STARFIRE

April 2007

April 2007 - Spring Equinox
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SPRING BLOWS IN LIKE A-WAFFLE?

Or maybe it's more like a waffle iron, putting small decorative crimps in everyone's plans.

What spring is not this year is decisive.

It's not quiet either. New Mexico had 13 tornadoes in one day last week, more than our annual quota. And the politicians are talking and talking and talking in Washington-not necessarily listening to each other, but talking up a storm.

Like the tornadoes, spring this year has pockets of high energy, but a lot of that energy is just going around in circles stirring things up.

You need to harness some of that energy, make it work for you, and there are a few secrets hidden in the Spring Equinox chart to make it easier for you to take the reins and exercise some oversight on the tumultuous events of the next three months.

The first thing you're likely to notice when you look at the Spring Equinox chart is Saturn parked in the upper left quadrant of the chart all by itself. The other nine planets are arrayed from the lower left to just above the horizon on the right. Because Saturn stands apart from and loosely in opposition to the whole group, the energy of the other nine planets expresses through and can be directed from Saturn.

In effect, Saturn becomes the handle, and you can handle Saturn to get the results you want now. One planet, not ten-and that's especially helpful this year because the constant small crises originate in the relationships among (aspects between) the other nine planets.

Saturn's in Leo, a fixed fire sign, so the work you do with Saturnian intentions now will take root and grow over time. Saturn retrograde shows its Aquarian side as a creative problem solver as well as its bossy get-it-done-now Capricorn nature. The simplest approach to Saturn retrograde is to do everything twice-once with a written plan and once with action in the physical world.

It's time to set your intentions firmly, to commit with all the passion you can muster in this wishy-washy time, to focus and move forward. That's the smart thing to do-but it may not be what you want to do this particular spring. And it may not matter.

It might turn out just as well if you think of a few wild and crazy things you'd really like to do and go do them. Come back to the serious stuff another season.

Whatever you do this spring, the little gusts of wind will blow back in your face from time to time. They'll throw your past or the gaps in your planning in your face. They may spin you around a time or two.

When you grow up on the plains, or even the Western prairies, you learn to lean into the winds. You may move from one Chicago storefront to the next between gusts instead of striking off down the avenue in your usual carefree stride-but you do what you can and eventually get where you wanted to go. More or less.

If your book project is too big for this weather, it may be time to rough in three or four synopses. Treat them like short stories. Take them as far as you can and then leave all but one to collect ideas while you try one out. Or break a writer's block with silly word association games.

Write in a different location every day. Start the day with a small poem for mood. Create a musical playlist on your computer that sounds like the rise and fall of emotion your next book needs.

Give yourself 90 days to be a creative child-but keep track of that child and save her gatherings. Maybe she only gets to play a little longer every day than she did last winter-or maybe she gets to run further from the plan for your work than you usually let her go.

Maybe it's time for a marathon of writing and creating-just let it flow and revise in another season.

Unless, of course, you have deadlines looming. And Saturn may bring an abundance of deadlines for some of you. Then you need to lean into the wind and tackle a big goal in small pieces. Plan on paper. Plan to revise your plan as you work it.

Saturn this season will favor you if you take a moment to write down your intentions for the session before you start work on any project. Even dull work can get done faster with five-minute intention notes. If you live West of the Rockies, Saturn will be in the 12th house this season, and you'll find visualization and dream work even more useful than lists and journal entries.

It is a creative season. Saturn's in charge, but the weight of the energy is in the lower right quadrant, favoring creativity and fun and play (along with daily routines and healing the self). You may be doing your best work when it feels as if you're going around in circles. Serendipity rules-if you keep your nose out of the rut often enough to notice.

Dancing and bodywork to integrate the creative movement into the muscles and tissues of your body will ground your work now and make it more productive.

Of course, it's also the time when warriors put on their armor and animals begin posturing before mating season. All that springtime snapping and snarling!

Persian Gulf winds can be even trickier than the Oklahoma and New Mexico freeway winds. But the big breezes this summer are likely to be over constitutional issues and the Iraq war and the fate of Attorney General Gonzales.

Congress will pick at the President's men this summer. The sound bites that are being written now will be played over and over again in 2008 campaign spots and speeches. Bared teeth, lots of growling-and there will be scars on both sides. But impeachment? No. Actual constitutional challenges and changes? Not likely. There will be consequences-but you may have to be a Washington insider to know what the cost to each side is this year.

Real change is more than three months away. We're still in the warm-up phase.

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.