Lenten Rituals In Mercury Retrograde

Esoteric Astrology as news for week February 21-27, 2013

Saturday Mercury turns stationary retrograde (20 degrees Pisces). Mercury remains retrograde until March 17. Sunday is the festival of Purim (deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction).

Monday is the Pisces solar festival (full moon) and the Lantern Festival, signifying the end of Chinese New Year. By Wednesday Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Neptune are in Pisces — waters that purify, cleanse and prepare us for the fires of spring.

We are in Lent now, the time of purification in preparation for spring (Easter, Resurrection, Aries spring festival). Lent, Dutch word “springtime,” lasts 40 days and nights — the time it takes for habits to fade away and new rhythms established. Christ needed 40 days and 40 nights in the desert learning how to use the physical, emotional and mental bodies (personality) of Jesus (whom he “overshadowed”).

Forty is a distinctive biblical number. Moses spent forty days with God on Mt. Sinai receiving the 10 Commandments. The flooding rains of Noah’s Ark lasted forty days. The Hebrew people wandered forty years in the Sinai desert before entering the Promised Land. Lenten preparations include fasting (food, emotions, pleasures, luxuries, meat, sweets, alcohol, etc.); prayers; almsgiving (tithing the poor). Altars are stripped of candles and flowers, crucifixes and statues are wrapped in violet, Lenten rituals and fasting have purpose. They change the rhythm of our lives (and our cells). So we can meet the cleansing new and fiery rhythms of spring.

ARIES: Your energy turns inward as if you’ve become a monk or nun. It’s temporary but may feel like a long time. You may feel obscured and in-waiting, behind the scenes wrapped in veils. Use this time to assess your religious upbringing, spiritual values and goals. Define what needs restructuring your life and resolved. Then wait for right timing to accomplish these things. Intuition and revelations come as a flash of light.

TAURUS: Something happened or will happen with friends and groups. There was or could be communication misunderstandings. For the next three weeks focus on your own goals, hopes, wishes and dreams. Allow you to dream and visualize the very best life for yourself. Then include your friends. Then visualize community, everyone working together. It will be important to have a common language. That language is astrology – humanity’s “unitive field.”

GEMINI: You will assess and reassess your professional standing. You will be seen “through a glass darkly” by some and as spectacular by others. But the important “seeing” is how you see yourself and where you see yourself in several years? It’s important to consider these things as they resolve differences within the self and others. These reflections and contemplations help define us, allow us to focus clearly and then we don’t stumble blindly about.

CANCER: Some Cancers are painting their homes using broad and expensive brushes. Some aren’t. Be sure when viewing life to use an expansive brush, one that doesn’t fall apart after little use. Be sure in life to see both the big picture and the little one. It’s all about (your) vision for the next three weeks; how you perceive things. It’s best to “see” the world through the spacious lens of love. Loving all things, all people, all the time. It creates a new rhythm and a perceptive new adventure.

LEO: Tend to all resources, money and finances, to taxes and wills the next three weeks. Create a new financial structure to be implemented later when the retrograde is over. Do not become overextended. Shop only for what is needed. Things might seem somewhat complex and even hidden for a while. They are. Look for things forgotten, misplaced and neglected. Renew old important friendships. One in particular.

VIRGO: Careful assuming things about others, especially those close to you. Careful that you don’t misinterpret their actions. Careful that you don’t personalize events. The next three weeks provide you with time to review an incident that has disturbed other people’s lives. You must tend to this situation, mending it with truthfulness, coming to an understanding of your part and offering real forgiveness, which brings forth ethics and integrity.

LIBRA: Everything experienced as habit and routine will do a turn-around. Everything expected becomes unexpected. This shake-up allows you to ponder upon what’s unfinished and something concerning you. All plans will seem to have stopped. Obstructions appear. You will need to take alternate routes. Remember to call upon the Will-to-Good each morning so that each day is filled with Right Choice.

SCORPIO: It’s good to think of lots of playfulness and creativity the next three weeks, allowing whatever comes forth to take its time to play itself out. Nothing will be as you expect. You will begin something then suddenly it will change course. No patterns will be established. Everything will feel detoured. Just remember, when stopped somewhere, look around. There’s something important to see. Let confusions lead the way.

SAGITTARIUS: It’s best to use the next three weeks rethinking the foundations you’ve created in your life and the course you’ve taken. Your values are changing once again and in order to get to the heart of all matters, you must get to the heart of what you truly believe in. Small conflicts may arise, and instability may rock your little lifeboat. Don’t be frightened. Think of “Pi.” Life’s ups and downs are needed to create a newer harmony.

CAPRICORN: Ebbs and flows and swirls of thinking and emotion will shift the steadfast fabric of your life and who you’ve been these last many years. You seek to be reliable but you sense something changing in your life. It’s important not to be caught in a nebulous illusioned state of wanting. All actions have equal reactions. Even if we can’t see them. Use your vital energy for creating something spectacular. With frills or trills at the end.

AQUARIUS: It is important to concentrate on savings, creating a financial foundation to see you into the future. Allocate ten or more percent of monies to savings. Don’t be thrifty with savings. Be thrifty with everything else – good to consider during Lent. Make everything as simple as possible so that energy in and around you moves flows unobstructed. It’s important to consider re-designing how you use money, what you use it for and how you value it. Tithe.

PISCES: The time has come once again to think about who you are, defining your self-identity, considering how your image is projected into your surroundings. Should you discover anything harsh or raw or unfinished, smooth it. You will change your mind about many things while seeking consistency in your daily life. You will begin cleaning and clearing your environment in order to have a sense of spaciousness. Things grow better that way.