Lessons from Jupiter Retrograde

Jupiter is the planet of wealth, luck and expansion. When He turns Retrograde, all those things can turn sour. However, like any Retrograde, the trick is go with the flow. Jupiter Retrograde is a great time to get a better look at yourself. Try asking the following questions:

Are you happy with your career?

Sometimes we go into things with the best intentions, the best of our knowledge, and all the love in the world, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Or sometimes things change, or sometimes we change.

It’s time to really look at what you want out of your career, and whether you’re getting it or not.

Are you leaving room for expansion?

Are you just ticking off your to do lists, or are you creating something that will move you forward? Are you tackling new challenges, or getting bogged down in the everyday?

Do you need to go back to school?

This can be a literal return to academia, or it can be more figurative. There as many ways to learn as there are subjects. What area of your life can be improved by learning? Can you learn to fix your car so you don’t have to spend so much on professional help? Can you take extra courses at work to improve your performance? Can you study that hobby you’ve always wanted to at home?

Can you get a better perspective?

We spend our lives so focused on the everyday that sometimes we miss the bigger picture. How can you climb the proverbial hill in your life to get a different view?

What do you need to fix?

Fixing physical things, like possessions, cars and houses are a great activity to do during Jupiter Retrograde.

Saturn Retrograde

Seven Lessons From Saturn Retrograde

Saturn is an Outer Planet, and so goes Retrograde less frequently. The Outer Planet’s Retrograde often encourage us to look deeper into our feelings and thoughts, rather than towards our behaviour and processes, like the Inner Planets.

Saturn Retrograde encourages us to ask the following questions of ourselves:

Are you following your own moral code?

There is a saying that we despise in other what we fear in ourselves. Sometimes, we can get caught up behaviours we wouldn’t tolerate in other people. From petty theft, being snappish and rude, to talking to ourselves in a way we’d never stand up for coming from someone else.

Saturn Retrograde is a good time to see whether you measure up to the standards you are placing on everybody else. If you can’t, consider why.

Is your set of morals too strict?

Everyone is human. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes hurt other people. Are you holding yourself to a higher standard than is needed?

Bigotry  and holier-than-thou behaviour all happen when you are just a bit too interested in other people’s private lives. Live and let live, huh?

Are you confusing desirable personality traits with ethics?

If I could get rid of one phrase in the English language, it would be ‘work ethic’. Being a hard worker doesn’t make you a better person than anyone else, and it’s about time we stopped prioritizing charisma, ‘work ethic’, and ambition over things like kindness, decency and politeness.

We work to live, not live to work.

Are you letting sadness overwhelm you?

Dealing with sadness and grief is never easy,  and it can creep up on you and consume you without you even noticing. Taking time for yourself to do something happy, fulfilling or simply exciting can bring some colour back into the world.

Remember that if you’re really struggling to speak to your doctor.

Are you taking on too much responsibility?

In this modern world you’re supposed to pride yourself on being ‘busy’. Not even successful, or good at what you do, mind, just ‘busy’. This is complete crap, and the sooner you realise that being busy just makes you tired, sad and grumpy, the easier it is to stop being busy.

We can be bullied into taking on more work or harder work and responsibility that we are capable of, or ready for. It is not shameful to say no. It is not shameful to protect your time off, your breaks and your sanity.

Are you letting shyness stop you from moving forward?

Do you dream of being more, doing more but can’t seem to make the steps towards reaching your goal? Saturn Retrograde is a great time to look at your fear responses.

And to remember that bravery is not the absence of fear, but of feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Where are you limiting yourself?

There are many reasons why we can limit ourselves. We’ve already looked at fear and sadness, but we can also feel that we don’t ‘deserve’ something, which can hold us back from achieving what we desire.

Let me tell you something right now: nobody ‘deserves’ anything. Except maybe a kick in crotch every now and then. Money, accolades and dreams aren’t handed out to the most deserving. They’re given out to people who did the work and had the motivation and courage to get it done.

Let this knowledge set you free – you don’t need to ‘prove’ you ‘deserve’ anything to get it.

Waning Moon Bad Habit Remover Spell

The time of the waning moon, when she is shrinking, is the perfect time to remove something from your life. For this easy spell, you’ll need:

• A candle
• A sharp object, like a inkless biro, a pin or a candle carvers
• Matches or lighter

Step One

Write down the habit you wish to break on the candle. Phrase it like this:

‘I no longer x’

So, if I wanted to stop drinking pop (soda), I’d write:

‘I no longer drink soda.’

Step Two

Light the candle. The spell will start to take effect once the candle has finished burning, so choosing the smallest candle you can write on is beneficial. You can relight the candle every day on the waning moon, if your candle won’t spend in one night. Be sure to finish the spell before the Dark Moon!

Yep, it’s that simple. You can light incense or burn oils if you like, but you don’t have to.

If you want to learn more Moon Magic, I HIGHLY recommend the course by Heart of the Forest. It’s only $7, and you get lifetime access to the course. I am an affiliate for the course, so I get paid a commission, but I don’t sell things to you that I haven’t used and enjoyed myself.

Living by the Moon – Moon Magic Course Review

Heart of the Forest is a great online school run by Serena White. It’s got courses on all kinds of things, including chakras, meditation and essential oils. Some of her great lessons are free of charge, and some of them, including the one I want to talk to you about today, are super great value.

Serena recently let me take her Living by the Moon course for free, and when I finished it I decided to look at the usual price, because I’m nosy like that. My jaw hit the floor when I saw it.

I would have happily paid $7 for the beautiful Moon Journal download alone, but the course has great information, exercises and meditations.

Serena really knows what she’s talking about when it comes to Moon Magic, and her lessons are short and to the point with no waffle.

Moon Magic can be a really tricksy thing to get hold of, but with this course, I found it really easy. Serena also gives you tips and advice on how to really live by the Moon, including non-magical activities like gardening.

It’s a great course, and at $7, you really can’t go wrong!

(Some links in this post may be affiliate links)

How to Survive Mercury Retrograde

 

(First thing’s first, if you’re not sure what any Retrograde is, check out the beginning of this post.. If you’re wondering why all the sudden posts about Retrogrades, five planets decided it would be hilarious if they all went Retrograde at the same time. Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. We’ll be looking at Jupiter and Saturn next week. Hooray.)

Honestly, it’s not as bad as you think.  I know Mercury Retrograde gets a really bad rap. I can’t think why a planet that rules communication, contracts, the Internet and electronics in general, going backwards would cause anyone any distress… /sarcasm.

Still, as with any Retrograde you just gotta roll with the punches and try and learn the lessons that the planets bring. If you’ve got any sort of problem that you’re avoiding, the Retrogrades will ceaselessly bring it up. It’s probably better to use that energy to deal with it instead of trying to shove it back in the sock drawer.

Here are nine things to bear in mind when Mercury goes … weird.

Think before you speak.

Someone summed this up very well, and forth he life of me I can’t remember who.

Anyway, there are three questions you should always ask yourself before you open your mouth, lest you suddenly put your foot there.

‘Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said by me? Does this need to be said by me now?’

Read terms and conditions.

And not just written ones either.

A lot of relationships come with unspoken terms, conditions and boundaries.

The key to a successful friendship and/or romantic relationship, and indeed family life, is to all be on the same hymn sheet about what is acceptable and expected in the relationship.

Jobs are exactly the same. You can’t expect the new girl to suddenly fall in with your office culture of At Least An Hour’s Overtime Every Day* without telling her that’s a thing.

In my experience as a Tarot reader, I suspect at least 60% of problems can be solved with an Uncomfortable But Necessary Adult Conversation.

Don’t be Nick Burkhardt** and go around asking all of your friends and acquaintances about your girlfriend’s sudden life issues without talking to her first. Really.

Truth is relative.

There is no such thing as complete and unvarnished truth.

Everyone’s perception is influenced by their experiences, beliefs and mental state at the time.

You will never get closure by asking for the truth. You get closure by accepting what you were presented with, healing and moving on.

You will never know why he left you/why she cheated.

In the grand scheme of things, the whys are not always important.

Sorry about that.

Are saying/doing what you meant?

Ah, childhood. ‘But Muuum, I didn’t mean that.’

Intent isn’t always magic.

For example, my Grandmother probably thinks she’s doing me a favour when she puts my fresh laundry on top of my altar.

My stepmother probably thought she was helping when she pulled my jewelry business to pieces.

Thing is, they weren’t.

They didn’t ask whether I would actually like for those things to occur, just assumed that because they’d find it acceptable and pleasing, so would I.

I’ve done it too. We’ve all done it. Just assumed that everyone can read our minds and see precisely what we meant by any action or conversation.

And we’ve all hurt people by doing it.

Just talk to people. Really. Please. Just ask someone if they want something doing.

Oh, and if someone consents to being given your advice, make sure they know when they’re letting themselves in for. What one person sees as friendly advice, another sees as an insult.

Speak up.

Still riffing off the ‘People aren’t mind readers’ thing, what about your words left unspoken?

Alright, some of them probably don’t need to be spoken to another human being, but they don’t need to fester inside of you either.

You don’t have to be ‘good’ at art or writing for it to be helpful.

You have permission to release anything that you want to say into a journal. No one will judge you. It’s your own private space to let go and say what you have been repressing for so long.

Information Overload

We spoke in another post about not hate-reading blogs and why you shouldn’t do that.

You also shouldn’t carry on reading/watching/doing stuff that you’re a bit ‘meh’ about.

Give yourself permission to not consume media that doesn’t fire you up (in the right ways). I know people who’ll read a book to the end even if they’re not enjoying. How. Why. Stop.

You’re also hereby freed from having to read/watch/listen to something as soon as it comes out.

And, and, and you honestly do NOT have to answer the phone just because it’s ringing.  Carve out space and time for yourself to just Not Do.

We live in a 24 hour world, but we are not 24 hour people. There is no way you can possibly catch up on EVERYTHING so stop trying.

How are you coping with Mercury Retrograde?

*Personally I think that’s a shitty office culture anyway, but the point stands.

**Y’know, from Grimm. No-one has a conversation in that show about emotions until it’s far too late. Least of all Nick.

 

 

5 Lessons from Pluto Retrograde

(If you’re wondering why all of the Retrograde posts at the minute, that’s because 5 planets decided to go Retrograde at the Same. Damn. Time.   Fun.)

What Happens When a Planet Goes Retrograde?

See the Mars Retrograde post for an  full overview, but basically it goes backwards and anything it rules also goes backwards.

What Is the Difference Between an Inner Planet and an Outer Planet?

Pluto’s status astronomically is irrelevant, because astrologically it’s still a planet.  An Outer Planet, to be precise. An Outer Planet plays its effects out over a much longer time – a whole generation of people will have Pluto in a particular place in their charts. This means the planets  a) go retrograde for longer and b) their retrograde is less immediately knee-quakingly BAD. (Although, I do explain why Retrogrades are kinda like injections at the doctors rather than great horrible stab wounds in the Mars Retrograde post.)

Since the Outer Planet Retrogrades deal more with grander feelings and less with specifics, there really is only one lesson with Pluto Retrograde: LET SHIT GO. Since Pluto is Lord of Inner Looking, you are going to be confronted with all of your bad habits and behaviours.  Since at the time of writing, Mars is also Retrograde which is causing you to look back into your past, you will find the answers of why you do certain stuff, and how to not to do it.

Here are some examples to kick start the process:

Bad eating habits

This is not just comfort eating, yo yo dieting and masking your feels with sugar, although those are all bad.

How much of your life are you spending contemplating or talking about what you put in your mouth?

‘Healthy’ eating can quickly become an unhealthy obsession, especially when you’re using it to mask something else.

Can we all just stop ascribing moral judgement to food? Most people couldn’t care less whether you’re having the cake or the salad, and anyone that does is another thing you can remove from your life.

Fuel your body properly, but don’t let it become an obsession, or use food as a way to mask or replace something else.

Using food as a crutch is a weirdly difficult thing to let go of; so don’t feel down if you’re struggling with this. Sugar plays directly with our chemical emotions and it is addictive. As always, if you’re really struggling, seek help.

Spring clean. Everywhere.

You don’t have to do it in a day if you don’t have the energy. In fact, I recommend you don’t, because you won’t. Sort out one small area at a time, and really sort it.

(NEVER go full on with decluttering. Always ends in tears.)

This time, when you declutter, think about why you kept each item. Was it a gift you felt obliged to keep? A keepsake that didn’t really do anything or fit anywhere, but you had it anyway? Something that no longer fit you, but you kept in the vain hope you’d magically lose weight/gain weight/grow two inches? Something you’ve been meaning to mend for the past decade? Something useless you picked up because it was really cheap?

Get them sold, get them donated, get them gone.  Vow not to fall into the same trap again.

If you need a kick up the arse regarding physical clutter, and you have kids, realise this: you will die. You will die, or before then, you might become ill or disabled, and it will fall to your kids to deal with your crap instead of you.

Do you want to be like my Dad and try and find a reason to justify why you’ve kept almost empty paint tins from twenty years ago to your exhausted daughter who’s just spent an entire morning cleaning out your kitchen? The answer is: no, you do not.

But don’t forget that the physical is not the be all and end all of clutter. The other steps in the post will help you deal with spiritual and mental clutter, but have you thought about virtual clutter? My mother has more than 7000 unread emails in her inbox. Please learn how to use the sweep, mass delete and/or block function in your email client. You will feel so much better. It’s not just emails of course, when was the last time you curated your social media accounts? Defragged your disks? Went through your files?

(Psst: Sometime this week there’ll be a post on Virtual Cleaning on ResurrectionJewelry.)

Checking In With the Body

Do you really listen to your body anymore? Its pain? Its pleasure?

When was the last time you saw a doctor?

When was the last time you ate a vegetable?  Conversely, when was the last time you had a treat?

The body is not some sinful thing that weighs down your soul. It’s one of the most important part of you, and needs looking after and listening to.

Learn to speak the language of your body again.

It will tell you when you need to rest, when you need to eat something, when you need to change what you eat or when you need to run.

Listen to your pain instead of ignoring it. You can’t fix something you won’t acknowledge.

We are all stuck with the bodies that we have. All we can do is listen to them, and make the best of them.

Re-learn the difference between self-centered, and selfish.

Every human is self-centered. It is, however, easy to step over the line to selfish. You can take advice and comments about this from other people, but always take them with a pinch of salt.

Sometimes people are trying to make you feel small about yourself so they can manipulate you.

Sometimes people just plain don’t like how you are, and if you don’t really like them deep down, let that go.

However, we all have bad habits, and if someone you’re close to has a problem, try working with it/them. The best habit you can get into is really listening to people.

If you decide the person you’re listening to isn’t worth bothering with, than you can discount their advice.

But the only way to get the true measure of a person, is to listen. And the only way you can listen, is if you’re silent.

 

I can’t tell you* where to change your inner self, but you can use this time to look deeper, and clean out all the crap. It’s a sucky process, but apparently so is everything worthwhile.

What thing/person/attitude have you got rid of this week?

(*Except I totally can with a Tarot reading from my shop, but you know what I meant.)

 

Mars Retrograde – 10 Lessons to Help You Cope

So what is Mars Retrograde?

A planet goes into retrograde when it appears to slow in the night sky, stop, and then go backwards. It isn’t actually going backwards in the astronomical sense; it just looks like that because of the particular way Earth is placed in relation to whichever planet.  In this case, Mars.

Astrologically, the most basic explanation is that anything that Mars governs will slow down, stop and go backwards also. Anyone governed by a sign that Mars rules (i.e Scorpio) will feel the effects most, anyone with Scorpio or Sagittarius well represented in their birth chart and anyone who has their Mars in Scorpio (i.e, me) will also get the shorter end of the stick.

However, whenever any planet goes retrograde, you actually benefit from it if you stop fighting the energy. You need to tap into the energy and learn the lessons available to you. Are those the fun lessons where the teacher wheels in the TV and you watch a film?

Probably not.

So, Mars in particular?

Mars is a planet of fire, so governs fiery stuff, but in the specifics it governs:

• -fighting
• -anger
• -drive (which is different than ambition)
• -motivation
• – energy in general
• -sexual matters

So, during Retrograde these all get turned on their head. As the theatre proverb goes, if it can go wrong, it will. Which is why during Retrogrades people say you should avoid certain situations and essentially hide in a hole. Which is tempting, but not useful. Especially with the nearer planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars) since they govern things which take up probably 70% of our day to day lives.

You can’t avoid anger. Except, you probably are, which is why you are currently so irrationally pissed off at everything. You’ve got to constantly be on the go and working, else you’d fail at your goals. Except, you can’t do that, which is why you’re so sleepy and sluggish.

You can’t avoid life; just like you can’t not put on the play. You need to find ways of working with the energy, not against it. Mars Retrograde can be an exceptionally healing time if you do it right.

Read on for ten lessons Mars Retrograde can teach you.

Mars Retrograde lasts from 17th April 2016 until approximately 29th June 2016.

 

Ten Lessons Mars Retrograde Can Teach You (and Advice On How to Do Your Homework)

1.Don’t work for the sake of work.

Advice:  You can probably stop doing around 80% of your job. No, don’t click away. I’m serious. It’s called Pareto’s Principle, and basically 80% of any success comes from 20% of any work. Pareto noticed that with his peapods, 80% of peas came from 20% of the peapods. Find out what your 80% of crap is, and stop doing it.

Hint: if you’re self-employed, it’s probably something around social media. Drop the follow me/like me games unless you’re literally at like less than ten followers, stop following huge amounts of people to get them to follow you, stop deleting your Pins on Pinterest, etc etc.

Unless you are really seeing a benefit from something, STOP. You will feel real resistance from yourself when you do this. This is because we are conditioned to work; and to feel bad when we are not. However, work for work’s sake helps literally no one. Not even your employer, if you have one.

You don’t need to work harder, you need to work smarter. I’ve halved my hours of work and more than doubled the results in terms of sales, when I approached my working life in this way.

If you would like to learn more about this, read Tim Ferris’s: The 4-Hour Work Week.

2. Learn why you are working for the sake of it.

It’s easy for me to say that we are conditioned to work, but each of us probably has a slightly different reason why we’ve fallen into the trap. For me, it’s guilt and envy.

I feel guilty that I’m sat on the couch whilst other people have to work 12 hour shifts. Which is silly, because me doing more work won’t make their lives any easier.

I also feel envious, and this is one of these irrational impulses you’ll find about yourself during Mars Retrograde. I feel envious of career people doing career things, having enough clients and work to be working 18 hours a day, doing this, doing that, having work lunches at fancy café with fancy suits.

You have to ask yourself is that what you really want? Do I really want to be working 18 hours a day? No. No I don’t. I want a business that sustains me …and I do want to eat at fancy cafes.

But neither of those things means I have to work daft hours.

Get off the damn treadmill, and since you’re looking for something to fill that time, find out precisely why you were on it in the first place. This will help keep you off it.

3. That thing you’re avoiding? Either do it or don’t.

Do you know how long I’ve procrastinated on one simple email? FOUR MONTHS. And the thing is, it’s not just that one email that didn’t get done. It was a whole bunch of other stuff that needed my concentration, and since I couldn’t concentrate because of that damn email, they didn’t get done either. I ended up either spending way too much time on online games trying to ignore the approaching brainweasels,* or I did a lot of work for work’s sake to try and convince myself I had Done Work.

So what happened, then, when I sent this disastrous email?

Nothing. In fact, better than nothing. I got sympathy and understanding for having to cancel due to real life issues.

What a waste of time and energy.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s best to accept that you never will put up those shelves in the garage/use that gift card/write that play. Strike it from your To-Do list forever and stop feeling guilty about it.

(*Negative thoughts that can consume you. It’s like you have a brain full of angry weasels. Brainweasels. It’s a thing, okay?)

4. That stuff you’re doing for ‘exposure’?

Are you actually getting exposure? Is it the sort of exposure that’s bringing you paid work? Is it bringing you the sort of clients that you actually want to work with? No? Then stop doing it. If you must work for free to build a portfolio, do it on your own terms, on your own websites, accounts and publications. You control the content, spend more time doing projects you enjoy, spend less time running after someone else, and you could probably monetize your free content to some extent as well.You don’t have endless amounts of energy; so you have to say no to some things.

5. That stuff you’re doing for a ‘hobby’?

You should probably keep doing that actually. You have to spend your energy doing fun stuff sometimes. Make sure you actually enjoy it though, and leave yourself enough energy to enjoy it. If you have to say no to other stuff for You Time you can actually use, so be it. Staring at the screen at TV (or books!) you’re not really enjoying but you’re too tired to do anything else is not ‘You Time’. That’s a sign you’re doing too much and need a break. Or a nap. Probably both.

6.Go the frick to bed.

If this is difficult, go the frick to a doctor. Who knows, you might be like me and find a nice doctor who gives you a certain blood test just in case, and then you find out you’re actually so deficient in a major vitamin you have to take stronger tablet than dying people in hospitals take.

I feel much better now.

And also, rest is not just sleep. You have to have downtime too. Take things slower. If you die tomorrow, you won’t really give a toss whether or not you did the washing or beat your colleagues’ sales score.

Learn to not do things. It’s more difficult than you’d expect. Go for walks. Read stuff. Colour in. Whatever appeals to you, and makes you park your arse for a few minutes to an hour.

7.Learn why you are angry.

And it’s probably not the reason you think. Anger is never irrational – when you feel yourself exploding over something minor, really think about the reason. Are you just stressed? Or is there something in your past that you never dealt with? Is that silly comment you just blew up about really just the last straw on a bad day, or did it actually trigger or upset you in a specific way? Does the person remind you of someone else, or are you just learning to stand up for yourself?

If you’re struggling with anything, I always recommend keeping a journal. The specific format I recommend is detailed in The Artist’s Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self, but it has benefits for anyone who is not a creator as well. The format is Morning Pages – three pages of long hand stream of consciousness first thing in the morning. If you don’t know why you’re upset or struggling, these Morning Pages will soon tell you. In excruciating, teenage poetry like detail. If you’re looking for a sign, you probably just aren’t listening to yourself.

8.Learn how to deal with your anger

Your anger isn’t irrational, but sometimes your actions are. Some people bottle up their anger and then lose their temper over something silly because they didn’t raise their voice at what really mattered. Other people can’t feel an emotion without expressing it. Just because someone is irritating, doesn’t mean you have to tell them. Just because you don’t like them, doesn’t mean they need to have that screamed at them. Just because you’re going through Hell doesn’t give you the right to jump down the throat of a waitress because she got your order wrong.

There are many options to work with your anger, including therapy. Personally I find art journaling helps me keep my temper and work through issues, but I know other people find solace in sports, especially martial arts.

9.Look at your relationship with sexual matters

Whatever your previous relationships, sexual orientation or amount of desire, we all probably hold hang ups, whether they more simple or something a lot darker.

Whilst I don’t recommend poking at your darker history without the aid of a therapist, the natural energy of Mars Retrograde will bring un-dealt with shenanigans forward, especially of the sexual nature.

Any journaling or other therapy type things you already do may be well focused on this area, although if you are deeply hurting I would always recommend you take the advice of a professional.

This is also a good time to address any sort of smaller hang ups around dating, and re-establish what you are looking for in a partner – including whether you are actually interested in having one or not!

A lot of our self-worth hinges, often wrongly, on our sexual nature and behaviour, so even if you’re pretty sure you’re good, checking in with yourself on some hot topics is always a good idea.

The ideas around sex and dating can often be fraught with misogyny, and there are many wrongful attitudes around same-sex and polyamorist relationships that can be very damaging when you internalize them.

At the time of writing, Pluto, the planet of looking inwards, is also in Retrograde, so any inner looking is especially well aspected now.

10. Are you chasing the right dream?

Another way that Pluto can help during Mars Retrograde. We spend so much of our time on the minutiae of life – according to this article, we spend 208 hours on average each year just doing cleaning. It is so easy to let life pass you by, and follow the same routines as five years ago.

Are you still the same person as you were then? Do you want the same things? Did you get the things you wanted – do you still want them?

Make sure you aren’t spending precious energy chasing something you don’t want.

 

In conclusion, Mars Retrograde can really help you learn to say ‘no’ to things that just aren’t worth it. What did you say ‘no’ to this week?