Turning of the Wheel

The night kissed the fading day

With a whisper:

"I am death, your mother,

From me you will get new birth."

Rabindranth Tagore

In this season of death and rebirth, transformational energies reach a peak next week with the Samhain-New Moon gateway. Venus' heliacal rise on November 5 amplifies the mystical, healing qualities of this shamanic passage.

Enter the void, the depths of the soul. Prepare for rebirth.

We're dancing with the shadow during Venus' shamanic journey of the Underworld this Halloween season. The Samhain fire burns away pain, suffering and outdated beliefs as Venus continues her retrograde transit, away from our view. She'll reappear next week as the morning star in the east and initiate a new eight-year cycle in Scorpio.

Every year I count the days to Halloween, a celebration rooted in the cross-quarter sabbat called Samhain. What a powerful time it is, our connection with the netherworlds strengthened, our night vision more acute, extrasensory perceptions finely tuned.

With the Sun in Scorpio, Samhain (pronounced 'sow-in' or 'sow-een') skims the boundaries between the living and the dead. This is a special time when we honor the Ancestors and loved ones who have crossed into spirit. We're especially attuned to their guidance, love and wisdom through this portal.

Samhain Season

The seasons are turning, toward winter in the northern hemisphere, toward summer in the south. Fall is a time of harvest and gratitude. We prepare for winter and turn inward as the nights grow longer. The sabbats honor the turning of the wheel within the solar year, marking the mid-points between the equinoxes and solstices.

Samhain begins with Halloween on October 31 and continues through "true" Samhain on November 7 when the Sun reaches 15 degrees Scorpio. All Saint's Day is November 1 and Dia de las Muertas (All Soul's Day) is November 2. The alignments create a bubbling cauldron of possibilities fueled by Scorpio's promise of transcendence. Prepare for the cycle of death and rebirth embedded within this change of seasons.

The energies are especially potent on November 5-6 with a stellium of planets in Scorpio at the New Moon. From the darkness of this creation womb Venus will rise on November 5 as the phoenix, recreating herself as morning star. The old dies to make way for the new. Ignite a path of personal power with the New Moon and Venus.

Light a candle and invite the Ancestors and departed loved ones to your circle of prayer, healing and manifestation. Be clear with your intent and notice messages from beyond the veil. Mercury's transit in late Scorpio facilitates otherworldly communication.

Commune with the Earth herself, the animal and plant kingdoms. Open to receive their medicine and the visceral sensations of this creation.

Tune in, ritualize and create during this sacred, soulful passage.

Halloween Treat!

Astro-Tarot Readings during Samhain

I only offer these special readings once a year. Details:

http://www.StarPriestess.com/services.html#samhain

Venus' Journey of the Underworld

http://starpriestess.blogspot.com/2010/10/spinning.html

http://starpriestess.blogspot.com/2010/10/into-spiral.html

The Sabbats

http://www.starcraftswest.com/timing-of-sabbats

Spinning

The journey deepens. What are you creating within the vortex of the goddess womb?

Are you spinning the silk for the web you will weave, or your chrysalis of transfiguration and rebirth?

Venus continues her retrograde transit as the Moon waxes to full this week. Together they reveal our deepest fears and wounds, the self-limiting perceptions that block our path to power.

In this season of the Ancestors, Grandmother Spider sings the songs of creation. She calls your name, beckoning. Sink into your soul, your purpose, your passion. Dissolve the fears that hinder your death and rebirth.

Venus disappears as the evening star soon to embark on her underworld journey. She'll re-emerge as the morning star in the eastern, pre-dawn sky on November 5. As we attune to her, we are transformed.

The Sun and Saturn in Libra offer the promise of liberation, freedom from the fears and karmic patterns that hold us back. Mars, Venus and Mercury in Scorpio remind us of the opportunity to reclaim our power.

In the last degree of Aries, the October 22 Full Moon illuminates perceptions and boundaries as pre-conscious thoughts take shape, later to form a new reality beyond this gestation phase.


Potential and Possibility

Within the Full Moon matrix lies hope that latent potential will manifest in ways that are both mundane and miraculous. While possibilities are infinite in the quantum field, what ultimately unfolds will rely on our thoughtforms during this lunar phase.

Vigilance is required, a continuous assessment of our thoughts so we may manifest the highest of all possible potentials.

What does that look like in our lives and our world? Ask the miners and the families of the miners rescued last week from deep within the Earth, trapped for 69 days in a cave that could have been their tomb. Instead, they ascended from the depths in a capsule named Phoenix, a mythical bird representing transformation through death and rebirth. This is the shamanic process of Scorpio, and Venus is leading the way as she transforms in the heavens from evening to morning star and becomes a beacon for human potential.

What did the miners, their families, the country of Chile and countless others around the world create through attention, through prayer and vigil, through hope? In a stunning victory, they preserved life.


The Web

We can work with this same energy, manifesting and creating with the Full Moon during Venus' retrograde journey. We can spin out in chaos and feel victimized, powerless to direct cosmic forces. Or we can go inward, focus and spin with intent.

At this lunation, connect with Spider Woman, the creation goddess of indigenous tribes throughout the Americas who weaves the web of life. Follow the shaman's spiral into the darkness, the Void, womb of creation, into a new reality. Within the darkness, you'll meet your deepest fears as subconscious patterns and beliefs are revealed. Press on.

Witness your response in personal situations. Have you been sideswiped in power struggles? Are you asked to be discerning in your use of power? How have you given away your power, and how can you reclaim it? In my Venus journey this month, I've encountered wildly karmic scenarios, both my own and those of close friends. Some know nothing of Venus but are deeply affected nonetheless. How is this process playing out in your life?

The Full Moon represents a culmination, a time of manifestation and creation. The energy reaches maximum strength as the alignment becomes exact with the Moon opposing the Sun on Friday. The tension between the feminine lunar and masculine solar energies is released at the moment of the opposition, which is 9:37 PM Eastern on October 22. Ritual, prayer and meditation are most potent in the hours leading up to and after the exact alignment.

Astrology guru Dane Rudhyar portrays the dynamic of this week's Full Moon in his astrological mandala. At 30 Aries, energetic potential has to be focused then united with substance in order for effective power to be realized. At this critical stage, there is enormous potential for failure as well as fuel for breakthrough.

Vigilance is key. Decide what you want to focus on. Emotions, love, relationships, finances and values are optimal areas for change. Notice messages in dreams and meditation that reveal patterns of self-limitation. Consciously transform the patterns by changing your focus and attention in the areas you've chosen. Notice the spin of the vortex. Children spin. Spiders weave. Sufis whirl in an ecstatic dance of creation. Spin clockwise, then counterclockwise. Mix it up and allow the transformation.


Letting Go

As the energies build, prepare to discover your deepest fears and secrets. Seek the assistance of the Ancestors as you dive deep and resurface from the subconscious realms. Honor the mystery and your own healing process. Persevere. The rewards will be worth the effort.

The journey continues as Venus disappears from our view to travel into the underworld where she will metamorphose from evening to morning star over the next three weeks. She returns to the sky during the Samhain gateway (October 31-November 6) to begin a new 584-day cycle in Scorpio.

During this phase, themes are dissolution, transfiguration and emergence. We must release the past in order to ascend to a new life, a new beginning as empowered co-creators on Earth. I described the passage of Venus in my revious blog post, "Into the Spiral": http://starpriestess.blogspot.com/2010/10/into-spiral.html

In Native American tradition, there is a legend that Spider Woman will return at the end of this era. According to the ancient Hopi and Mayan calendars, the end is now.

In hushed silence, weaving and spinning, we create.



This Weekend:
Shamanic Guidance

To support your transformational process with the lunar energies described in this article, I'm offering very special rates on personal sessions this weekend only.

On Friday and Saturday, October 22-23, 60-minute phone consultations are just $125 (a savings of $40-$50). The session is geared to assist you in this current Venus transition period and includes a combination of intuitive guidance and personal astrology through the end of 2010.

A limited number of appointments are available. Details are posted here: http://www.starpriestess.com/services.html#octfullmoon

Into the Spiral

"The man embraces in the woman all that is not himself, and from that one resultant, from that embrace, comes every new action." - D.H. Lawrence

We're about to be swept into a deep, slow burn of alchemical magic.

Over the next six weeks, Venus' journey in the underworld mirrors our own shamanic process of death and rebirth. The Evening Star is transformed to Morning Star.

First, a kiss. The Goddess embraces her beloved warrior, Mars, before her 41-day retreat. They meet this week for a tantric interlude in Scorpio, sign of transformation, lust and power.

Everything Venus is about - our values, relationships, beauty, money, love, creativity, self-worth - will be put to the test as we integrate the changes of the past 18 months.

This fall, Venus rules the heavens. We'll journey with her as she travels back through the early degrees of Scorpio into late Libra, preparing for the next evolution of sacred marriage. Her metamorphosis will be complete in late November.

Shakti fire illuminates the path as we walk the shaman's spiral of death and rebirth.


Metamorphosis

This Thursday, the Sun and Moon meet in Venus' home sign of Libra. The next day Venus stations retrograde and begins her 41-day journey. She'll drop lower and lower in the western sky after sunset, her light receding each evening until, between October 19 and 22, she slips into the underworld and disappears from our view.

Enveloped in a cocoon of darkness, she makes her transition. The bright and guiding star re-emerges in the east in the pre-dawn sky November 4 or 5. This heliacal rise marks the initiation of a new 584-day Venus cycle. We are reborn in the shamanic sign of Scorpio.

This is also the solar gateway of Samhain, when the Sun crosses the middle degrees of Scorpio in late October through early November. During this phase, a conclave of planets will meet the Goddess in Scorpio to escort her to her throne. The Ancestors draw near to midwife the rebirthing.

Prepare to travel to new depths this Halloween season. Mid-October through early November is a period of high magic. In the watery realms of Scorpio, watch for power plays, manipulation and deception. Ghosts of your former self appear as you dive, like Venus, into the depths of the subconscious to face your deepest fears and desires.

Beyond the dissolution and reformulation of your life, you'll soar to new heights like the Phoenix who rises from the ashes of its former self. Absolute surrender is required to receive the full blessings of this divine empowerment.

Venus completes her retrograde phase November 18, just as Jupiter also stations direct. It's time for a party when these two great celestial forces return to forward motion.


The Venus Cycle

This sequence marks the completion of a cycle that began in late March/early April 2009 when the heliacal rise of our sister star occurred in Aries. This phase also brings to completion a longer, eight-year cycle that goes back to November 2002. We've been exploring masculine and feminine roles, individual identity and personal power since then. How have we evolved?

Venus is about love and abundance, attracting rather than pursuing. The archetype of the Goddess has many mythical names including Ishtar, Inanna, Isis, Athena, Aphrodite, Astarte, Spider Woman and Lakshmi. In all, she is Shakti, the divine feminine, creative force of the cosmos.

Her essence inspires Shiva, the sacred masculine, to creative action. Through the portals of the Galactic Cross and Cancer/Capricorn eclipses, we've been accessing these energies all year. Now it's time to plumb the depths of the psyche to find out what parts of our selves must be purged in order to fully manifest our new roles as empowered co-creators on Earth.

In this case, in Pluto and at the completion of an eight-year cycle, the theme is transfiguration, an alchemical process of death, transmutation and rebirth. The Snake sheds its skin so we may evolve into a higher expression of consciousness.

The new Scorpio cycle culminates June 12, 2012, with a rare Transit of Venus. In this special conjunction, the planet will visibly cross the face of the Sun in the final year of the Mayan calendar. This is no coincidence. The ancient Maya were Venus watchers. Her complex cycles are encoded within their sacred calendar. Our sister planet is helping us connect with our galactic nature at the dawn of the next world age.

Rebirth

In this season of high magic, there will be tricks as well as treats. That's the nature of Scorpio, the sign most associated with power and sex, money, desire, motive, manipulation, fear, secrets, the subconscious, psychism and the unseen realms.

During Venus' retrograde transit, relationships are due for an overhaul. Don't be surprised if you hear from, dream about or initiate contact with former lovers. If you began a relationship 18 months ago, it's likely to be ending now. If you meet someone new, be cautious while Venus is retrograde. The connection may not be what it appears. Notice what happens with your finances. Are you recreating or releasing old patterns? How have you been fooling yourself?

For the past 18 months, Venus' journey in Aries has been exciting, passionate and often challenging as we've tried on the role of Warrior Goddess. The courage of a great warrior is needed now to dive willfully into the unknown during this passage into the Scorpio cycle.

Stay alert and practice discernment. Notice messages in dreams and meditation. Allow time for deep inner healing. Processing on the subconscious levels can be emotionally, mentally and physically taxing. Practice nurturing self-care. Be patient if finances seem sluggish.

In a shamanic dance of death and rebirth, the natural world is our teacher and guide. Commune with the planets and stars, the deva spirits and elementals, the animal and plant kingdoms. Water and fire, earth and sky combine in a potent elixir of becoming. Call on the Ancestors as you walk the sacred spiral.

Spin your cocoon and prepare to be transformed within the darkness. As you emerge from the chrysalis a fortnight from now, spread your wings and glide gently on the currents of change.