[click "Play" to hear Ted's training tips] When Telluride dog owners leave town, their first stop after a gas station is Ted Hoff's place, Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel in Crawford, Colorado. No doubt about it, Ted is a dog whisperer: after 20 years training our...
June 11 to 18, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury Evening: Saturn
Collective Evolution, Planetary Healing, Inner and Outer Peace...
Planet Jupiter goes retrograde in the early morning hours of June 15th, joining asteroid Chiron and Neptune in their apparent backward motion through the late degrees of revolutionary Aquarius. This ongoing planetary convergence constellates an evolutionary shift of individual and collective consciousness, opening doors of heightened awareness and changing perception. For all of us, this is a time to see the forest for the trees, look at the bigger picture and open our hearts to the multi-faceted possibilities of our ever-expanding Universe. Forgiveness, compassion and spiritual generosity are tools for crafting a new global reality, based on the principles of equanimity, equality and acceptance. We are all together on this planet as one family, one evolving force. We are interconnected, inter-related natural creations, affecting each other via our thoughts, words and deeds. We must detach from petty thinking, racial bias and economic or cultural exclusion, and instead recognize the common denominators of our existence, share common visions and take a leap of faith that we can heal each other and ourselves with acceptance and loving-kindness.
May 28 to June 4, 2009
As the Moon waxes toward full – growing larger each evening – tap in to your inner goddess, feel Mother Nature’s rhythm and intuit your path. Connecting with natural cycles and “going with the flow” is not just an airy-fairy, New Age idea or adage - it’s a genuine, time-honored process of self-discipline and awareness practiced by sages, gurus and avatars for millennia.
The Gemini lunar and solar cycles encourage curiosity, communication and thought. It is the celestial zodiac’s first air sign and therefore deals with primal thinking and skills of cognition – using the mind to perceive, identify, reason, deduce, categorize and prioritize. This sounds simple and basic, and it is. But, in today’s world, we have a tendency to be over-amped when it comes to mental and sensory stimuli and activity, therefore reducing the quality of transmission and turning mega-bytes of data into static. Our brains can feel like over-saturated sponges with no more room for water.
May 21 to 28, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Jupiter, Mars and Venus Evening: Saturn
The Gemini New Moon and a Rare 3-Way Planetary Rendezvous in Evolutionary Aquarius
The Mother Earth and all life upon it experience an unusual and verifiable “new age” planetary event this week. As the Sun and Moon conjoin at 03º 27’ Gemini on May 24th in the aspect of a New Moon, a rare three-way rendezvous between Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune is taking place in the cosmos at 26º Aquarius.
Jupiter represents expansion, opportunity, exploration, discovery, foreign affairs and all types of growth. Neptune is the planet of mystical, spiritual and out-of-body experience. Chiron is an asteroid/planetoid – discovered in 1977 – that rules alternative medicine, holistic healing, wounds of all kinds and anything with the root-word “chiro.”
May 14 to 21, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Edward Abbey, Sky Islands and Magnificent Western Sunsets
The Sun is now setting directly behind the Upper La Sal Mountains to our west in Utah – the “sky island” so revered and ultimately made famous by the great American naturalist, Edward Abbey, when he was just starting out as a park ranger for the USFS in Arches National Monument in Moab.
The perfectly shaped, relatively small mountains are so familiar to me now that I rarely sit in awe of their grandeur. But when we first started looking for property on Wrights Mesa in the early ‘90’s, I was adamant about finding a piece from which we could see them. As the Universe would have it, we ended up buying acreage with amazing 360º views – we can see all the way to the Cimarrons above Ridgway in the east and to the Blues and Henrys above Cataract Canyon to the west.
May 7 to 13, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Illumination and Manifestation: the May 8th Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon
Full Moons are times of illumination, fruition and manifestation. Unlike new Moons, which occur when the Sun and Moon are exactly aligned – in the same sign, at the same zodiac degree – full Moons take place when the Sun is exactly opposite the Moon and they are in opposite zodiac signs.
The conjunction aspect of a new Moon is a point of energy collection, focus and concentration, [the last new Moon took place on April 24th @ 05º03' Taurus], a time when we feel the powerful imperative of a new beginning, a beginning coming from the inside out. It’s a time to be "in synch" and at one with the Universe - we are somehow connected to and a piece of the greater collective whole. Something cosmic is in the air - a feeling of innocence and hope, initiation and rebirth - and I always feel instinctively optimistic at new Moon times, as if I am on the brink of a new precipice, facing unknown opportunity and embarking upon fresh territory.
April 30 to May 7, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, and April showers bring May flowers. In our yard, the lilacs are starting to bud and the golden currant bush near the front gate is a mass of fragrant yellow. Bright red tulips have popped up and bluebirds are building nests in the wooden boxes we built for them several years back. The mesa has turned a vibrant green and the skies are deep electric blue. The shining San Juans shimmer white in the distance while irrigation water gurgles in the ditches.
It’s May, the lusty month of May - May Day and maypoles, Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day – a month of flowers and frolic, fun and fiestas. It’s time to get outside and touch the earth, honor fertility and appreciate the beauty and bounty of nature. The ancient cross-quarter holiday of Beltane – which marks the beginning of summer in the pagan year - takes place this week, and throughout many northern European nations, dances will be danced and festivals held to celebrate the coming of the northern hemisphere’s most sensational season.
April 23 to 30, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Jupiter, Venus and Mars Evening: Mercury and Saturn
Yesterday morning I got up at 5:05 am and headed downstairs to see if Venus and the Moon had risen. It was the day of the occultation, and I didn’t want to miss it. I looked out our big east-facing kitchen window and saw one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen. There, hanging low, above the black horizon, was brilliant Venus - dazzling and magnificent - so close to the slender crescent Moon that they were almost touching.
I wondered if I’d be able to see the occultation at our southwestern latitude and longitude. Would I actually see the Moon eclipse Venus?
April 2 to 9, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Tap in to the Warrior Spirit of Aries-Aquarius and Go Forth!
This week we have some rather interesting astrological aspects at work in the cosmos. Here on Earth, we are dealing with international economic crisis, global warming, national recession and our own individual processes of breakdown, breakthrough and ultimately, resurrection and rebirth.
One of the reasons I love astrology is because whenever anything is happening in my life or anyone else’s – including the collective experience – I can find it constellated in the cosmos. Ever since my first awakenings to this “divine science,” I have been stunned and surprised by it’s synchronistic accuracy and metaphysical mo-jo.
Humanity today is at an incredibly advanced new beginning, which is an absolutely Aries-Aquarian kind-of-thing. We have come a great distance from our primordial birth to a place of mind-boggling technological invention. And what now? The planets [Pluto now in Capricorn, Saturn in Virgo opposite Uranus in Pisces and Neptune, Jupiter and Chiron conjunct in Aquarius] say it’s time to transform our entire way of perceiving reality, defining our physical world and structuring economies, governments, leadership and authority in general. If we don’t want, agree or go along with this metamorphic change, be prepared, it will happen anyway. It’s like a global tsunami, a collective cataclysm or an asteroid from outer space. We have no choice. Acceptance is the answer. So as the Moon waxes this week toward full on April 9th, take a deep breath and tap in to the courageous spirit of Aries the Warrior. Fight for right and battle for justice, truth, honesty and integrity. Good luck and may the Force be with you.
by Cynthia Zehm
January 15 to 22, 2009
Visible Planets: Morning: Saturn Evening: Venus
Last week's Capricorn/Cancer Full Moon rose above the relatively flat eastern horizon of the Uncompahgre Plateau exactly as the Sun set below the distant "Blues" in Utah's canyonland country south of Moab. I was stunned by the subtle pastel beauty of an enormous ivory Moon against a pale pink and aqua sky. Horsefly Mesa was covered in snowy white, studded with blue-black craggy pine and naked aspen. I thought of Edward Abbey in his mysterious afterlife and wondered if he still roamed in spirit amongst the desert rocks and pristine peaks - the rugged lands he loved so much - or if he had long forgotten the earthly life for one more abstract and enchanting beyond.
It is at moments like these, when my body senses the ethereal magic, the fleeting cosmic high of celestial magnitude and the interconnectedness of all creation, that I can feel my own spirit - energy, light, nothing and everything, forever and ever, eternal - and I am at peace. To live in a place of such natural grandeur, with hope and freedom as allies, I am truly blessed. May we all embrace the many gifts of our Father Sun, Mother Earth and Great Spirit. May we walk in beauty.
