About Dana Gerhardt

A popular columnist with The Mountain Astrologer since 1991, Dana Gerhardt is an internationally respected astrologer. She has lectured extensively and written for astrology publications on several continents. Her ongoing passions are the moon and living the intuitive life. Dana worked for many years in the corporate sector, where she observed the undeniable influence of natural cycles. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude from Occidental College in Los Angeles and did graduate work in literature at Columbia University and CSULA. Dana can be contacted by email.

May222013

Sign of the Times

Filed under: Blog, Full Moon
AA040372

“It was like a war zone.” That’s what witnesses said about Moore, the Oklahoma town torn apart by Monday’s devastating tornado, now estimated as a class five, with winds up to two hundred miles an hour and at times two miles wide. It’s amazing that so many survived. It’s also an appropriate emblem for the astrology of this week—when we find ourselves caught between two eclipses and the volatile Uranus/Pluto square.

Around the world there are actual war zones and we might be grateful that none of them have gotten crazier. But most of us, in ways much less dramatic, are nonetheless feeling unstable, fragile, helpless, angry, insecure, or overwhelmed. The air is filled with considerable emotional turbulence. Most of our lives, thank goodness, are free from actual devastating events, but it’s easy to absorb the instability. We catch bad feelings much like we catch bad viruses. However our dark mood began, our mind, trying to be helpful, starts supplying reasons for why we’re upset. These thoughts, if allowed to continue–and they often do, stalking and circling us throughout the day–can then whip our troubled mood into something more terrible. We might start saying things to people that we’ll later regret. And soon, without exactly knowing how it happened, our life feels as hopeless as a tornado tossed town.

Difficult times remind us that we’re not entirely in control. But we do have an influence over our own destructive thoughts. Even when the collective energy is turbulent, we can soften our own negativity before it gains momentum. We can quiet our minds and tune into our hearts. This is a good human practice. We can send compassion to the trouble zones around the world. These winds of compassion may not be as fierce as a class five tornado, but they have a mighty power too. A good way to approach the lunar eclipse, is to make a sincere effort to add to this pool of positive energy. You’ll feel better. And the world will feel better too.

read the full article »»

May202013

Sun enters Gemini: Jumping Into Your World

Filed under: Home Full Moon Post 3
dreamstime_12540250crop

                             When we are going toward someone we say
                             you are just like me
                             your thoughts are my brothers and sisters
                             word matches word
                             how easy to be together.

                             When we are leaving someone we say
                             how strange you are
                             we cannot communicate
                             we can never agree
                             how hard, hard and weary to be together. 

                             –from “Simple-song” by Marge Piercy

The Sun has just entered Gemini. Our minds turn towards Gemini things… books, words, chatter, curiosity, whimsy, and evil twins. The Sun turns your attention to the Gemini house(s) of your chart, when it’s useful to pause and ponder which half of Piercy’s poem you’re experiencing this year.  Are you going towards a world that seems easy and like-minded?  Or does your world, your companions, your familiar routes seem weary and hard?  If you’re living in the second stanza, this Gemini season may be especially important for you.

Gemini is your annual opportunity to update your world.  You may know exactly what needs updating. If not, you can start with your language.  Freshen up your vocabulary with a few new and enlivening words.  Listen to somebody younger, older, or with a different color skin, and steal a new term; use it for at least a week.  If you have a meditation practice, let your thoughts run a little before you go to silence.  Are inspiring–or self-defeating–mantras are running through your mind?  Take your journal to a coffee house and see where the pen or keyboard takes you. Feeling uninspired? Write a letter to an earlier version of yourself:  the third grader you, the college freshman you, the night-before-getting-married you.  Share something you recently discovered about yourself and what you hope to learn in the year to come.

Remind yourself of all the times that you were actively going toward life.  Remember what you saw in your mate when your eyes were fresh and open?  Remember how your workplace looked the first day you walked in?  Are there any experiences evoking the same beginner’s mind in you today?  Consult a dictionary of names and let your finger randomly fall on one of them, maybe “Barbara,” “Chester,” or “Maxie.”  Promise the gods that you’ll meet somebody new this month with just that name, maybe at the grocery store, the museum, the library.  But be on the lookout, for winged Mercury will make sure this person has a message for you.

With all the scandals and legitimate horrors, with everything moving at such inflated speed these days, my next piece of advice may seem strange.  But especially if your world feels heavier this year, if you’ve lost your ability to communicate with your dear ones, this is the month to lighten your spirit.  The secret to Gemini’s month is not to take your quest for knowledge too seriously.  At least once this season abandon your obligations and honor your mischievous child.  Let your gurus be the Cat in the Hat and Curious George.  Pick one day, one afternoon, one morning, when your inner adult takes a snooze.  Then follow that itchy little spirit within.  This creates a vacuum into which Gemini’s magic can rush like a giddy wind.

And don’t forget your evil twin.  Find a long-necked bottle.  Let your evil twin whisper into it every shocking thing on his/her mind.  Everything.  Without any judgment from the “good you.”  If your twin needs more than one bottle, that’s fine.  Then fill your bottle(s) with water and drive to a wild place.  While you dance in a wide dervish circle, sprinkle your evil twin’s water joyfully all over the ground.  Be sure to laugh.  Talk to whatever animal comes to watch as though it were your brother or sister.

This is also a great time to learn more about yourself astrologically. Check out my personalized Moonprints and Venus reports. Lots of great reading!  And the subject couldn’t be lovelier… they’re all about you!

 

read the full article »»

May62013

Get your Venus blessings!

Filed under: Blog, New Moon
397918-9-1276990040489crop

“The invisible world wants to help us,” declares visionary activist and astrologer Caroline Casey, “but spiritual etiquette requires that we ask.”  I especially like asking Venus for a little extra juju, using the Santeria ritual for Oshun (described by Casey in her Making the Gods Work for You).  As the Yoruba goddess of fresh waters, Oshun oversees the same delights that Venus does, so I call “Venus” with Oshun’s ritual and neither goddess seems to mind.

I make sure to perform this ritual every year during the Taurus cycle, which coincides this year with an auspicious moment in the Venus cycle:  She is soon emerging as the Evening Star!  Keep watching the western sky at sunset. The first night you see Venus twinkling in the sky is your moment to make a wish (what date this occurs depends on the horizon line at your location.) Pay Venus homage and ask for her blessings!  How? Just speak sincerely, from your heart. You might surprise yourself too. And, do use the Oshun ritual before or after you sight Venus, to help anchor your connection to her.

Over the years, this magic ritual has brought me many gifts–including the home of my dreams and a man to share it with.  Try it and see what miracles it can work for you!

  1. It’s best to perform this ritual on a Friday—which is Venus’ day.  You’ll need a round piece of bread, like a dinner roll.  Make a hole in it and put a nickel or five pennies inside (the number five is sacred to Venus).
  2. On a small piece of paper, clearly state your desires.  Fold this paper and put it into the bread, on top of your nickel.  Then pour a little honey on top of that (as Casey always says, “for obvious symbolic reasons!”).
  3. Finally, place a small candle in the hole (bigger than a birthday candle, but smaller than a taper).  Casey suggests a yellow candle, though I’ve found different colors fun to play with.
  4. Light the candle.  As it is burning, honor Venus:   take a luxurious bath, go shopping, make love.  Do something that makes you feel juicy, beautiful, pampered, prosperous, and happy.  Like attracts like—a delightful like-minded mood attracts Venus like nothing else!
  5. When the candle is completely burned down, so that only melted wax is on the bread, take it to sweet flowing water—a stream or a river, but nothing salty like the ocean.  Toss this now ritually potent (and fully bio-degradable) roll into the water, reciting an invocation, poem, or prayer of your choice.
  6. The goddess will respond to your desires in the coming weeks. She might fulfill your dreams in miraculous ways. Or she might play the trickster—revealing a blind spot that still stands in the way of your desires.

 

read the full article »»

Apr232013

Beltane is coming!

Filed under: Blog, Cross Quarter Holy Days
Bee_in_apple_blossomcrop

I’m ashamed to admit that I often forget the cross quarter holidays—so critical to the year’s turning wheel. My Southern California childhood excuses me somewhat. There the trees were in leaf and even flowered all year round. The autumn leaves I mostly saw were made out of construction paper by my elementary school teachers, whose monthly themes often referred to the seasonal experiences of children elsewhere. It never snowed in front of my house in winter. Unlike the girl named Nan in my first school textbook, I didn’t own a fur hat or a muff.

But now I live in Oregon, where the autumn leaves are so real and ubiquitous, it often takes Branden and I until summer to get rid of them all. I understand the seasons now. And this week, nearing Beltane, brings an event I wait for all year—when spring teases us for weeks and then—while the air is still chilly and the sky grows increasingly sunny—the apple tree blooms almost overnight, dazzling my backyard with her perfumed radiance, all for the benefit of the bees, buzzing attentively in her branches. Around this tree, the atmosphere is joy.

I finally understand the celebration of the cross-quarters, when each season ripens into its ultimate expression. It’s one of Nature’s eight annual parties. And we should attend!  We have a week to get ourselves in the mood. Beltane in particular demands some heart-opening and otherwise juicy festivity. It’s time to dance around a Maypole—or stand under an apple tree—and tune into the great fertility of spring. Feel its joyful thrumming.

Beltane marks the midpoint between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice and is one of eight solar holidays (or “sabbats”) in the neo-pagan wheel of the year. It is most often celebrated on May 1st as May Day, but more accurately, we arrive at this cross-quarter holiday when the Sun reaches 15 degrees of Taurus, which occurs May 4/5.

read the full article »»

Apr202013

The Twelve Seasons: Taurus

Filed under: Uncategorized
dreamstime_14619429crop

From gunfight to lockdown… events in Boston yesterday mirror the Sun’s shift from Aries into Taurus—from fire into earth, from explosions toward stabilization, from crisis to peace. Your life reflects this solar cycle too.

***

“What new initiatives did you launch last month in Aries? Were you a hero—or a terrorist? Did you start any projects or battles you now need to finish? Taurus is the time to develop, stabilize, or complete whatever you began last month.”

It was the opening hour of my natural time workshop. Terri, sitting in the front row, frowned. Like many eager to learn about natural cycles, she took lots of notes and asked urgent questions. She wanted to get it right. But when I asked her to apply the solar cycle to her own life, her enthusiasm evaporated. After a few minutes, she raised her hand.

“What if you didn’t start anything in Aries? What should your project be for Taurus? Have you ruined things if you slept through the initiating month?” I understood. I’ve had those years when I didn’t feel particularly daring or heroic in Aries. Yet there was always something that made the Aries month different from the Pisces one before it and the Taurus one that followed. It was this “different thing” that represented each year’s new seed.

I asked Terri a few questions. Eventually it came out that she’d quit smoking during the weeks the Sun was in Aries. “Wow!” The room broke into applause. Terri blushed, though she was still frowning. “Isn’t that pretty pathetic? I mean where’s the heroism in that?”

Quitting cigarettes or eating less sugar or taking a taxi cab for the first time may not seem like heroic acts. Yet the truth is few of us actually march off to war, climb Mt. Everest, or rescue cats from burning buildings during the Aries weeks. We don’t launch life-changing initiatives every year. Yet something in us will leap forward. And that’s what we need to honor:  the hero’s archetype—however it is expressing itself through us.

Often, like Terri, we just don’t see it. That day, she needed convincing. A workshop participant raised her hand, “I’ve heard that quitting cigarettes can be as tough as quitting heroin. Sounds heroic to me!” Another offered, “I still remember the day when I quit. That was twenty years ago.  Isn’t something you remember that long an important initiative?”

Terri brightened at the group’s validation. Still, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now in Taurus. “Am I just supposed to keep quitting cigarettes during Taurus? That sounds dumb.” Stabilizing our heroic efforts is important and something the Taurus energy can help us to achieve. But rarely do we plan the Sun’s work. We need to enter each of its twelve months with awareness, willing to see what wants to evolve. That way we can keep ourselves moving in the right direction.

“Sometimes when the Sun changes signs all you need to do is ask that very question: what am I supposed to do now? It’s like a Zen koan, a question that succeeds not so much by answering it, as by having it in mind. The work of one zodiac season always leads naturally to the work of the next. How that happens is each month’s mystery.” Terri looked dubious, but promised to give me a report.

A month later Terri called. She’d been reading in a spiritual book about the destructive power of negative mind states. She recognized herself in that, in particular, her habit of anger. In fact, after she’d quit smoking, her anger seemed even more pronounced. She watched with horror as she snapped at her children and said cruel words to her mate. She urgently wanted to change, but how? “Then it hit me,” she said. “I had successfully quit smoking. If I could give up that habit, couldn’t I do the same with my angry outbursts?” She went to work with determination and had a profound Taurus season. Several months later, she called me again. “I’m so much happier. Things that would have made me angry just slip by me now. I’ve wanted this for years… and I owe it all to that productive Taurus season. Amazing!”

May the awareness of your Taurus season be just as profound and your activity just as productive!

If you’d like to explore the archetypes in even greater depth, if you like to journal and/or muse on the positions of the Sun and Moon, you may enjoy my enrolling in my Twelve Moon workshop (by snail-mail or email). It’s designed to deepen your relationship with the guardians of natural time, the Sun, the Moon, the zodiac… and you!

 

read the full article »»

Apr72013

Your Aries New Moon Focus

Filed under: Blog, New Moon
dreamstime_11828235crop2

Take advantage of this month’s fresh-start energy! Which activities will be most energizing for your psyche? Your chart holds clues. The house where 20.41 degrees of Aries falls represents where you can most reliably turn this month to supercharge your own renewal and rebirth.

If Aries is in your 1st house, for example, you may experience renewal through re-connecting with your instinctive personality. Do it your way! Support that expression with a commitment to those practices that ensure your vitality. In the 2nd  you may want to initiate a new financial plan, or touch base with your core talents and values. In the 3rd , Aries may feel re-energized through putting your thoughts into writing or speech. In the 4th , Aries is reborn through spring cleaning, redecorating, or even moving.  Aries receives inspiration in the 5th house through creative expression, or through rediscovery of one’s inner child.  In the 6th house, Aries gets a fresh start by taking up a new health regimen, or reorganizing the office. In the 7th, relationships are the medium of rebirth, as Aries faces “the other,” while in the 8th house Aries mines new energy from the depths of the unconscious—or the seat of one’s lust.  In the 9th house, Aries is reinvigorated by a book of spiritual teachings, or a philosophical truth that puts life into perspective. In the 10th house, Aries leaps headfirst into tackling new career objectives. In the 11th house, it is through commitment to a social cause that promises renewal. And,  finally, in the 12th house, Aries is reborn through dissolution into universal consciousness, diving deep into the ocean of bliss, then emerging reborn.

read the full article »»

Apr72013

Call and Response: Aries New Moon

Filed under: Call and Response
callandresponse

It’s another new moon: when the magically minded make wishes and astrologers attempt to divine this cycle’s intentions. But fates are personal. Even if a new moon chart could be forced to describe them all, no single astrologer could tell that many stories. The wishes you make now may indeed be super-powered, but if you don’t have a strong relationship with the archetypes, don’t expect special favors. If you rarely go jogging with your wild Uncle George, don’t expect him to take you sky-diving. New Moons are potent times to forge alliances with the gods. Visit the invisible world. Bow and open yourself to their touch. Make an offering. Humans have been rendezvousing with these archetypes for thousands of years. When you call out to the gods, they do respond!

Calling Aries

Aries never looks before he leaps. His mother never cautioned, “If you run with a stick you’ll poke an eye out!” At six, he challenged bullies twice his size. At sixteen he built his castle; he made the ceilings tall as sequoia trees. He strung an acrobat’s tightrope from room to room—sixty feet up, no net below. Now that he’s much older, he flies a hang-glider from the bedroom to the library, where there are books everywhere. Biographies and autobiographies—all about him: how he crossed the Alps with Hannibal, wrestled grizzlies, escaped from pirates; he’s even been to the Moon.

Aries is popular with the ladies—the celestial ladies. They guide his feet up snow-drenched mountains, fling trees to block his enemies; they send magic rope, golden eagles and unbeatable swords his way, just in the nick of time. Ask them why they take such good care of him and you don’t get the usual answers. He’s handsome, of course, dripping with youthful enthusiasm. He’s got strength to die for. Sexy too. But it’s his heart they swear they love. So pure. Whatever he does, he believes in.

“I wasn’t always this way,” he confesses. “I was reckless, an egomaniac. Until I burnt my house down while playing with fire. I spent the whole night studying the flames. By morning, I had learned its language. Fire leaps up with love, you know; it has more secrets than a forest of trees. If you can draw it into your heart and contain it, you’ll achieve impossible things.”

With Aries, “self” and “doing” are everything. Aries wants you to do yourself as though you were a verb. Call him in with some positive narcissism. I did not know what this meant until I relinquished my dislike of Aries people. Zodiac aversions arise when, out of the countless people you find annoying, you discover two or three share the same sign. This entitles you to roll your eyes and look knowingly whenever that sign is mentioned—until, as a spiritual person, you learn that everyone you dislike is a reflection of yourself. You resolve to appreciate that sign’s virtues, but keep coming up with more reasons to dislike it. Then one day you stumble across the thing you can’t do, and you realize those fill-in-the-blank-zodiacpeople can do it without a second thought.

My mother is an Aries. A former boyfriend was an Aries. That co-worker I tangled with in 1991 was an Aries too. Despite their sunny, inspiring nature and boundless enthusiasm, I’ve found Aries people can be rough and reckless—Stanley Kowalski brutes to my faint-hearted Blanche DuBois. Their ruling planet Mars connects them to their passions, so they compete, strike, and leap without being braked by thought. I may say I’d like to do something for months, even years before I do it (if I do it). I like to think about my actions, have discussions with friends in town, imagine strategies, consider the consequences, fantasize the rewards. But Aries people will just go off and do it. They’ll even skip the conversations with friends. (This is what makes them chaotic and unpredictable.)

But then one year I called on Aries for help and something new got into me. I had a writing project that had been languishing for months. The next day Aries startled me out of bed and sent me into my office where I just started writing. I had no plan. I simply showed up at my computer and started doing. Four days later, I had the entire project designed. I was delighted, of course, but also amazed at the creativity that had been inside of me, waiting to come out. Ah, so that’s what it means to discover yourself through action—the Aries way!

Aries’ Response

Waiting for Aries to appear is the fun part. No way can I predict his entrance. But it will likely be full of passion and energy—so do be careful when driving, crossing streets, starting political discussions, or working with knives. Aries likes to sneak up on you and yell “Surprise!” So be on the lookout. You might find him in the garden bursting with new colors and growth. You might hear him in the treetops singing a joyful song. If a sexy red dress calls to you from that little shop around the corner, it could be Aries trying to get you to have a little more fun. He might strike as a sudden desire for “something more.” He might rise you up off the couch one day, ready to cut through boredom, fear, useless anger, self-doubt, or the self-image that no longer fits. You may be surprised at your new daring. Don’t worry if you know exactly where you’re going. Just go!

If you’d like to explore the archetypes in even greater depth, if you like to journal and/or muse on the positions of the Sun and Moon, you may enjoy my enrolling in my Twelve Moon workshop (by snail-mail or email). It’s designed to deepen your relationship with the guardians of natural time, the Sun, the Moon, the zodiac… and you!

© 2011 Dana Gerhardt
All rights reserved

read the full article »»

3 Minute New Moon Ritual

Apr72013

Ritual: Aries New Moon

Filed under: New Moon Ritual, Rituals

Taurus New Moon: Th. May 9, 2013, 8:28 pm EDT,
Sun and Moon at 19.31 Taurus

Ground your body, clear your mind…

Become aware of your body. Notice how gravity holds and connects you to earth. It’s as though your body is an ancient stone temple—solid, strong, secure. Sanctify this temple. Imagine a priestess is pouring sacred water and scattering rose petals, all the way down, from your head to your toes. Any anxiety or negativity washes away. Notice the thoughts and feelings leaving the temple—your judgments, your distracted mind, your worried heart. Be sure to honor them. Give each a smile and a piece of cake as it departs.

Draw a circle of protection, call in blessings…

Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Aries is gathering in your circle, vibrant, hot, and radiant. Fire sign Aries is spontaneous and impulsive-sometimes careless and rash. But you can feel its energy bursting within like a dancing flame, when you just have to DO something! Aries inspires the courage and leadership of a warrior. It stimulates the curiosity and dare-devil of a pioneer. To live in the Aries vibration is to think well of yourself, to follow your own instincts, to go where others are too fearful or unimaginative to explore. Continue absorbing its inspiring energy as you read Aries’ affirmations.

  • I’m courageous enough to feel my fear.
  • I can choose to fight or forgive when I need to.
  • Everyday I discover something new.
  • My life is a grand adventure.
  • I blaze new trails in my work.
  • I’m confident the world needs what I have.
  • I’m loaded with energy, vitality, and enthusiasm.
  • My inner radiance shines out for all to see.

Allow seed intentions to form…

Your intentions for this cycle are gathering. You may already know what you wish to accomplish. Or you may not. Trust that all will unfold perfectly in time. Know that this brief ritual has aligned you with spirit. Now ask your heart if it has a closing message for you. This may come in words or as a picture, perhaps as a body sensation or sound. Give yourself time to receive this message. Digest it. Write it down. Then, in gratitude to yourself and spirit, return to normal awareness. Place a symbol of your Aries New Moon message on your altar.


Print this ritual

read the full article »»

Mar242013

Full Moon Energy Medicine

Filed under: Blog, Full Moon
dreamstime_1062638crop

Full Moons can be busy times. If you’re feeling tired and a bit off balance, you may be suffering from “energy retention,” a condition much like water retention (which is also common during Full Moons). With energy retention, the currents or flows in your field seem to expand without actually going anywhere. It can feel like you just ate a big meal, stuffed and lethargic. If you find yourself in this condition, there’s a simple Full Moon remedy: Relax with moonlight.

Bring your breath, your awareness, and a visualized moonlight to the internal space of your body, going slowly, from your toes to the top of your head. Doing this while you’re sitting in actual moonlight improves the experience. But the Moon is inside you too–even when you’re sitting in a windowless room (if this is your situation, just turn off the electric lights). Be sure to notice how you feel before and after your moon-working. Move slowly when you’re done. This lets the energy find its natural flow again.

read the full article »»

Mar202013

The Sun enters Aries

Filed under: Home Full Moon Post 3
New_Growth

Spring has arrived. It’s the Equinox—that pivotal moment in the year when daylight equals the dark, fulfilling the promise of Imbolc (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere). It’s time to break out and break through! All over my garden I see the signs. Hyacinths and daffodils are poking their heads above ground. Branches that have looked dead for months now sprout with new life. The birds are getting busier.

After its silent winter metamorphosis, my garden has begun its journey of discovery, finding out just how lush and beautiful it can become. According to the laws of natural magic, it’s the same for humans too. Who are you? What are you here to do?  These are Spring’s essential questions. But we’re not meant to answer them immediately. Action is more relevant than figuring things out. A simple Equinox ritual? Leap! Or lie on the ground and join the great stirring.

Asking questions invites new action. Social scientists have discovered that questions awaken our creativity, while judgments shut us down. In the days ahead, let yourself wonder about your future.  Wonder “What wonderful thing will I accomplish?” or “How will I solve this dilemma?” Let the silence that follows these questions dissolve winter’s cobwebs—any lingering boredom, dissatisfaction, pointless anger, self-doubt. or the the self-image that no longer fits. Be willing to be surprised at the sensation of “possibility” awakening in your cells.

Another good strategy as you enter this season is to keep your focus off of what you don’t want—and on to what you do. Spring is the season for beginnings. Your future is being created by your attention now. If you’re focused on irritations or lack, you will get more of the same. If you fill your heart with joyful feelings and your mind with delightful images, your momentum towards a brighter future will build. The tulip shooting up from the ground doesn’t think, “I’m tired of winter.” It thinks, “I want to be a luscious bloom.” When you do likewise this cycle, a resplendent future will start speeding your way.

                                                If you bring forth what is within you,
What you bring forth will save you.

                                               If you do not bring forth what is within you,
What you do not bring forth will destroy you.

                                                 –The Gospel of Thomas, Verse 70


read the full article »»