Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! Happy Hanukkah 🕎, Happy Solstice! Happy Kwanza! Happy Festivus! It’s that sacred time of the year when we all share our love for traditions or forge new ones. Some of us are in the Southern Hemisphere and some in the Northern Hemisphere and our weather patterns are all different!

I’ve often mused at the juxtaposition of the Christmas stories in the desert with camel and baby Jesus in the manger. Mary and Joseph with thick views of the Middle Eastern camel 🐪, exotic nights, and the dark spread of sky canopy unveiling the stars. This strongly contrasts with the snowy scenes of Santa lore, flying reindeer against a cloudy dark backdrop of loaded, dense clouds, clad thickly suspended sky. Fireplaces ablaze everywhere.

Here in S. California near the desert we’ve been enjoying very chilly weather for weeks! We had snow just a week or so ago up in the nearby mountains! Now it’s warming up just in time for Christmas Day. Feliz Navidad! I have a long-time friend who has moved to Mexico and sharing all her new sights. Another friend who also moved there recently. Friends in the Midwest and Northeast are facing all different blizzard-like temperatures/conditions. Friends in New Zealand and Australia are enjoying the warm weather and luscious flowers: pansies, violas, hellebore and calendula! My apologies for I know I left many people out. Variety is more than the spice of life-it is the example of life!

We live in a global village.

If you find yourself in delicate repose sleeping more regularly and eating more mightily, you are simply responding to the sensibility of the winter season! If you are in bloom in the Southern hemisphere: same!

I remember the elegant crystal winter mornings I awoke to on the East coast contrasting so sparklingly with the austerity of the night winter wind against the bone of the trees: oh, the drama, the beauty. There was the sound of the crackling ice melting so quickly from the morning sun, and the concern for tree limbs falling. There was brisk, fresh hope and steaming breath!

Now I am cozy here in S. California in a whole new way. I get to enjoy the surprise of weather and the uniqueness of cuisine. This year homemade hot tamales found their ways into our bellies. Santa paid a visit at preschool and we enriched our lives with our annual visit to the internal cottages where we saw the Princess of the Philippines.

With a string of planets like garland in Capricorn: Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus, and Pluto, I am eagerly awaiting the planets all to rise on the horizon of my ascendant! For now they are sleepy 12th house dwellers, hiding magic for me in unexpected places.

In March of 2023, Pluto will *finally* shift into Aquarius and sweep in and out of Aquarius until settling there in September 2024 for its long ride until 2043-44. For this next stretch of transit, there’s plenty to be anticipating! I remember way back when I was a younger astrologer and watching Pluto move into Capricorn, anticipating it beforehand and watching its magic unfold. It was a lot like I expected it to be, but maybe even more dramatic than I expected at the time. Financially it was quite a mess for those structures which popped or crashed (insert your favorite destruction metaphor) then came back and washed up again (housing and stock market). So here we are, on the brink of the next epoch. I truly believe it will be beyond belief! I truly believe it matters what we focus on and bring out the best available rather than predicting the calamity that too many do. It’s a waste of time to predict calamity in my opinion.

For now, enjoy your festivities and enjoy this major transition for the first quarter of 2023 is sure to be part of it. Aquarius likes us to ask “What sets you free?”

If you would like to have an astrological consultation with me, feel free to reach out, I’m happy to help you make the best of your energies in the New Year! We are all in this together, in our global village and there so many different perspectives! If you do seek out someone to help you, make sure they care about you.

Be well, be healthy, and find your joy in every moment…!

♥️

Off to brunch and the tide pools! The New Moon has revealed a low tide!

Hello Folks!

I wanted to re-blog my older post in honor of the 29th degree of Aquarius, during our upcoming New Moon on February 18. It “took place” at the same degree as Venus Conjunct Neptune (@ Aquarius 29) in 2011 (03-25-11, date of my orig. post). I am wrapping up some themes here in my life as we embrace this “Nth” degrees of these signs (Next month Pisces 29). I’m happy to say that this is the second post I’ve written here at Fiesta Estrella, and I really wouldn’t change too much. I’d also like to dedicate this post to your celebrations of Valentine’s Day &/or MahaShivaratri ❤ (in our case) The marriage of Shiva & Shakti, with my sweetheart. We’ve had a wonderful journey, and I’m happy to see how far this blog has come, as have I. [I took 2012 off completely as part of my own transformation.] I am so grateful for my readers and commenters who have just shown how AWESOME they are on their own blogs – and who have taken the time to comment, engage, celebrate, and just Be with me here. I Love you All. ~Ka Malana
Wishing for you all kinds of Lovin’ this New Moon in Aquarius! LOVE-EQUALITY

**From personal to impersonal, we make the leap to transpersonal**

When are Ideas about Love Ideals and not entirely realistic?

I was discussing with a friend the ideals we have about love and relationships and how, over time, our ideals have both informed and misinformed us about true relating in our relationships. It’s occurred to me a good reason that he and I are having this conversation is because of this transit. I’d like to examine this aspect here in my blog today: Neptune conjunct Venus

A conjunction is an astrological aspect described as two planets or cosmic bodies co-existing side-by-side in an astrological chart. The planetary energies fuse together, combining archetypes. Two archetypes are at play in the sign of Aquarius (detachment, and humanistic /impersonal love). The archetypes are Neptune: the submerged, sea-god Poseidon, who represents sacrifice and transcendence; and, Venus: representing Eros, personal love, and relationships.

Being a lover of love, it’s easy for me to allow myself to be very conscious of this topic. I have no problem addressing where my expectations in my intimate and love relationships have developed and where they play out. But this was not always the case.

Step #1 is the realization of the dream-idea, taking a step back from my deepest yearnings and realizing what is factual, and what is actual. The “taking-a-step-back” has been wholly a result of experience. At this point, I have more notches on my lipstick case than I’d like to make record. Everyone has a different approach to this, and for me, abundance in love was not a quest—it’s been more like the result of processing through a strong ideal, and then living out the reality. Thereby, I’ve only had to give up what was necessary, as a part of my experience. That which was unreal, truly just fell away.

The planet Neptune will always bring up the question of what is possible. It’s the spiritual aspect of love. Neptune is a higher octave of Venus. I recommend you take a step back from your current dream and just take a look at your historical relationship record: (Venus conjunct Neptune in trine aspect to South Node). The South Node indicates our past, sometimes this life, sometimes beyond. I recommend you do this because of what is to come.

Love that is to come: April 4 and beyond

The reason why Neptune’s movement into Pisces is so spectacular is because its theme will last until 2025. Get used to the fogginess. There is an obvious “foggy” affect that is making you feel like you are swimming through some unified field of a greater matrix that your brain cannot comprehend—in fact, you are not exactly “seeing” but experiencing this unity-consciousness on a bodily level. Venus is the ruler of the sign Taurus: all things that are sensory, tangible, and experiential. Take this BIG LOVE LOOK because Neptune is switching out of Aquarius (impersonal, human, individual love) and moving into Pisces which is the sign that it rules: imagination, spirituality, transcendence, confusion, and possibly deception. Don’t worry, deception is always a result of misinforming the self. Get honest with yourself and you have less outside of you that can strike you with deception. Neptune was in Aquarius since 1998. This brings up a lot of questions for people about the Age of Aquarius, but I’m sorry that is too complicated to get into in this blog on Neptune and Venus, and Neptune in Pisces. I’ll say this, we didn’t start doubting science on a collective level as “all there is” until this transit. Also, we who love science very passionately, were secretively exploring other “less science-y” things—in the closet.

April 4: A dip into Pisces, and then swimming back to Aquarius

On April 4^th, Neptune will hang out in Pisces, starting here, and then will exit back into Aquarius in August 2011, as a part of its retrograde cycle, only to return to Pisces on February 2012, and stay until 2025. Yes, this is a long time. Neptune is giving us a clue about this transformation because it is conjunct-ing Venus at the last degree of Aquarius. I always pay special attention to “goodbyes” and “hellos;” what surrounds these transitional moments are hints. I know this because in 2012 Saturn is going to be in Scorpio, the opposite sign of Taurus. Our relationships and how we share (our money and energy) is up for review. You thought already that it was being reviewed because of our crashing world economy, but that’s the macro speaking to the micro. Get ready to look more closely at how the details play out on a personal level.

Transpersonal Questions

Last time Neptune was in Pisces was in the 1840s: consider the California gold rush and Spiritualism. Do you think these things could re-emerge? Is there a dream land where there’s metaphorical gold, and if so, is it in this world? If there are other dimensions, can we communicate and traverse these dimensions, by communicating with beings on another plane of existence? Do we even care what reality is… if we find a way to make use of the unclear messages and obscure wisdom emerging from “nowhere”? More people will be intrigued with these questions, and the progressive, high-science-minded may even follow suit. Notions of Past/Present/Future may seem more like arbitrary descriptions of time rather than clear, concise representations of time. Of course, we will always conduct our experiments and seek proof (thankfully)—but I have a feeling that our experiments will start looking wackier.

In Summary:

‘Reality’ is something that is becoming more and more spiritualized, as we personally re-emerge with the source of our individual lives, and shape our reality consciously. We will use our new sense of reality to evaluate our relationships, and many of us will set forth on the journey to making those dreams reality, as we believe we can truly cultivate this dream in relationship to one another. As long as we are clear with ourselves about what we deem to be real and not-so-real, we are good to go anywhere. Be aware of the danger of dishonesty and you are golden. The “new” golden age may look like a dark age, but it depends on your internal GPS. Have fun with this plot as it unfolds (Neptune was in Sagittarius at my birth) so I’ll also recommend having fun when things get weird and unexplainable. Maybe that’s just my generational coping-mechanism, but it is meant to help you swim through your life with joy—as I, without a doubt, intend to trust my life without the expectation that it unfold in a certain and particular way.

This should have been posted earlier today but it was more important to me to support my friend while she played piano, and be graced by her beauty in all her ways.

Love is always~

3/25/11

Adding Song for the occasion: