That Week is Here

10.14.15


I'm writing to you from that pivotal week I've been discussing with clients for several months now.

It's not that the week's astrological goings-on are so astounding, their occurrence will cause great miracles to transpire and/or the sky to crash down, depending on where you live and what your natal chart looks like.

Rather, it's simply that a number of coincident factors are presently weaving what I'd consider the first palpable 'something different' vibe we've felt in quite some time. Not only is the recent Mercury retrograde (Sep 17-Oct 9) now behind us. Venus has officially cleared the shadow of its retrograde and currently treads fresh ground in Virgo. And both Jupiter and Saturn have settled in, to stay in their new signs for the next while: Jupiter's now two months into its yearlong voyage through Virgo, while Saturn's back in Sagittarius (after a three-month rewind into Scorpio) until the end of 2017.

Since earlier this year, I spoke with many clients about the Venus-retrograde, Saturn's-brief-Scorpio-retreat madness of mid-2015… and how, as far as timing their future life's-developments was concerned, they'd do best to see where all the unforeseen changes-in-circumstance and shifts-in-preference ended up shaking out by, well, the second-to-third week in October, only then to proceed as if their calls-to-action were clear.

That week is here. We can't expect our situation to get any clearer than it is now, at least any time soon. Now, we work into it, and onward.

On this end, I've quietly been rebuilding my bodily constitution—and the earthly confidence that comes with it—following my system-depleting illness from several weeks back. Based on what I've pieced together from my grab-bag of symptoms and test-results, my bad flu apparently triggered an auto-immune response, causing lingering pain, changes to my appetite, a loss of muscle strength, and a heightened sensitivity to becoming physically exhausted more quickly than usual. While I'm feeling close to all-better now, it has been a slow incremental slog back to optimal health. Returning to the gym, I found my fitness level had dropped far below what I'd been capable of a few months earlier… and lacking the capacity to push myself too hard, in weight or intensity or endurance, without risking total fatigue-failure, I've had to restrain my efforts and proceed by building myself back up bit by bit. I'm grateful to my long-time acupuncturist, whose intuitive knowledge of my distinctive ch'i-flow has provided me great support in treating my amorphous aches and imbalances, helping me refortify my body-temple.

Along this gradually-paced path, as a side-effect of my illness, I find I'm cooking for myself again regularly for the first time in a few years. Ever since my partner Ricky discovered he was gluten-intolerant and radically transformed how he eats, he'd largely taken over this task of feeding our family… partly because I was afraid of whether I could successfully adopt new practices which would suit his dietary restrictions, and partly in bratty response to having to change my ways. Since then, I'd grown increasingly dependent upon Ricky feeding me, all the while sensing my nutritional needs weren't truly being best served by ceding this complete responsibility onto him. Our bodies are much different from one another, it turns out. My healthiest approach would've entailed a better balance between our contrasting cooking styles.

As I've been recovering, my body has craved very particular foods at very particular times (while feeling strongly repulsed by others)… and as a natural result, I've found myself motivated and eager to provide it what it wants. I've recaptured the creative pleasure I historically enjoyed from the act of cooking. (I am a Cancer rising, after all.) And in an uncanny synchronicity, just as I was becoming strong and self-sufficient enough to care for my own sustenance, Ricky underwent surgery on his knee (the exact same surgery I had a year earlier, and with the same doctor), and suddenly he needed me to do all the cooking and shopping and such.

At the same time my personal habits have necessarily changed so I can better give my body what it needs, so too have the scales in my relationship recalibrated to an updated equilibrium, a new-and-improved balance between 'give' and 'receive' in our collective division-of-labor patterns. This rebalancing extends beyond the household chores, too, and into our emotional and romantic rhythms. Clarifying conversations have been had. Disagreements which had lingered unresolved throughout Venus's retrograde have now been fully flushed out. We move more confidently toward goals we've set together and now recommitted to, post-Venus-retrograde. Having cleaned up these little messes, left by inattention and unaired hurt, I'm so much clearer about this newly-refined essence of what we share.

And so I proceed, finally, with actions I first initiated back in July, before Venus went retrograde and I got sick. Though vision-level intentions had already been set, the step-by-step legwork was only barely begun before my attentions became shanghaied by more modest, mundane self-care. It is from this modest stance I now return to the tangible doing, the practical work of turning ideas and inspirations into lasting pillars of a future life. Having both Venus and Mars in Virgo through the second week of November, along with Jupiter (in trine to Pluto), has been of tremendous assistance. I've gotten so much accomplished in just these last days. I want to get stuff done. I'm relishing this productivity, and eagerly anticipating the weeks immediately ahead.

I'm working harder again, but I'm also working smarter… at least insofar as keeping myself closely focused only on those items directly compatible with the worklife I've logically identified will lead me to increasing satisfaction. That means this is the first October in five years during which I'm not swamped with writing a year-ahead forecast e-book. For those of you who didn't catch the news in my introduction to last year's, I have decided not to continue creating these annual forecasts. Though they were successful both financially and in terms of serving my readership, I found the process of writing these lengthy pieces to be personally unfulfilling (once, that is, I'd proven to myself I could do it), and the product too ephemeral to justify (to my inner artist, at least) the mammoth effort a book-length work warrants.

So though I admittedly fear the wrath of those devotees who won't be rewarded with an ASTROBARRY'S 2016, for such a feature is not destined to exist, I feel happier and more sane than I have during this closing-quarter time-of-year since I first dove into writing ASTROBARRY'S 2012 in the autumn of '11. At moments, the Capricorn-moon workaholic in me experiences guilt for not currently trudging through 6- and 7-day workweeks, though I'm left considerably more space for priorities like my physical health and my creative contentment. Rather than force myself to write more inspirational turns-of-phrase interpreting an entire year's astrology at once, I choose instead to concentrate on my weekly horoscopes—still gratifying to me after thirteen years, still a spiritual practice of offering my singular contribution free of charge for the betterment of the universe. Stripping down what I do to its most essential elements allows me to concentrate on my purpose… and helps counteract the dangerous tendency to become distracted by admirers' expectations or peers' successes.

This is that week when I take concrete steps on uncharted ground. Though the correct direction has been established and the distractions eliminated, I haven't actually done these particular things ever before. I now dedicate effort to scouring expansion locations, concocting innovative redesigns, outlining imaginative opuses, and refining health-promoting practices—all undertakings I'd planned, played with, put off, panicked about, and/or prayed to push ahead, but not yet progressed to any point of manifestation. The timing's got to be right, don't you know. That week is here.