"Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength - in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."

— Alice Walker

This Monday's Virgo New Moon (5:51 PM PDT 14° Virgo) brings themes of heritage and legacy. Since Mercury enters retrograde territory at the point of this New Moon, there is a definite emphasis on looking back to better understand where we have come from — our heritage and the work of our predecessors. There is a heightened sense of responsibility that comes from recognizing and honoring those who have come before us and that responsibility may weigh especially heavy on us this week. We may also recognize the first clues about the next retrograde Mercury phase [...]

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."

— James Thurber

This week begins with a broad shift in awareness and perspective under Sunday's Aquarius Full Moon (5:01 AM PDT 29° Aquarius). The Moon's 'light' provides plenty of new insights to sort through and the Sun's entrance into Virgo, shortly after the Full Moon, gives us just the organizational capacities we will need in order to make effective use of what we are suddenly able to see and understand. Nonetheless, the Full Moon's imperative may encourage us to 'leap before we look' and it is important to pay close attention to our intuition and maintain some semblance of focus and self-direction. In this week's atmosphere, we should be careful to avoid being stampeded into any premature or unwise actions.The Virgo Sun implies some tendency to be [...]

"All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it."

— David Bowie

This week begins with a Leo New Moon (6:09 AM PDT 16° Leo) that creates a fascinating atmosphere which suggests something like a performer's relationship to an audience. A performer may want to garner the approval of their audience but the importance of the creative process demands that the performer honor the integrity of that process. So we don't want to simply gain approval this week. We want our 'audience' to appreciate the value of what we have to show from our creative effort. We will find ourselves at a loss — like a performer without an audience — if we don't find an appreciative response from somewhere this week. As we move through the week, we find ourselves [...]