Mercury Retrograde, Advent & Full Moon – Preparing the Heart
Around midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning, Mercury turns retrograde (Sagittarius, 29 degrees) moving back to 13 degrees by December 22. It’s best to purchase all holiday gifts (sending cards early, too) prior to the 22nd. Something seems to happen to gifts purchased (everything, actually) during retrograde times. The items become empty, un-recognized and not useful. Notice if this occurs.
Sunday is the Full Oak Moon/Sagittarius solar festival (12 degrees). The New Group of World Servers recites the keynote for Sag, “We see the goal, we reach that goal, & then we see the next goal.” We recite the Great Invocation (Mantram of Direction for Humanity), too, radiating the Will-to-Good, which becomes Goodwill within humanity everywhere.
Sunday is also the first Sunday of Advent (Latin for “something’s coming.”) Advent wreaths are made which mark the week until Winter Solstice, (new light, birth of the Holy Child in Bethlehem). Advent wreaths (evergreens) have 5 candles – four violet and one rose candle in the circle with one white candle in the center (lighted Christmas morning). Each Sunday night a new candle is lit, until Christmas when all four candles are lit. Advent wreaths are art forms. Children especially love them. They prepare our hearts to watch and wait. The dark is set aflame.
ARIES: It’s possible you will review something from the past that was a deep loss – a person, resource, marriage, an intimacy. Review this loss and turn it around. Make it a gift, a power received, something of great value to you. Review all desires and aspirations. Do you know the difference? Ask everyone around what they value in you. You will learn new things.
TAURUS: You must ponder upon new, different, more inclusive ways of communicating. You realize it’s important to listen with curiosity, asking questions (instead of solving problems) when others speak. With deep listening great insights occur for both listener and speaker. Search for ways to have more trust. Then you can reveal the deep hidden truths about yourself without fear.
GEMINI: Care for your health in all ways, from morning till night. Make this your priority. Begin with morning exercise before eating. Move onto green smoothies (almond milk, kale, chard, lemon, beets, parsley, apple, pear, spirulina, chaga, barley grass powder). Make cilantro pesto. Eat an avocado a day. Something, both dissolving and refining, occurs with work. Seek to understand a partner’s sorrows. Listen & observe. Maintain quiet.
CANCER: You will consider what in the past brought you joy, what helped you be creative, and what you were enthusiastic about. You will realize you’ve become more than you thought you would be. Non-verbal ways of expressing yourself are appropriate now. Spend most time in gardens, museums, places with art, creativity and beauty. Explore all of nature and what it means to be your natural self.
LEO: You may see family and friends from the past, perhaps from childhood. Family may seek to include you in celebrations, attempting to relive their past, which you have set aside. You remember younger years, when you were free and wandering, when the light you lived under came only from the firelight, sun and stars. Impressions from the past seek new interpretations. Plant blue morning glories inside & outside the home.
VIRGO: Over and over the same thoughts and ideas circulate through your mind. You want to discover all aspects of a puzzle, attempting to put it together. Thoughts come to mind but you are unable to articulate many of them. In this unusual silence, your eyes see more than ever before. It’s as if your senses shifted. As one sings, the other doesn’t. Seek to understand everyone’s truths. Let them stand equally with your truths.
LIBRA: When you look around at your living and working and garden environments, you realize you’ve come to love and appreciate and value all of them. They offer a specific calmness and orderliness that you need. They soothe your spirit and provide your life with daily context. They relieve anxiety. You realize you’ve had this all along, since birth. The change has occurred within. Have gratitude for the past. It built your present.
SCORPIO: Over the next several weeks and a bit beyond you assess your self-image. Not what others think of you but what you think of yourself. And then you begin to create a new image. No longer an outer persona, but one more in depth presented to the world. You no longer need to veil, arm or protect a self-image that’s no longer real. You are more and more authentic. There’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain. You’re the Buddha on the road.
SAGITTARIUS: Sorrows and sadness from the past seek a new state of gladness to replace them. All thoughts begin to be clothed in compassion. There’s no longer the question of why. There’s only the feeling of goodness, that life’s precious and paradox is acceptable. You will walk through a door in the next several weeks. You will open that door and then shut it behind you. You will see a mountain with an ascending light. You glimpse of your life ahead. Get good shoes.
CAPRICORN: During this retrograde time, be very aware of new insights, new revelations and new understanding appearing quietly and subtly. All previous experiences, especially sadness, coalesce into new states of knowledge. An old friend makes contact; strange twists and turns of relationships begin to ease. Defeat becomes triumph. Speak your mind with truth at all times. Allow others to adapt to you. Frustration turns to opportunity. Art calls.
AQUARIUS: You don’t allow any glamorous nonsense to be in your life. Everything seems to be changing every moment. This will continue. You will seek stability wherever you find it. New revelations occur. New thinking. Use all of these in your work, present them to the world, allow others to respond and exteriorize whatever is in them. You know your path. It’s always the surprising unusual view. Community calls.
PISCES: Up till now you’ve had a firm grasp of what you want in your future. This is and will change in the coming months. You will accept where you are and the situations you’re in. An old dilemma becomes a great Truth. A philosophy is differently interpreted and you cherish it like a golden apple, a golden coin. Old friends drop away seeking a different path. Your work expands. You build within the crystal square.
Risa D’Angeles, Founder & Director Esoteric & Astrological Studies & Research Institute – a contemporary Wisdom School of the Tibetan’s teachings in the Alice A. Bailey blue books. Email: risagoodwill@gmail.com. Web journal: www.nightlightnews.org/. Facebook: Risa D’Angeles & Risa’s Esoteric Astrology. Note: all FB posts are also on NLN – under Daily Studies.