By Genevieve Hathaway
Aries Moon — This coming month is a good time to ask the questions: Are you emotionally healthy? What does emotional wellbeing look (or feel) like for you? I’m not talking strictly about balanced feelings, but more that which you do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to ground your emotions and keep your intense, passionate emotional energy pushing out into the world in a positive, productive manner. Part of your unconscious habits, what you do without really thinking about it, is to shape your world your way. As a born initiator it’s important to come from a place where all that inner fire is harnessed. That is, for you, emotional well being. When considering your emotional health I propose you look closely at how you spend your time and note how you feel. A component of this is expressing your inner intensity and passion through your most loved activities — physical exercise and sex. Your environment also plays a factor: get enough rest, eat well and drink plenty of water so you don’t burn out. Notice how you feel after you eat different kinds of food, especially carbs, processed food, sugar, caffeine and alcohol. As you proceed this month, tone down your brash, devil-be-damned approach to life for a bit and use Virgonian precision, attention to detail, astute observation and analysis. Test, observe, connect the dots between what you do and how you feel, and then make lasting changes to your structures, approaches and routines. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Taurus Moon — For you, February is about pleasure. I don’t just mean having a good time at a baseball game, but rather the kind of joy that resonates deep in your soul and with your higher self. This can be through a certain aspect of your work or work you would like to do, hobbies, or even activities you are curious about but have yet to label where they fit in your life. As the weeks progress you will be asked to reevaluate what gives you soul-satisfying pleasure. Part of becoming clear about which nourish you is the understanding that nourishment and pleasure are indeed important and have value. When that is true, you’ll build an emotional attachment and invest your emotional energy through thinking about it, talking about it, planning for it and doing it. Right now you may feel an expansive, seemingly endless amount of emotional energy to give to all aspects of your life, but in truth it is finite. You only have so much of yourself to give, only so much of an inner well to tap. So allocate your resources and energy wisely. Once you notice what gives you the most fulfilling and rewarding experience, prioritize that in your life. It’s about quality over quantity. So do less, and pour more of yourself and your time into that which has the highest value to you and gives you the most pleasure. Restructure where you put your energy and emotional attachment around that which energizes you, inspires you, lifts you up and helps you give back to the world. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Gemini Moon — Family patterns and themes often shape us for much of our lives, though this is particularly true for you now. These patterns, themes and emotional processes are deeply ingrained in our subconscious — so deep we often miss them. It’s like tightly woven threads that comprise a piece of string. Far away it looks like one seamless cord, but upon close inspection you realize it’s really a bunch of threads strung so tight they seem to be one thing. For the next few months you have a unique opportunity to make headway in separating those threads that are your parents’, grandparents’ and ancestors’ emotional processes from those that are distinctly yours. Mars retrograde is about understanding the details of your emotional composition. Chiron in Pisces provides you with a fine laser to do the delicate work of separating your family’s material, passed down through the generations, from your emotional patterns. Insight and realization will be coming down your psychic pipeline regarding these themes and how they affected you growing up — and now they influence you today, when you can do something about any unhealthy patterns and habits you discover. Some of these stretch back generations. They can stop with you; you can heal this ancestral material and move forward liberated from it. This is precision work, calling for focus and attention and most significantly the willingness to go deep. You may not be able to focus on one thing at a time, but soon you’ll discover how seemingly unrelated experiences are part of the same thing. –– by Genevieve Hathaway
Cancer Moon — Children often have a hard time consciously recognizing or processing the impact their parents have on their emotional health. Adults are no different, with respect to the influences of their own parents. It can be hard to connect the dots between how our parents treated us and our current relationship to our own needs and desires. I would recommend starting with your father’s psychological legacy. What was your father’s psychological and emotional state when you were growing up? As an adult? Then, it follows — how did that affect you? When considering your father’s psychological state it’s helpful to consider the impact his mother and grandmother had on him. The key is to proceed from an open place of almost brutal honesty with yourself, separate from blame, guilt, shame, anger. Those emotions may arise. If there’s guilt or anger or you feel like blaming — that’s a clue you’re onto something and to sink into those feelings until you come out on the other side. You’ll learn something important. The Moon is all about needs and often our father’s viewpoints, themes and unhealed issues affect how we view our needs and our approach to getting them met. There is work here to be done, but it’s work that is worth doing. Once you are clear on your needs, then you can share them clearly with others, and make progress in building healthy relationships and setting healthy boundaries. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Leo Moon — A positive self-concept is crucial to feeling emotionally strong and secure. This month, you are getting real, tangible traction in reinventing your self-esteem, your values, your self-concept into healthier, more solid renditions. Or put it another way, if you have at times had a less than positive self-concept, you can make headway in clearing any old hang-ups in order to move forward consistently feeling good about yourself. A mirror of sorts is being held up, letting you see what is so close you can only become aware of it through its reflection. Many of these issues arising will be around abuse patterns and ‘daddy pleasing’ tendencies left over from childhood. The term ‘daddy pleasing’ refers to the unconscious or semi-conscious need to please or make happy the symbolic male authority figure. We feel this as fear or guilt or shame at the possibility of not pleasing this authority figure. There is something here about ending a karmic cycle of abuse, of healing the patterns and not propagating it for future generations. To end the cycle of abuse you must first recognize that the abuse took place, and that it influenced you. If there is no big elephant in the room regarding abuse in your life, remember these patterns can be subtle. It can be as simple as words that cut you down emotionally as a child. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Virgo Moon — Mars began its retrograde in your Moon sign at the end of January; it is slowly moving backward this month through your Moon sign. It is a call to live each day conscious of your emotional state, which may include a good bit of anger some days. Emotions are imperfect things. They connect us to our soul, our higher self, and clue us in on some of our most important boundaries. Most important, they cue us to how we’re responding to our environment. Body-level experiences, they can’t be reasoned away or berated if they seem messy. For someone who can live in your mind so much, what you associate with your emotions often has to do with your mindset. Remember — thoughts, words and actions influence how you feel. Act, think and speak from a conscious place, honoring the power they have over your emotional state. You can see the ‘flaws’ in how you feel, or you can flip that mindset and see your strengths. You are far more perfect than you give yourself credit for. That is not a call to an inflated, unrealistic ego, but more a statement of grace. Give yourself grace to be imperfect. You are your toughest critic. Practice giving grace and acceptance to others, and it will be easier for you to apply those same principles to yourself. Grace and acceptance are your building blocks to a healthier, happier emotional state. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Libra Moon — The boundary between your inner emotional dimension and unconscious self is a permeable membrane. That’s to say, by accessing your feelings you’ve very close to accessing what’s going on in your ‘unconscious’ mind. Much in the way of information passes through this imaginary membrane that divides the two, and you will benefit from that right now. Over the next few months, with Mars slowly grinding backwards in Virgo, give yourself plenty of Zen time. Do less, schedule fewer commitments, give yourself plenty of time away from computers and electronics. Stop (okay, slow down a bit) sharing your life in 140 characters on Twitter and updating Facebook, and take more time to relax around people and places that nourish you. You need real relational experiences, not mere connections. You may experience some psychic tension that could manifest as a general feeling of sickness without any easy-to-pinpoint symptoms. If you feel like you are being slowly steamed inside a pressure cooker, that’s a clue to do less and let some pressure off. These are signs to slow down and do things to help you unwind. As you come into balance and find a more stable, secure and most of all private inner place, take note of what new information comes through your psyche. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Scorpio Moon — You’re not someone who can be talked into or forced to do something you don’t want to do. Desire is a motivating force for you in all that you do. If the desire piece is missing, it’s simple — you don’t do it. Desires have an emotional connection, especially for watery Scorpio Moons. You feel your desires with an all-consuming burning passion of intense emotions. Yet, these emotions do not fling you this way and that; you keep an iron fist on how you feel. Determining what you want is a process of experimentation and refinement. Experiment, and then based on the result, refine your needs and how they are met. Then go after that and repeat the process. This month that experiment is asking what kind of relationship you desire to have with the larger public. This isn’t intellectual, it’s a gut question. How do you FEEL about your public self, that is, the one you project into groups or the community? Are you perceived accurately for who you are? Are you where you want to be? Don’t get lost in the murky and intense depths of your own emotions. Work from a clear place of observation and analysis, then adjust your life accordingly. As you continue to refine your relationship with the larger public, determining what works for you and meets your needs, see it as a work in progress that doesn’t seek perfection but rather to have greater clarity in your needs and desires. This will give you and those around you room to maneuver and explore. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Sagittarius Moon — Amidst any lack of clarity, uncertainty, or confusion you may be feeling regarding yourself and your needs, let me make one point clear — you do have a place in this world. A place that involves your highest needs for freedom, curiosity and expansion of yourself to be met. I would caution against seeing any confusion or lack of security as emotional instability; rather, it’s reconnecting you with the deepest core of your being. The foundation of your emotional security is being strengthened, but first the cracks, wear and tear must be investigated before they can be repaired. As you investigate areas of emotional insecurity, proceed from a place of open receptivity to what you find. The place to find the strength and security you seek is self-acceptance: that is, authentic acceptance of who you are and what is true for you. The first person that needs to honor you and how you live your life is you. What you are rebuilding now are vast networks of emotional security that may have been tested or shattered by years of isolation. Build strong pillars of inner strength that extend deep into the ground, through the Earth, and out the other side into a different dimension. Remember, this will take time. There is no rush, only a need for steady and persistent action. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Capricorn Moon — As a Capricorn Moon, you are currently being profoundly changed by Pluto moving through your Moon sign. This is a deep, internal process ripping out emotional foundations and patterns that do not serve you, and rebuilding them to authentically support you. This process is helping you find the answer to the question of how to get your emotional needs met. Part of resolving this question is understanding what your current philosophy toward your emotions and needs is, and what philosophy would best suit you. Is your current philosophy yours or one given to you by other people? Personal philosophies speak to both values and our perception of how the world operates. The thing about a personal philosophy is it you can change it, which means changing yourself and your perception of life. As you investigate new life philosophies surrounding your emotional needs and those of the people close to you, start from a point of ‘change is possible’ or maybe even ‘change is inevitable. Life is in essence a blank slate each day, if we consciously forget the past. It may seem like for many lifetimes you’ve had to cover up who you are deep inside, but that is the past and you are creating your future one day at a time — a very different future that will be filled with people who support your emotional needs. The key is to view each day with an open mind, rather than stuck in the pattern of covering up your needs and desires. And the key to that may well be understanding the role of guilt in your life, and choosing to do something about it. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Aquarius Moon — This month marks the first month of the rest of your life. You have lived a very, very, very long time with Neptune cruising ever so slowly around the sign of your Moon. What felt like “YOU” on a deep level has gotten an overhaul. This may have felt less like an overhaul and more like a gutting of the very thing that was you. Some people may call that an identity crisis, I propose it was more of a melting of internal structures that did not serve you, followed by an identity breakthrough. That phase of your life is over. As Neptune leaves your Moon sign and enters Pisces, the experience of your personality, of being you, is going to be more tangible, clear and accessible. This manifests as a feeling of being solid, knowing what you need, clear on your emotions, and centered on your identity. It’s like before what was the very essence of you would just slide through your fingers like Jell-o every time you tried to grab hold of it, but now it’s a solid structure that you can pick up, hold and take with you. Before the prior landscape of Neptune in Aquarius gets too far away to see the details, carve out some time to take stock of what you learned and how you changed over the past 14 years. Pay particular attention to details about your relationship with your mother. — by Genevieve Hathaway
Pisces Moon — You survived so many years in the desert with only the occasional oasis to keep you going that the new immersion in water may still feel like an oasis instead of a permanent ocean. It’s as though your inner world has been flat for the past 14 years with the occasional holographic trick of the eye where for a flash you could feel in 3D. But now your inner landscape is a prism with many angles, dimensions and colors. As you explore the new depths and dimensions of your emotional realm, you’ll have plenty of traction to proceed with intention instead of aimless floating. Explore, experiment and note what information comes up in your emotional realm. But more importantly, learn how to go inward, get what you need, and shift back into the present moment without getting lost in all the layers of your inner world. Like a crystal, your emotions contain many facets; facets that you can draw on in different situations. Get to know them now so that as this complex year progresses you have the vast amount of knowledge contained within your emotional senses at your fingertips. Remember, you don’t have to spend your life bending to the needs of others. You exist in your own right. — by Genevieve Hathaway