Anger with a smile

The confidentiality clause I signed when I went into therapy was that I was allowed to share incidents that impinged upon me directly, and without revealing identities, of course. So I’m sharing one today — had a really interesting session earlier where I found myself telling off the new guy for appropriating my narratives without sharing any of his! Mars direct in Leo?! Or according to Elsa P.:

The Moon in Aries conjuncts Venus while it squares Saturn and Pluto and your average woman is deeply pissed and frustrated. I don’t know what to say but best not poke her… or best poke her.

Ha! She’s definitely describing me today.

Happiness is …

Mars stationing direct after a long retrograde (since last December) seems to be easing the energy constipation I have been experiencing around me in the past months; not to mention the number of men that seem to have been incapacitated in one way or another — I have lost male colleagues temporarily to illness, broken bones, sprained backs, and other leaves of absence!

Even the mood in my therapy group was much lighter this week compared with the intense self-scrutiny of the past weeks (you might say that that’s what a therapy group is for — yes, but the easing of tension today was quite noticeable). We talked about the things that made us happy, which we almost never do, les misérables that we usually are!

Healing Pluto problems: Obsidian order, Walnut way

If you are currently experiencing the Pluto station at a sensitive point on your chart — it is currently square my natal Pluto, and opposite my natal Venus — it’s likely you’re feeling just a bit taut, like waiting for a shoe to fall, but not knowing if it’s going to be made of soft leather or hard concrete.

Detail of Pluto and Proserpina (It's stone!)

Pluto issues are deep and transformative (cellular, as I once put it) and healing them requires a genuine and concerted effort at looking inwards, and the courage to square with yourself, your desires and your fears, warts and all. Plutonians who choose to look away often end up projecting their shadow sides onto others, hurting themselves and loved ones in the process. I know a Plutonian (still) undergoing a tough Pluto transit who once asked me what the point of therapy was. He said, ‘What’s wrong with just getting on with life? Won’t therapy just raise things that are better hidden?’ My answer was: ‘Sure, you can just do that and time will pass and you will get older and die. But who do you hurt in the meantime? Do you want to live life awake or asleep?’ My questions were not meant to be rhetorical but he never answered them. As far as I can tell, he’s still sleepwalking.

Baking as therapy

As the Moon in Pisces moves into the fourth house of my chart this weekend, and is about to move into opposition to Ceres, I have been baking, or rather, have been teaching myself to.

The picture on the left is my first attempt at a wholewheat loaf. I made a white loaf yesterday and had intended to take a picture of it, but was well into my fourth slice before I remembered…