(Page 4 of 6)

The Moon:
The instinct to have a home

The Moon within your inner family is the mother. Just as you grew in your mother's womb before you were born, you continue to survive and thrive throughout your life as a consequence of nourishment; of having a bed to sleep in; food on the table; a family perhaps; a house; a home. Within your cosmic village, the Moon is the cook in your favorite café, the masseuse with healing hands, the therapist who listens and understands.

The Moon's placement in the chart by house, and by sign, will reflect your optimal path of self-nourishment. It may also reflect your approach to mothering yourself, as well as your approach to forming emotional bonds.

When you were still inside your mother, you heard her heartbeat every day for nine months, like a great drum, anchoring you within the rhythm of this world from the inside out. The Moon reflects your heartbeat of happiness - where you are most likely to enjoy emotional richness. Like the emotional rudder of the boat of happiness, the Moon steers you toward experiences that give you easy access to happiness.

The Moon may also be related to unconscious patterns inherited through your family line - the desires and dreams of generations of people, passed on through the heartbeat of the mother. These unconscious patterns simply are; they need no judgment unless they sabotage the Sun, the true center of your life path. The purest instinct of the Moon is to know through feeling, to intuit the inner space. The Moon is your instinct to understand and be understood. Home is where you are understood.

Find the Moon 4 at Work in your life by completing this sentence:

My mood always improves when I (describe an activity): _______.

Intuitive assignment:

Explore the following questions with your heart:

What activities make me happy on a daily basis?

If home is where I am understood, who understands me deeply?

What activities make me happy?

I see umbilical cords running from me to other people who feel like family, whether they are coworkers, friends, or blood family. What do I have in common with them that keeps those umbilical cords in place? How do we nourish each other?

The Moon knows your answers to these questions.

Mercury:
The instinct to communicate

Mercury is your desire to capture and transmit information: It's the messenger, the tape recorder, the camera, the database builder of your life story. Within your inner family, Mercury is the storyteller; within your village, Mercury might be your friendly librarian, aware of your interests, setting aside particular books for you to read. Mercury works through your eyes; your ears; the bottom of your feet; your fingertips; and very much your throat, your tongue, your lips - your ability to speak. Mercury is the synapse between the brain and the tongue. How will you translate your reality? What words will you use?

Mercury is intelligence on a constant reconnaissance mission. For example, imagine 150 people sitting in church all facing the front, listening to the same sermon. The lady in the first row is noticing the color in the stained-glass windows. She is an artist, and her eyes naturally gravitate to nuances of color and light. The man in the second row is watching the lady in the first row and having a sexual fantasy about her. His Mercury tends to sexualize whatever he is focused upon - sex is his favorite story. The preacher is looking at the congregation and seeing people in spiritual need of Jesus, for whom he speaks. He sees everything through the eyes of his Christian training. Each person can see the same scene but focuses quite differently.

Mercury is the intelligent eye, the intelligent ear, focused upon something in particular. Mercury is also communicative touch, communicative cadences - through voice, song, or dancing feet, dancing out a story. Mercury is the messenger.

Find Mercury at work in your life by completing this sentence:

I naturally communicate perspectives, a point of view about ______.

To further define your Mercury, answer these questions:

What page do I turn to first in the newspaper?

If words are my favored form of communication, what outlet do those words generally take (personal letters, creative writing, conversation, teaching, singing)? Does my Mercury seem more dedicated to a particular topic or focus than any other? (For clues, look at the books and magazines by your bedstand.)

If I frequent libraries, which section do I gravitate toward?

If I am a visual artist, what style do I work in most frequently? Realism? Surrealism? Abstract expressionism? What perceptions within me inspire this style?

If I am a dancer, what rhythm do I most readily move to? What is the message of that rhythm?

If I am a cinematographer, why do I use a particular lens on the camera to trigger the imagination of the viewer? What is it I want them to see?

If I am a masseuse, what strokes create my language of touch? What message do I give through my touch?

Intuitive assignment:

Imagine yourself free to communicate in any way you like - through words, telepathy, touch, images. How would you do it? Imagine the thought, idea, or emotion that you would most want to communicate - to share with others. What is it?

Your Mercury knows the answers to these questions.

Venus:
The instinct to love

Venus is the instinct to love as well as the instinct to create beauty, art, and healing. Within your inner family, Venus is where you fall in love with yourself. Then, as a consequence of being in love with yourself, others - the people in your village - fall in love with you too. Venus is where you are a perennial flower - where you will bloom again and again if you express this part of yourself. As a consequence, love flows easily and so do love relationships with other people. Your creative life thrives through Venus. Venus also blesses your health.

Venus is Eros, the very basic recognition that love and creativity are deeply wedded to pleasure. Venus is the feminine principle of pleasure, saying: Kiss me! Venus is female fertility. Whether you are male or female, Venus embodies your ability to be gracefully abundant (including financially). Venus's placement in your chart reflects where you are making love to life.

Find Venus 6 at work in your life by completing this sentence:

I fall in love with life again and again when I ______.

Intuitive assignment:

Imagine yourself saying, "I am in touch with the grace and beauty that flows through me (and this is what it is like). I know that, with ease, the best of me can rise to any occasion (and this is what it is like). I remember the first time I fell in love (and this is what it was like).

"Thinking of someone I love now, who also loves me, I feel the deep pleasure and recognition that we share this love (and this is what it is like).

"I see a scene of great natural beauty - a rose garden, the ocean, a mountain range. I see my presence growing equally beautiful (and this is what it is like).

"I am beauty, grace, and love finding new form (and the form looks like this). This part of me, when given expression, softens the hard edges of even the roughest day."

Venus, your love affair with life, inspires each of these scenes.

Copyright © 2003 by Elizabeth Rose Campbell.

Tags: Astrology

About the Author

Graduated form the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalist. Though she initially worked as a writer for a literary magazine, The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas, Elizabeth was quickly drawn to the human potential movement and became a program coordinator for the Omega Institute of holistic Studies in 1982. Based on earlier astrological studies with Steve Forrest, she began giving informal astrological consultations to Omega staff and faculty. Elizabeth became the first astrologer invited to offer consultations to participants in their Wellness Center.