads. Certain things in your life are reaching the peak of tension, seeking resolution and release. It’s time to make certain critical choices. Respond rather than react. Make an appointment with your inner shrink and keep it. Be honest about those feelings you’ve been swatting away. Stop avoiding or putting off what needs to get done or be resolved. Break free of those obligatory ties and make space for bona fide relationships with people who love you just as you are. Get your hands into the rain-soaked earth and pull up the weeds of denial, excuses and procrastination. Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes, but don’t forget to step back into your own and stand your ground. Practice diplomacy, patience and kindness-first and foremost to yourself.
This configuration brings everything to the surface, for good or ill. No one’s psychological undies are spotless. That’s because we’re human. Celebrate your humanness as well as that of others. Have the courage to step into the eye of the storm. If someone pulls the trigger of blame or shame, don’t fire back. No blood needs to be shed. Let it pump fiercely through your veins and into your good, strong heart. That’s where the power ultimately is. After the peak, these energies start to abate until the skies are clear, once again, in June.
Be authentically who you are and never apologize for what you’re not. You’re more than enough. You are golden.
In my heart,
Joyce
Big Love: Jupiter in Cancer
No matter what sign Jupiter is in, its question is always the same: “How are you underestimating yourself? What leap of faith do you need to make in order to expand your horizons?” On 6/26/13, Jupiter moved into the sign of Cancer, the Great Mother. The message is, “Trust what you feel. Let the wisdom of your heart show you the way. Seek the comfort of those with whom you feel safe. Those tribal members who are at your side when you hurt.” Like a flower in bud, you’re trembling with the impulse to open. You need others to help you do so. There are helping hands reaching out now to find yours. Clasp them gently and joyously and allow the happy tears of celebration to flow down your cheeks. Then, as you dive deeply into the waters of intimacy, Jupiter rewards your faith with the great gift of vulnerability.
With an open heart,
Joyce
Looking Ahead: The 2013 Planetary Dance
As you leave behind the dying embers of 2012, a flicker of flame illuminates the path ahead. Neptune in Pisces and Saturn in Scorpio stand sentinel at the 2013 gateway. The gateway arch is engraved with two words: “Faith” and “Surrender.” This is the mantra you must utter as you cross into the New Year. The fever of fear then breaks into the clean sweat of faith. Dreams swim into focus, ready to be realized.
Jupiter, the cosmic benefactor, goes direct in Gemini on January 30, gifting you with a preponderance of cues, clues and coincidences. Follow them, and disparate pieces of information begin to match up. Synchronistic meetings with like-minded people are also scheduled through 6/25/13. Put your heads and hearts together and the Information Road is flooded with ideas that breathe life into your collective ideal.
The Clash of the Titans continues. Uranus in Aries breathes the fire of truth, searing away Pluto in Capricorn‘s long-standing rigidity and control. New traditions will be birthed, emphasizing freedom and integrity. Whatever outmodted rules and regulations within your own personal operating system will be overhauled. Be authoritative (in your power) rather than authoritarian (overpowering). It’s time to forgive-yourself, others, circumstances, the past-even if you can’t forget.
Sink your roots deep down into loamy soil. Stretch towards the light of truth. Abandon yourself to the winds of change. Keep company with diversity. More powerfully than ever before, you have the chance to craft your life exactly as you wish it to be. Don’t look back. Don’t look ahead. Be in the present. Have no expectations. Then, when you least expect it, the impossible becomes possible.
May 2013 make you wiser, bring you great adventures, deep insights, laughter and love.
Joyce
Jupiter in Gemni: Lucky Synchronicities
Recently my luck started turning. I woke up feeling more alive than I had in a long time. The emotional barometric pressure had shifted. Clouds of confusion and despair (Neptune in Pisces) were finally lifting. There was undoubtedly a silver lining, but I wasn’t clear yet what it was. Most importantly, a tenuous faith (Jupiter in Gemini) had been restored.
That was the weekend that my partner, Kathy, and I had plans to leave for a business/pleasure retreat in Northern California’s wine country at Mountain Home Ranch Mountain Home Ranch Kathy, who had been expecting a sizable check, wanted to fund this entirely, but it hadn’t yet arrived. The evening before our trip, we were sitting in the garden at dusk, discussing whether or not to go.
The First Sign: Suddenly, two hummingbirds, swooping and diving like circus acrobats, began to perform for us within arm’s length. We couldn’t help but laugh and forget our concerns for a few minutes. In indigenous Indian lore, hummingbird is the bringer of joy Hummingbird We were being shown a sign. There was no doubt that we were meant to go.
The Second Sign: The following morning, as we were preparing to leave, my cell chirped, reminding me to check the on-line activity in my checking account. I was certain that I had enough to cover the basics, but that was it. However, when I logged in, three pending payments I’d forgotten about had been deposited. I did have a little extra to take on our trip, after all. It felt like a Christmas bonus.
The Third Sign: Upon arriving at Mountain Home, the owners, John and Suzanne (whom I’ve known for years), seemed surprised to see us. Suzanne said, “I have you booked for a month from now.” John added, “And there’s not a single room or cabin available.” It was disheartening to think of turning around and heading back home. However, Suzanne shrugged her shoulders, grinned and said, “Well, we’ll just have to put you in our corporate family house. Right now it’s empty. We never rent it out; it’s for our use only.”
The Fourth and Final Sign: After three wonderful days and nights, we were ready to check out and asked for the bill. “There isn’t one,” Suzanne explained, eyes twinkling. “We never charge for the family house anyway.” Kathy and I were honored, touched to tears and, once again, amazed by our good luck. We came back with money to spare, feeling abundant and rejuvenated.
How You Can Get Luckier, Too: Jupiter, the planetary Santa, wants you to prosper. He provides bigger-than-life opportunities that are there for the taking-but you must have faith. In collaboration with Gemini the Messenger through June 25, 2013, their cosmic directive is this: follow coincidences, synchronicities, clues and cues, just like I did in the story I shared with you. Soon you’ll find yourself enjoying inexplicable yet fortunate circumstances. People will ask, “How did you get so lucky?” Keep your mind open. You are in a state of magical intervention.
It’s been a long, stormy haul, but I’m getting clearer about that silver lining. Why don’t you start looking for yours, too? And beyond that, of course, is the rainbow.
With love,
Joyce
The Warrior’s Quest: Mars, Sagittarius & The Open Road
Today I had lunch with a friend of mine whose husband has cancer. He was diagnosed 3 years ago and is now in pain much of the time. Last year he entered his second Saturn return http://joycevanhorn.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/the-second-saturn-return-passage-to-wisdom which is earmarked by major events, both personal and professional, into life’s final chapter.
I was struck by my friend’s courage and love. In the face of challenge and the very real possibility of loss, she has the courage to face whatever may come with faith and openness. Very recently, friends, clients and community offered their support to her family. Part of her grace is the willingness to receive–to set aside pride and accept what others wish to give.
As Warrior Mars soars into meaningful action in Sagittarius until 12/7/10, ask yourself what it is that you must confront. What is the challenge to your balance? Where are your fears stored and how to you pray to them to show you the light? Mars likes to win. It needs to act. If you do nothing, you lose. Take the warrior’s stance and hit the open road. There is no map that to show you the way, so blunder well and wildly. Keep an eye out for signs, omens and synchronicities , because information-bearing Mercury, also in Sag through 11/30/10, is leaving you clues and cues along the way. Learn as you go; there’s no better way to be prepared.
Sagittarius represents hope. It wants you to make a direct bull’s eye in the direction of your desires. Coupled with Mars, it encourages you to get messy and make good mistakes. Otherwise, there is a danger of collapsing into rhetoric, chasing your philosophical tail and wandering aimlessly off the trail.
Your blood is coursing now. You smell both danger and opportunity in the air. In Chinese, crisis translates into both opportunity and danger http://www.living-chinese-symbols.com/chinese-symbol-crisis.html Whuffle it up and get a move on. There are adventures to be had. Get started now!
See you on the road!
Joyce
Making Connections
A few years ago, my sweetheart and I were sitting by an ambitious little river in Northern Thailand watching oxen grazing on the opposite bank. Hesitantly, a thirsty calf strayed to the lip of the river. In the same moment, with a series of wildly joyous yips, a golden retriever threw itself into the currents.
Hastily, the calf retreated, legs buckling like soft green bamboo. Its firm but encouraging mother nuzzled it back to the river. It slid first one hoof, then the other, into the water and began to drink. The patient mother stood by her calf’s side until it had finished. Meanwhile, the retriever seemed to watch with quiet pride. We were strangely and powerfully moved by this sweet and simple scenario. Such is the unspoken mood of the town we couldn’t leave. It is the kind of place that you could drive right through if you weren’t paying attention.
This is a town that refuses to put on makeup. It whispers and bellows and laughs and chatters. It’s an amblin’ town, not efforting to make anything happen. Because of that, things do. It hasn’t outgrown its sense of community. Connections still happen, and they don’t have anything to do with business networking.
One morning a 6-week-old puppy, Vodka (so named because his person owns a bar), was hit by a truck. Everyone within earshot stopped to see if they could help. Two locals who practice Reiki (Ray-KEE) a form of energy work used for healing, scooped the squealing puppy into their arms and started giving him this channeled energy of universal love. After a couple of hours, Vodka began to squirm so they put him down. He danced off on four fat legs, whirligigging his tail in gratitude.
Certainly, the energy work helped. However, what was most striking was the obvious fact that Vodka was securely wrapped in a blanket of love and care by everyone involved. He knew it, they knew it, and a small but significant miracle occurred as a result. When we left town several days later, he was still being tended to by the community—and was frisking around the streets.
When was the last time that you slowed down long enough to ask someone “How are you, really?” and mean it? Connecting can be cool– really, really cool. It just takes a little courage and initiative. Like the young calf, if you’re thirsty for true connection, be willing to get your feet wet. And If you happen to fall in, a helping hand will pull you back to shore.
Making Jupiter Work for You
If I’m doing a reading for a client who knows even a little bit about astrology, they always perk up and grin when I talk about Jupiter. Jupiter is rather showy, and has gotten a reputation of being the “good luck” planet. “Oh, now I’ll finally get the job I want!” or “Guess I’ll just relax and let the good times flow,” are a couple of over-the-top Jupiterian comments I’ve heard.
It’s true-Jupiter brings the potential for the expansion of your horizons. Whatever area of life it is affecting can get better. Practically speaking, however, Jupiter first brings an awareness of what could be in contrast to what is. The gap between the two inspires a yearning to make things better. This is usually uncomfortable.
What to do? Jupiter never presents the impossible. It is the gateway to what is possible-it raises the bar. For example, if Jupiter is moving through the career sector of your life, if you don’t take action, you might get a compliment from your boss or more of a raise than you expected–but nothing earthshaking. Jupiter is standing by to deliver the goods, but you have to answer its ring. Laziness is the best way to sleep through a Jupiter time.
Here’s an example of how you can make Jupiter work for you: When I was 29 (during my first Saturn return), I walked into a radio station in Santa Barbara and applied for a job as a radio announcer. I had no real experience-I’d worked as a secretary at KSFX Radio in San Francisco and had been a volunteer announcer (reading magazine articles) at a closed circuit station for the blind. When I applied for the real announcing position, however, it was during a major Jupiter/career time. Jupiter was generously left the door to this particular opportunity unlocked. All I had to do was open it. I got the job on the spot because I’d had faith and taken action (even though it seemed impossible)–and was rewarded by Jupiter.
An astrology reading will pinpoint when, where and how Jupiter wants to help you get what you want. Expand your horizons with one soon and get lucky.