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Fire! How I Spent my Mars Retrograde Station

By Dana Gerhardt

 

Mars turned retrograde on September 9.  During its powerful station the day before, a wildfire devastated my Oregon hometown of Talent.  I’m so fortunate my home survived.

The Almeda Fire raced from the highway into my town—down my very street. It came within 200 feet of my house! Thanks to the gods, the firefighters and the asphalt of Talent Avenue—the cross street one door down from me—they managed to turn the blaze away and steer it north, where tragically, it destroyed more than 600 homes. I have friends who lost everything.

Had the fire crossed to my side of Talent Avenue, it would have taken out the whole town.  It’s such random luck to have bought my home on the west side—where now everything is just as it was the day before the fire—while on the east side, it’s nothing but ash and debris all the way to downtown.

Wildfires are an easy prediction for Mars retrogrades, especially when he’s in his home sign of fiery Aries. But is this actually useful to know? Mars goes retrograde every two years and most of the time, just like now, the majority of the world is fire-free.

I like to use astrology to read archetypes instead of making predictions. Archetypes are alive, like the deities the first astrologers worked with.  Not just sky objects revolving on some mechanical wheel producing the same events again and again, they have agency. They’re creative. They write a slightly different script each time. Whatever occurs during significant transits is a message–an omen–a warning.  It’s our job to read these signs–if we want to remain in a harmonious world.

To properly interpret mundane events, always look for confirmation of which god is speaking. If the Almeda fire is a Mars-driven omen, we should expect to see the people, qualities and things he rules involved in the story.  Fire, heat, explosions are Mars; war zones, Mars; fire fighters, sheriff & police, air tanker pilots, emergency crews, all Mars; what’s wild and destructive, Mars; arsonists (so far at least one was arrested here), Mars.

Mars is a warrior. At his noblest, he’s destructive with purpose, serving the great organizer of civilization, the solar king. In Aries, Mars is also a trailblazer, a pathfinder. He takes point and identifies the smartest roads to our future.

The wind was crazy in my valley that night—the kind of wind that climate scientists have been predicting for years if we didn’t reverse our course. Wild weather is here. What’s the message? I think Mars is telling us that we’re running out of options. If we don’t work to save this planet like our lives depend on it—and of course they do—this is our destiny:  a future of climate calamities around the world–wild floods, hurricanes, super storms, and of course, more fires.

How I spent evacuation night

My boxer Sophia and I sheltered in my car.  Hotels were booked for 200 miles.  I had to move four times as evacuation zones kept shifting.  Earlier, in the late afternoon, I was heading to the post office when I saw the taillights of two long lines of cars, all going one way. I turned around. Down my street a police vehicle was broadcasting “All residents must evacuate!”

I grabbed my two computers and my iPad, some dog food, a jar of macadamia nuts, water, and my bathrobe.  I’m neither daring nor adventurous (I have no Aries planets), but it just wasn’t in me to get stuck in what felt like a desperate, slow-moving herd.  Instead I drove to the grocery store a mile away, closed because the power was out.

A quarter of the lot was full with others like myself. I decided I had enough time for Sophia and I to walk back home (they would have stopped my car), so I did that and got a few more things—3 books, a protective necklace, my phone charger, some vitamins, my yoga mat and props, something to sleep in, along with some underwear and socks.  As I looked around the house, nothing else seemed important.

I became friends with the couple who live in the artsy house next to the grocery store. They let me use their bathroom. We watched as a mile away—near my street—thick black smoke started billowing in our direction.  A cop drove by and said, “You’ll want to be leaving soon.”  The wind kept blowing. There was a constant sound of pops and explosions; we figured, propane tanks and cars blowing up.  There was a bright crackling sound too; likely, trees.

My new friends and I agreed we’d leave at the first sight of flames. A helicopter started making bucket drops on Talent Avenue. Air tankers began dropping their bright-pink flame retardant (that was a beautiful sight). Above one side of the road there was a line of raging black clouds—and above the other, my side, clear blue sky, not a wisp of smoke.

Then we saw the flames coming into the center of town. I headed out, met a cop who told me to go to the Expo in Central Point. The herd of slow-moving cars was long gone. I drove solo through the thick smoke. There were flames on either side of the highway. Familiar buildings were already in rubble; they looked like the burning ships on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

Nearing the Expo I again saw the taillights of slow-moving cars. Astrologers typically advise to move more intuitively during retrogrades. That’s because the outer world is in chaos—logic can’t help you there.  Intuition told me to park at the 24-hour truck stop; it had bathrooms, a grocery store, even a Subway sandwich shop. I felt like I was at the Ritz.

Later I learned the Expo had no facilities or services that night.  It was just a parking lot which was soon filled to capacity and therefore closed, even as police kept sending people there.  Apparently there were no other official emergency plans.  Astrologers advise against launching important projects during Mars retrograde because action is often confused and ineffective. That night–and in the days following–there was a lot of that.

As grateful as our community is to the firefighters, the municipal teams (the local governments & agencies, sheriff & police departments) fell short in a thousand ways.   Like–every month an Emergency Alert System interrupts my cable programming for a mandatory test; every 3 months or so, it tells me about a thunderstorm 50 miles away.  But that night–and in the days following, when more fires and new evacuation zones were declared–not a peep.

I enjoyed the all-night truck stop–my Ritz–for a couple hours. Suddenly the manager locked down the pumps and closed the station. We were now in an evacuation zone. Even the once-lucky travelers with rooms in the fully booked hotel behind the truck stop had to leave.  I had no choice but to join a long line of cars, going who knows where.  I pulled off to spend a not entirely comfortable hour in another parking lot, where I figured out how to surreptitiously pee in a jar. After midnight, I had the intuition to get moving again.

The freeway going south was now open but deserted.  I headed toward some familiar spaces in Medford when I saw the breathtaking sight of my neighboring town of Phoenix. It was completely dark as tall mountains of flames paraded from one end of town to the other.

I found a safe landing spot at a Medford Motel 6, in front of a beautifully lit pool and garden that looked like vintage 60’s.  There was grass for Sophia to pee in.  I was glad I brought my cozy robe. Out my window, even through the smoke, I watched such a sky show that night:  first Jupiter, then the warrior himself, Mars; at the truck stop, a bright orange disseminating moon, rising,  in the early morning, it was Venus.  They were so comforting; it felt like the gang was watching over me.

I’ve never been good in emergencies. If it wasn’t for my meditation practice, I would have been a blithering idiot.  I watched a documentary once about Allan Lokos, a meditation teacher who survived a plane crash in Myanmar.  He recounted how, surrounded by smoke and ferocious flames, he and his wife never panicked.  The calm inner mind you meet while sitting on a cushion–that mind took over.  With unusual clarity they were able to chart a path through the flames and jump from the plane.

It was a little like that for me too.  So calm. Not once did I worry and wonder if my house had burned down. I wasn’t making plans. Or thinking about what I’d have to replace.  I was in the moment.  It was a strangely spectacular night. That morning the Sanskrit word I randomly picked was marut:  It means lightning and thunderbolts, roaring like lions; the flashing ones; storm gods; the children of heaven armed with golden weapons; wind, air, breath. *  The force of Marut had swept into my valley with Mars.

In the morning my plan to pee at the nearby Walmart or Starbucks was foiled.  Both were in a level 2 evacuation zone (I later learned, as this wasn’t posted anywhere), but it meant that nothing was open. I watched dozens of people sadly circle these stores and leave. My good spirits began to crumble. The day was going to be hot. I couldn’t drive around with Sophia forever. Intuition kept repeating the name of a friend in Medford–whose number I’d forgotten I had in my phone (me who prefers email and rarely calls or texts anyone). Generously MJ rescued me.  As did so many others, all over the valley, who were opening their homes to fire refugees.

While the official people failed us at many turns, average citizens, through social media and other means became the heroes. They snuck into the fire zones and took videos of the streets, so that people could see whether or not their house survived (that’s how I learned my home was safe).  They created go-fund-me pages, organized donation centers, and handed out food; neighbor helping neighbor.  As heart-breaking as the loss and devastation are, the outpouring of support has been so heart-fueling. It’s an affirmation that love is real and people are  basically good.

If only we can muster that same love to save our collective home, this blue jewel of a planet. May we find the marut inside to turn back climate change.  Mars is rooting for us.  “Wake up,” he says, “wake up!”

Coda: Marking how intuition speaks

The night before the fire, the Eastern winds were wilder than anything I’d ever known in 20 years in Southern Oregon. Thinking back to the Santa Ana winds of my California childhood, that morning  at the dog park I told my friend Bill (without any sense of premonition), “It just feels dangerous today—like the kind of day when a fire could take down a whole neighborhood.” A week earlier, in the hall going to my bedroom, I had a brief sense of catastrophe—I saw emergency vehicles in the park behind my house. Maybe a future earthquake, I thought.

That’s how intuition speaks to me—not with clarity and precision, as in, “On Tuesday September 8 a wildfire will come up your street.” That would not be useful to me. What would I do with this info? Check my homeowners policy? Pack a go bag? Inform the authorities? We all know how things went for Cassandra.

As it is with many people, my intuition is softer and more mysterious, also more loving. I can see now that (along with the random Sanskrit word marut), she was gently conditioning my psyche, emotionally rehearsing me without alarming me, so that when it all went down—me being a mostly deer-in-the-headlights type–I could show up more quickly.

I often tell my clients to study the patterns of their own intuition.  Like mine, yours reveals herself to you continually. She is a friend who is always near, if the crowded mind can just get silent (this is of course the primary benefit of meditation).  Intuition affirms that we’re not alone in this life. There are always angels whispering in our ears if we but listen.

 

* From the wonderful Lorin Roche’s The Radiance Sutras, p. 182.

Filed under: Chart Play Tutorials, Home New Moon Featured Article, Uncategorized

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.

Comments

  1. Edye says

    Oct 1, 2020 at 2:38 pm

    Thank you, Dana~It is all so very surreal~I so appreciate your open and candid sharing of your horrific experience~blessings to you this day and always~

    Reply
  2. Deborra Terlet says

    Sep 18, 2020 at 1:46 pm

    Dearest Dana, you have been on my mind continuously, and now I know why.

    What an ordeal you are enduring! Yet despite the horror around you, you have demonstrated determination and trust in the Great Calm that exists in the center of every storm, and inside of ourselves.

    Please know, I am offering my morning meditation practice to you, and to everyone affected by the wildfires. This practice has helped soothe my aching heart. To know that it will also send blessings to you and your friends & neighbors, makes it even more precious.

    May you and Sofia continue to stay well and safe.

    With love

    Reply
  3. Charmaine Lim says

    Sep 18, 2020 at 4:29 am

    So glad to hear you and Sophie are alright! And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom during the Mars retrograde. Your last post on going around our inner world was so inspiring. I was so looking forward to your recent one but in true retrograde fashion, didn’t see the fire story coming! Glad to hear your house made it out intact too. Sorry to hear about the town of Talent. Take good care

    Reply
  4. Starfire says

    Sep 17, 2020 at 3:08 pm

    Oh Dana! How terrifying. I am so glad you are okay, and your little fur baby.
    It is Beautiful that you were Blessed by the Gods and Goddesses present, That you had the ‘Sight’ of them. And followed the divine guidance within your own quiet Self/self.
    I am hoping ~ as do you, as do so many of us , That within that Recognition and Love, within that Sacred Beauty ~ as you most eloquently expressed:

    ” As heart-breaking as the loss and devastation are, the outpouring of support has been so heart-fueling. It’s an affirmation that love is real and people are basically good. If only we can muster that same love to save our collective home, this blue jewel of a planet. May we find the marut inside to turn back climate change. Mars is rooting for us. “Wake up,” he says, “wake up!”so deeply for that .”

    I Know This Can Be So. I am right there with you, The Healing Of This Holy Mother Earth ~ with these Gods/Goddeses who Dream This so, Who Are A Part Of Us, Who Know It.
    Let It Be So. Blessings ~ to the many so in need. Blessings, to us all.

    I just wish it did not need to be so hard, with so much suffering .
    There Is So Much Love! it just ~ does not have to be this pathway of pain and despair.
    stooooooopid

    Reply
  5. Terry says

    Sep 17, 2020 at 12:39 pm

    Thanks so much Dana for being able to share your harrowing journey in the moment and weave gifts of kindness, practicality, hope, heart’s guidance and intuition along the way….

    Reply
  6. G. W. says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 5:34 pm

    Dear Dana,
    Through the years of reading your articles, I have come to feel as if I actually know you.
    I am so relieved to know that you and Sophia are okay and that your home survived.
    Thank you for giving those of us on the East Coast such a breathtaking sense of the danger as well as the beauty of your experience.
    May you and Sophia continue to be well and safe, my friend.

    Reply
  7. Laura says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 11:32 am

    This has been my second wildfire.
    2017 Sonoma County fire
    2020 Southern Oregon
    I lived through the same
    experience…
    4AM both times…running, smoke, tanks blowing up,
    Lost a house…
    October 9 2017
    September 8,9,10….
    It continues
    My intuition saved me both times..
    By myself with my dog…
    Girls Rock Be Strong..

    Reply
  8. Kristy Bales says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 9:38 am

    Wow Dana! Your journey/story is amazing and heart warming – so glad to hear you, your pup and home are safe!

    Thank you for all your articles – especially this one – a great look at the living archetype of Mars.

    Reply
  9. Carol Rawson says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 9:33 am

    WOW!! What a harrowing, amazing tale. I am so happy you and your home are safe. We here on the east coast have seen stories but nothing that compares with your eyewitness account. I have a friend here who is from Central Point and many of her family are still there. They are all safe too. I have been increasing aware of the failures of our so-called safety net and you confirm yet another another glitch. I think you are so right: we are being forced to rely on our intuition. Thanks for sharing your experience and your insights.

    Reply
  10. Doris says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 4:31 am

    You are a courage woman and calm in the mists of a fire. I am happy for you. Doris

    Reply
  11. JP says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 4:10 am

    Your writing is reflects the inner focus you have and how well you trusted your intuition. This is a compelling story and helps me briefly share in your life and the difficulties you’ve experienced over the past few scary days. You are very brave and resilient. Much love from Maine- we are finally seeing haze in the skies here from the fires out West.

    Reply
  12. Sarah says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 3:18 am

    Thanks for sharing your experience. Being so far away from the fires it’s good to hear of a real live account and touching to hear that people are reaching out to help each other. I will keep spreading the word and encourage everyone to ‘wake up’ who’s ready to listen. Stay safe and so wonderful to hear your meditation practice has come into it’s fun glory. Blessings xxx

    Reply
  13. Lydia says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 3:12 am

    OMG – it sounds horrible. Reminding me on my childhood during the second world war in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. I was about 5 years old when I saw our house burnd down with my grandfather in it. Horrible memories.
    Glad to read that you and your dog surviewed and that your home is still there.
    I used to life in La Jolla long time ago, still have friends in Cal and Oregon and I feel with all of you during these fires every year. We all have to change our behaviors to keep this wonderful world alive.
    Lydia

    Reply
  14. Olga P says

    Sep 16, 2020 at 12:25 am

    I’m so happy you’re safe Dana. Stay strong!
    Thinking of you

    Reply
  15. Laura Duggan says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 10:30 pm

    Living through evacuations here in California, your writing of your experience touched a familiar chord. thank you for sharing your experience so generously, and may we all find a way to heal ourselves and the planet. Take care

    Reply
  16. Kimberly Dante says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 6:35 pm

    Thank Goddess you are well and Sophie is well and your home. So much love from Michigan is being sent to you,

    Reply
  17. Karen Baddley says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    Beautifully written. Familiar circumstances here in Northern California

    Best Wishes!

    Reply
  18. meg says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 3:15 pm

    Oh my, Dana, I am grateful to see you here. I sent a private note, not expecting a reply but rather simply a message of care & concern. I concluded on my morning walk today, that you were indeed alive. Harried no doubt but alive and functioning. Thank you for telling your story. Thank you for being here among us!

    Reply
  19. Libby says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 3:12 pm

    Dana! I too am so glad you, Sophia, and your house are alright!! You have a very special point of view and insight that I take sustainence from. Thank you for sharing and doing all that you do.

    Reply
  20. TwoBull says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 3:05 pm

    I am so glad to read that you are all right and also glad to read about the gestures of kindness and support you received. Sometimes these horrific situations also bring out the very best in humans. I live in N Cal and have been watching the Woodward fire with trepidation. It’s an area I know very well as I’ve been volunteering there, at Point Reyes, for many years. Even now trees are still crashing and will probably continue to do so until we have rains and everything can be extinguished. More than 500 firefighters worked on it and due to their efforts there was no loss of human life or property. The landscape will recover in time as it always does. The western coast is taking a bashing. I wish you well in adjusting and recovering from your experience.

    Reply
  21. LESLIE KIRBY says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 2:03 pm

    Awesome writing I’m so glad you’re safe indeed! It pays to have dialogue with the Gods. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
  22. Blaine says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 1:39 pm

    So glad you are safe Dana. And that others came to your rescue.

    Reply
  23. Susanne McDonough says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 1:26 pm

    Dear Dana, It was somehow heart-warming and inspiring, despite the harrowing-nature of your experience, reading the description of your moments on 9/8 & 9. I am inspired by your grace in meeting the challenges and trust in the process, moving through moments that eventually lead to finding some semblance of safety and comfort with your friend. I am happy for you. I live in Ashland, OR and have been attracted to your writings and the “who” I interpret you to be from day one of discovering them. In gratitude for the truth I hear and feel in your words, Susanne

    Reply
  24. lelia saunders says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 1:17 pm

    Blessed are you to still have your home. I woke up just before the flames hit my Paradise, Ca. house on Nov. 8, 2018, ran out with purse & PC. Awful experience.
    Was in hotels for 3 months until I found a new home in Loveland, Co. We are all in this together.
    Stand strong, as you always have been.

    Reply
    • Dana Gerhardt says

      Sep 15, 2020 at 3:39 pm

      Bless you, Lelia … we’re in a strange club, aren’t we. I’m so sorry for what you went through.

      Reply
    • Tricia says

      Sep 15, 2020 at 5:04 pm

      I have a friend who lost everything in Paradise, only to move to Oregon and was close to having to evacuate. Luckily she didn’t but I know others who lost homes near Talent and in other parts.

      Much of what you described, Dana, sounds like the Thomas Fire in Ventura. Some people had minutes to get out, no warnings. When the warning finally came, I was fortunate to be located in a place to have some time. I still ended up getting stuck in grid-locked traffic for 2 hours with 5 cats And nowhere to go.

      Thankfully, the first responders were able to stop the fire before getting to my home and a friend in CT booked a hotel for me about 30 miles away.

      We recently had a scare about a block away, I could hear the crackling you described before stepping foot out of my house.

      I wasn’t very calm the first time and definitely was triggered this last time. Thank you for what you shared. If I ever have to face this again, I’ll work I’m staying in the moment.

      Reply
      • Dana Gerhardt says

        Sep 15, 2020 at 5:14 pm

        I can relate, I can relate …

        Reply
  25. Amy says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 1:09 pm

    Glad you’re safe Dana, and you’ve got a place to go back to <3

    Reply
  26. Renell Hardtmayer says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    Hi Dana..what breath taking account of an almost hell on earth, Dante’s Inferno event in your life If anyone knows about intuition and grace it is you. So relieved you made it out with Sophie to write this. Now I hope the state of California gets on board with following department of forestry guidelines for managing your glorious state. My heart breaks for the loss of habitat for wildlife too.

    Reply
    • Dana Gerhardt says

      Sep 15, 2020 at 3:46 pm

      Thanks, Renell … it’s interesting, the states don’t actually manage the forests, the federal government does. Eighty percent of the forest in California is on federal property. I hope the feds get the message!

      Reply
  27. Mandianne says

    Sep 15, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    I’m so sorry but so glad you, and Sophia, are okay. And that you have the presence of mind, body and spirit to share your insights with us.

    Reply
  28. Anne says

    Sep 14, 2020 at 10:46 pm

    I’m so glad you’re alright, your house made it. I’m so sorry for Talent, though, your town, your community. I hope Pluto’s role in all this will rebuild something better. Mars burned so much down, but Pluto just might anoint all it touches with more than the current choking dust, but instead introduce a dust of sparkling change, the good kind. I wish for you the very, very best, Dana! (Pluto is doing some interesting stuff I notice in your chart…) God, I was so glad to hear you came out OK. I’d been watching your street all week and I saw the fire’s edge across from you, and I hoped, HOPED, the map was correct. Thanks for letting us know you’re OK – and the details, I loved!

    Reply

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m  Conjunction:  Like peas in a pod, planets in conjunction tend to come from the same place. They act together, but it’s also hard to tell them apart. This aspect can increase talent, focus, and intensity (“two are better than one”). Or one planet can disappear as the other dominates. Their connection feels so natural, it’s easy to think everyone blends these planetary energies just as you do—but mostly, they don’t!.

p  Sextile:  Planets in sextile are compatible, though without any fireworks. This aspect doesn’t demand your attention. It quietly presents an opportunity. You can join these archetypal forces. Donna Cunningham has called this the “Oh, that!” aspect, because that’s generally what her clients say when she describes their benefits.  To get the most from sextiles you need to actively work them.

q  Square:  Squares are wild and wonderful—but difficult too. The power struggle between these planets was likely defined in your youth, when they were impossibly challenging. People are usually aware of their squares. They force the issues that make you to grow. And that’s their gift. They ensure you learn your lessons. When you rise to the occasion, they bless you with energy, action, and success.

r  Trine:  Michael Munkasey has dubbed this the “goddess aspect” because it’s so lovely. Identifying talents you may have perfected in a previous life, trines can bring you joy. There’s a nice flow of energy between planets in trine. They support and reinforce each another. But without any struggle, you might take them for granted—neither using nor developing their gifts. An unattended trine can sometimes trick you into negative behaviors.

t  Inconjunct/Quincunx:  Your quincunx planets are innately incompatible. Bringing them into harmonious expression requires constant adjustments. This can be stressful, also motivating. You’ve got to keep changing your process, opinions or attitude—which promotes highly creative solutions.

u  Opposition:  They say opposites attract—and planets in opposition are never far from each other, though they’re constantly bickering. You may be triggered into awareness of this aspect by other people who seem to resist or undermine you.  An opposition can make you feel uncertain, insecure, or discontent, until you can accept and see yourself in both energies. Typically people find it easier to identify with one side and project the other onto unsuspecting others in the outer world.

First House: Personality, physical body, beginnings. Includes the Ascendant and rules physical appearance, the image you project to others, your general outlook on life, how you start things; may describe your role in your family system, often guides your first impression of immediate environment.

Second House: Money and personal finances, sense of self-worth and basic values, personal possessions, talents.

Third House: Communication, thoughts, language skills like writing and speaking, early schooling, siblings and neighbors, short trips, coming and going around town.

Fourth House: Your home, psychological foundations and roots, family, parents, domestic life, instinctive behavior, ancestry, your connection with the past, sense of security, domestic life, real estate. conditions at the end of life.

Fifth House: Children, creativity, romance; pleasure, entertainment, self-expression; all forms of “play”, speculation, gambling, and attitude towards taking risks; hobbies, attitude towards romance, lovers as opposed to partners, attitude towards having fun.

Sixth House: Work and job (as opposed to career), daily life, attitude towards service and coworkers, helpfulness, pets, attitude towards routine and organization, how you refine and perfect your skills.

Seventh House: Partnerships, one-to-one relationships, marriage, the first marriage, the “significant other”, business partnerships, competitors, open enemies, lawyers, mediators, counselors, contracts, negotiations, agreements. clients/the public.

Eighth House: Transformations and crisis, your ability to meet and rebound from crisis and change, sexuality; sex, death and rebirth, rituals and personal growth, your partner’s resources, addictions, psychology, other people’s money, taxes, divorce/alimony, inheritance.

Ninth House: Attitude toward expanding horizons, religious beliefs and personal philosophy, higher education, long-distance travel, morals, foreign languages and cultures, personal truths, publishing, commerce, advertising, your sense of adventure.

Tenth House: Career and profession, your contribution to society, social status, public reputation, material success, how you carve out a public identity for yourself; attitude toward authority figures, parents, caregivers, bosses, governments, attitude towards responsibility, desire for achievement.

Eleventh House: Friends, groups, organizations; hopes, wishes, aspirations, personal goals; your philanthropic attitude, concern for the collective, humanity; like tenth, can bring recognition and honors for fulfilling hopes and dreams.

Twelfth House: What’s hidden beneath the surface, karmic dustbin, limiting childhood/past-life messages, self-undoing, hidden enemies, hidden weaknesses, dreams, secret affairs, lost items, hospitals and prisons, hidden strengths, spiritual studies and soul growth.

A  Sun: Our vitality and magnetism; self-identity, ego.
Roles: The Self, the Hero, the Performer, the King.

B  Moon: Intuition, emotion, nurture.
Roles: The Mother, the High Priestess, the Child.

C  Mercury: Mind; physical dexterity and mental agility.
Roles: The Thinker, the Communicator, the Student, the Trickster, the Merchant, the Thief.

D  Venus: Our capacity for pleasure, receptivity, creativity, and social connection. Also indicates our relationships, self esteem, and financial abundance.
Roles: The Lover, the Seductress, the Artist.

E  Mars: Desire, initiative, anger.
Roles: The Protector, the Athlete, the Warrior.

F  Jupiter: Luck, opportunity, expansion, higher learning, religion.
Roles: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Traveler, the Monk, the Professor.

G  Saturn: Hard work, commitment, focus, inadequacy, leadership, suffering, loss.
Roles: The Task Master, the Grim Reaper, the Wise Old Man, the Builder, the Cynic, the Boss.

H  Uranus: Change, breakthroughs, upsets, discoveries.
Roles: The Revolutionary, the Humanitarian, the Visionary, the Snob.

I  Neptune: Imagination, spirituality, idealism, addictions, deception, compassion.
Roles: The Artist, the Romantic, the Guru, the Addict, the Martyr, the Victim.

J  Pluto: Transformation, power, psychological dynamics, helplessness.
Roles: The Terrorist, the Detective, the Psychotherapist, the Dictator, shady people.

a  Aries: Pioneering, competitive, selfish, impatient, courageous, reckless, independent, dynamic, domineering, “Me first!”

b  Taurus: Patient, stable, lazy, dependable, practical, sensual, stubborn, artistic, possessive, greedy, gentle, loyal.

c  Gemini: Intelligent, curious, adaptable, quick-witted, restless, clever, scatterbrained, lacking follow-through.

d  Cancer: Nourishing, intuitive, protective, moody, sensitive, maternal, domestic, childish, cautious, creative.

e  Leo: Proud, dignified, vain, expressive, romantic, generous, childish, overbearing, self-assured, creative.

f  Virgo: Perfection-seeking, practical, methodical, petty, critical, studious, discriminating, cautious, never satisfied.

g  Libra: Charming, sociable, peace-loving, refined, diplomatic, artistic, indecisive, apathetic, easily deterred.

h  Scorpio: Passionate, secretive, penetrating, resourceful, suspicious, manipulative, jealous, sarcastic, intolerant, determined, aware.

i  Sagittarius: Freedom-loving, philosophical, optimistic, enthusiastic, careless, impatient, talkative, a know-it-all, broadminded, athletic, honest.

j  Capricorn: Serious, responsible, practical, hardworking, stubborn, brooding, inhibited, status-conscious, domineering, unforgiving.

k  Aquarius: Progressive, individualistic, unpredictable, cold, intellectual, artistic, eccentric, shy, impersonal, scientific.

l  Pisces: Compassionate, intuitive, ungrounded, romantic, impractical, self-sacrificing, seductive, musical, artistic.