I was driving home from work tonight admiring the peaceful landscape of the rural outskirts of Knoxville and I decided to use that moment to make a prayer for someone who called me recently looking for assistance--this person was having trouble (like so many of us) moving on from a life situation that was no longer good for him. So I said, "please help this young man move forward in his journey," and as I said those words "move forward," I suddenly backtracked. What if he needs at some point to move backward? What if, at some point, a slight backward movement would be good for him? Just as all of us who move away from our home families need to occasionally reconnect (to put our foot back in that river) perhaps spiritually also the point is not always just about FORWARD movement, but about a full journey that includes pauses, steps taken and retaken, etc.
    From our perspective here on Earth, we see the planets doing the same thing all the time. Mercury appears to slow down and stall, then turns "retrograde," or moves backward in its apparent motion and we say that it's time to take a break from travel and important communications. Venus goes retrograde and we say that it is time to reevaluate our relationships. Those of us who study and connect with astrology on a spiritual level constantly see ourselves mirrored in the heavens, and in this retrograde movement we must also see our needs for pause and reflection mirrored and honored.
    I've recently taken a little bit of a hiatus from blogging to work on other aspects of the healing practice that I am building, and though it's not really in my nature to do something like that without reservation/worrying/guilt, I found myself quite serene as I backed away from blogging for a moment. Why blog if my heart is (temporarily) not in it? My Mars in Capricorn asked, "Why blog just for the sake of blogging?" Today I made the connection between that feeling of peaceful retracing of my steps with retrograde planetary movement, and I feel blessed to realize that I have been honoring myself by taking my journey in the way that feels best to me.