Challenging Change: New Moon in Gemini, Solar Eclipse by Isis Ward   This New Moon is not your average, run of the mill experience. Appropriate to Gemini, it is book-ended by two lunar eclipses (rare to have more than one) which happen at the prior and subsequent full moons. This tells your average, magical living individual, that now is the time for magic. High Magic and High Drama. A Solar Eclipse is always transformative. This Solar Eclipse has Saturn and the North Node joining it in opposition to Pluto and the South Node. The Sun and Moon, Masculine and Feminine, Will and Emotions lend their power to the force of spiritual evolution and restructuring daily lives, daily perspectives. All this while Pluto, the pyrotechnic specialist, is working on the base of our belief systems. As a healer, I am watching many people discover that they base all their actions on the idea that, left to themselves, they (and most humans) are naturally evil. Without some outside authority ruling, judging and punishing, we would all just abuse eachother. Of course another country would steal our things and kill us, of course its funny to kick others in the face and without a police man, parent, authority, we would all do it. "Idle hands are the devil's playground," so don't relax. Keep too busy to cause problems or create something different...like love or beauty. What would a life lived that way look like? Full of constant self monitoring, constant checking to see if anyone noticed how evil and generally bad they actually are; checking to see who might have done them wrong while they weren 't looking. Whew. I get tired just thinking of it. With Mars in Cancer and Chiron in Capricorn opposing eachother we experience the opportunity to heal and harness our anger for deep change. Jupiter conjunct Venus in Cancer bestows the ability to release some of the tension brought on by the more challenging aspects, the ability to find a moment of peace within the chaos. This New Moon and Eclipse offers us new ways of looking at our world, new and dramatic change in our agreements about ourselves, about the world we live in. Take it from a Leo, when the Universe dictates spectacular change, you must find a useful way to bring it into your life. Otherwise, all the people around you will help you create tediously spectacular emotional dramas. How does this work? Here's an example: Mary has been holding onto and deeply treasuring her beliefs about being hurt and the wounds inflicted on her long ago. She is so in love with her rules for living, so busy feeding her wounds, that she has allowed herself to say wounding things to others. She doesn't want to change that because it makes her feel clever and protected. Her higher self has been nagging her about this, reminding her about how this is exactly how she was hurt, how it is not actually a clever strategy. It has given dire warnings about words and actions coming back at her. But she is used to being in pain, so much so that she almost believes she is comfortable...and who knows what vulnerability and changing would do. Up comes a Solar Eclipse, opposite Pluto with the North Node and Saturn conjunct Sun and Moon, offering her a chance to step up to the authority of her higher self and shatter old belief systems. This she ignores, as well as the opportunity for creatively finding new ways of communicating and structuring her beliefs about opening the heart. Wham! Mary is up against the wall with confrontations with soon to be ex-friends who have found out ways she has been mean or dishonest. Wham! She is smacked with loss of a loved one with whom she never made peace. Wham! She loses her job and all her deep fears about survival come home to stay like unwanted guests. Now she has change, and she must examine her actions and their basis if she wants something different. If, unlike Mary, you are not into self torture, you can take positive action. One could examine how and where one puts one's energy and focus and start to put it somewhere else. Truthfully observing one's daily thoughts and actions can open up new ways of using energy and attention. This New Moon offers us a moment of positive change, an opportunity to release old patterns and step up to our higher authority. Marking this moment in time with ritual or prayer helps us move into our potential with greater ease. Prayer doesn't have to be namby-pamby grovelling. It can be a moment of freedom and surrender at the same time--you might see it as a positive spiritual S & M. Commit to working with the Eclipse energy through from the New to the Full Moon with a small daily ritual or prayer: SPIRIT of Truth and Light, thank you for this day, this moment. Show me the way to freedom. Teach me to love without attachment. Release me from anxiety. Help me to consciously dwell in this moment. Let this day open my heart to the good in myself, the good in others, the good of this earth. I realize that, in living your light, I will have joy and sorrow, love and anger, fear and exaltation, all aspects of human emotions. Help me to let them flow through me rather than grasping them. Take me to the place of the open heart. Blessings to all beings. Bright Blessings ~Isis Ward http://www.ecstaticarts.com