March 2020
March 22nd
It is so much easier to look out there and demand that the government produce a vaccine to eradicate the infectious disease of the moment. Looking within to what is in dis-ease and doing the health practices that will bring the cells of the body back into harmony requires honoring the body as a temple. But when you do that first, you will find yourself spreading “infectious ease” to your fellow humans, instead of hysteria.
Dr. Toni Galardi
At the beginning of this year, everyone was so relieved that 2019 was over and what a different year this would be. Not wanting to come on like the Queen of Doomsday, I merely have urged more time to going within as we began to encounter this line up never before seen of Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto all in Capricorn.
I spoke of the restructuring that our society was going through and would continue to go through. Further, I shared that with Uranus in Taurus, there would also be financial restructuring. Although Capricorn rules society, please remember that it also rules the career/or soul purpose domain.
This virus taking hold as it did in a big way in February under the Mercury retrograde in Pisces is not surprising. Pisces rules the immune system. Under Mercury Retrogrades, we are called to go inside and develop a deeper relationship with our soul. As most people do not do this willingly, the global soul in co-parnership with Gaia, our earth mother to do it for us. I listened yesterday to a recently produced Ted talk given by Alanna Shaikh, expert from The World Health Organization. At the end of her talk, she shares the link between what we have done to our forests and undeveloped lands that are a part of why this virus exists. She describes how the virus has these spokes that allow it to pierce the RNA of the cell.
As someone who views life through symbology, i couldn’t help but think that this description of the virus seems to have been created by dear Pachamamma to defend herself from more human invasion. I wrote a book called The LifeQuake Phenomenon that was published 10 years ago and about to be republished with updates information on the neuroscience of change and resilience. My subtitle then was about how to thrive in times of personal and global upheaval. The major thesis of this book is to get people to wake up before outmoded lives have to go through devastating experiences. I linked that to the world stage. This mild pandemic is a huge wake up call for all of us.
Some branding expert on facebook was suggesting to her followers that while we are all being forced to stay at home, to use it as a time to indulge yourself in comfort food, showing loaves of baked bread she had made. She further urged everyone to make it ok to put on a few pounds. She made a case for self care as actually meaning self indulgence … what we already do so well in this country as a response to feeling un- comfortable. God forbid we should feel uncomfortable and hear intuitive messages for real self care that require the C word – no, I don’t mean cancer … change!
This brings me to the medieval cult hero for his prescient predictions in the 16th century, Michel Nostradamus. Nostradamus was a bit of a James Dean kind of rebel of the medical community. He attended medical school but the school was closed a year later due to the effects of the plague on the town of Avignon where he was being schooled. He then went on a journey, spending 8 years traveling through France, Spain and Italy gathering herbal remedies. Through becoming an apothecary, he helped save many people with his remedies, one famous one being a pink pill he made from rose hips which of course has Vitamin C in it. What many people dont know about Michel Nostradamus was that he understood that the Black plague could be remediated by basic hygiene and administering his rose pills. He knew it was the host not the bacterium itself that had to be made stronger. When he attempted to come back to medical school, the administration threw him out because at that time, herbalists ( apothecaries) were seen as inferior to physicians and they refused to allow his knowledge to have influence in their establishment.
His predictions around events that he saw would happen to the Court got the attention of Queen Catherine De Medici when several of them came true. He became quite the celebrity of his time. Nostradamus’ sun sign was Capricorn. Cut to our current “pandemic”. Chinese physicians began a wide spread study in February on the efficacy of intravenous Vitamin C ( about 20 grams) to people in the throws of the latest corona virus. Integrative medicine doctors I know here have seen its efficacy with acute lung diseases and flu.
It has been said that the virus will die down as the warm weather emerges but will come back in the late Fall to winter when the weather turns cold and damp again. Interesting synchronicity is that although Saturn will briefly go into Aquarius soon ( the ruler of humanity and groups), we will see the line up of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto again in Capricorn with Mars in retrograde (rules the adrenals) and Mercury in retrograde squaring this line up in Capricorn. Could be a challenging time.
The key is preparation. Another pandemic is not fated if we learn to use our natural resources and our bodies respectfully. What is happening is that we are restructuring our workplace now to accomodate this semi-quarantine for the next few weeks. More people will be working from home who work for companies. It is also expanding our concept of tribe beyond the American borders, thanks to the internet. As conferences are being cancelled left and right, webinars and web conferences are proliferating. Even my personal trainer is making videos because she will be at home with her children for the next three weeks with school being cancelled.
It is my deepest prayer that innovations are made for strengthening the immune system and that this word gets out as a stronger solution than Big Pharma producing vaccines.
Astrology Tips for Your Work Week
1) Monday the moon is void until 12:30 PM EST, 5:30 PM Greenwich Time. Monday may be slower getting into for all of us.
2) Mercury made a brief dash into Aquarius in retrograde to get us all coming together as a species to sequester for the good of all. However, as of Monday, it goes back into Pisces. We are being called to go deep into our intuition and dreams until April 10th when it goes into fiery, warrior like, adrenal on steroids, Aries.
3) The moon will be out of bounds beginning on Monday at 9:15 PM March 16th until 4:52 PM on March 17th. This from astrologer Jim Schultz:”It has been almost 9 years, April 21, 2011, since the Moon last went out-of-bounds. The Moon is at 6 Capricorn 23 as She takes Her first tentative steps out-of-bounds in almost nine years. From this point onward, for the next nine years, the Moon will go out-of-bounds twice each month, once north and once south. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is “A veiled prophet speaks, seized by the power of the Divine.” What insight might we gain from this symbol? The Moon will be out-of-bounds for almost 20 hours. Be sure to “listen” for messages from the-Universe. These messages may be auditory, visual, or you may feel them. Be open to all sources. With the Moon being south out-of-bounds, they may have to do with or come from someone from your past. Note your dreams, insights and all sensations tonight.
My take on this is that if we do not give our feminine side its time away from the world in the other world of Yin for this next 9 year cycle, we may not survive as a species.
4) The moon is in its waning phase so waiting until March 24th to make big decisions will prove to be very efficacious.
5) Saturn goes void of its course for 53 hours beginning at around 5:00 PM Thursday eve which only happens every 2.5 years approximately. Saturn void-of-course? Saturn is about maintaining control, obeying the rules and following instructions. When He is void-of-course there may be a greater tendency to take chances, to skip steps or just see how much one can get away with. Don’t! Once Saturn enters Aquarius reality will set in and you will regret any skipped steps or other transgressions.
6) Along with Saturn void, the moon will also be void all day Friday. Yes, it is the Spring Equinox but it may not feel like Spring until the new moon in Aries late on Monday night March 23.
In summary, give yourself permission for inner work this week. Journal, listen to podcasts, release old traumas with a skilled therapist. This is what Mercury in Pisces is calling for, and speaking of calling, it is the time to avail yourself of what is calling you now. Discovering your next soul purpose requires nurturing the inner soil and understanding your soul contract for 2020 and beyond.
Yes, we are living in a time that is teaching us great resilience and honoring of our feminine essence. For your sake and the world’s…
With great love and affection,
Dr. Toni
March 15th
It is so much easier to look out there and demand that the government produce a vaccine to eradicate the infectious disease of the moment. Looking within to what is in dis-ease and doing the health practices that will bring the cells of the body back into harmony requires honoring the body as a temple. But when you do that first, you will find yourself spreading “infectious ease” to your fellow humans, instead of hysteria.
Dr. Toni Galardi
At the beginning of this year, everyone was so relieved that 2019 was over and what a different year this would be. Not wanting to come on like the Queen of Doomsday, I merely have urged more time to going within as we began to encounter this line up never before seen of Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto all in Capricorn.
I spoke of the restructuring that our society was going through and would continue to go through. Further, I shared that with Uranus in Taurus, there would also be financial restructuring. Although Capricorn rules society, please remember that it also rules the career/or soul purpose domain.
This virus taking hold as it did in a big way in February under the Mercury retrograde in Pisces is not surprising. Pisces rules the immune system. Under Mercury Retrogrades, we are called to go inside and develop a deeper relationship with our soul. As most people do not do this willingly, the global soul in co-parnership with Gaia, our earth mother to do it for us. I listened yesterday to a recently produced Ted talk given by Alanna Shaikh, expert from The World Health Organization. At the end of her talk, she shares the link between what we have done to our forests and undeveloped lands that are a part of why this virus exists. She describes how the virus has these spokes that allow it to pierce the RNA of the cell.
As someone who views life through symbology, i couldn’t help but think that this description of the virus seems to have been created by dear Pachamamma to defend herself from more human invasion. I wrote a book called The LifeQuake Phenomenon that was published 10 years ago and about to be republished with updates information on the neuroscience of change and resilience. My subtitle then was about how to thrive in times of personal and global upheaval. The major thesis of this book is to get people to wake up before outmoded lives have to go through devastating experiences. I linked that to the world stage. This mild pandemic is a huge wake up call for all of us.
Some branding expert on facebook was suggesting to her followers that while we are all being forced to stay at home, to use it as a time to indulge yourself in comfort food, showing loaves of baked bread she had made. She further urged everyone to make it ok to put on a few pounds. She made a case for self care as actually meaning self indulgence … what we already do so well in this country as a response to feeling un- comfortable. God forbid we should feel uncomfortable and hear intuitive messages for real self care that require the C word – no, I don’t mean cancer … change!
This brings me to the medieval cult hero for his prescient predictions in the 16th century, Michel Nostradamus. Nostradamus was a bit of a James Dean kind of rebel of the medical community. He attended medical school but the school was closed a year later due to the effects of the plague on the town of Avignon where he was being schooled. He then went on a journey, spending 8 years traveling through France, Spain and Italy gathering herbal remedies. Through becoming an apothecary, he helped save many people with his remedies, one famous one being a pink pill he made from rose hips which of course has Vitamin C in it. What many people don’t know about Michel Nostradamus was that he understood that the Black plague could be remediated by basic hygiene and administering his rose pills. He knew it was the host not the bacterium itself that had to be made stronger. When he attempted to come back to medical school, the administration threw him out because at that time, herbalists ( apothecaries) were seen as inferior to physicians and they refused to allow his knowledge to have influence in their establishment.
His predictions around events that he saw would happen to the Court got the attention of Queen Catherine De Medici when several of them came true. He became quite the celebrity of his time. Nostradamus’ sun sign was Capricorn. Cut to our current “pandemic”. Chinese physicians began a wide spread study in February on the efficacy of intravenous Vitamin C ( about 20 grams) to people in the throws of the latest corona virus. Integrative medicine doctors I know here have seen its efficacy with acute lung diseases and flu.
It has been said that the virus will die down as the warm weather emerges but will come back in the late Fall to winter when the weather turns cold and damp again. Interesting synchronicity is that although Saturn will briefly go into Aquarius soon ( the ruler of humanity and groups), we will see the line up of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto again in Capricorn with Mars in retrograde (rules the adrenals) and Mercury in retrograde squaring this line up in Capricorn. Could be a challenging time.
The key is preparation. Another pandemic is not fated if we learn to use our natural resources and our bodies respectfully. What is happening is that we are restructuring our workplace now to accomodate this semi-quarantine for the next few weeks. More people will be working from home who work for companies. It is also expanding our concept of tribe beyond the American borders, thanks to the internet. As conferences are being cancelled left and right, webinars and web conferences are proliferating. Even my personal trainer is making videos because she will be at home with her children for the next three weeks with school being cancelled.
It is my deepest prayer that innovations are made for strengthening the immune system and that this word gets out as a stronger solution than Big Pharma producing vaccines.
Astrology Tips for Your Work Week
1) Monday the moon is void until 12:30 PM EST, 5:30 PM Greenwich Time. Monday may be slower getting into for all of us.
2) Mercury made a brief dash into Aquarius in retrograde to get us all coming together as a species to sequester for the good of all. However, as of Monday, it goes back into Pisces. We are being called to go deep into our intuition and dreams until April 10th when it goes into fiery, warrior like, adrenal on steroids, Aries.
3) The moon will be out of bounds beginning on Monday at 9:15 PM March 16th until 4:52 PM on March 17th. This from astrologer Jim Schultz:”It has been almost 9 years, April 21, 2011, since the Moon last went out-of-bounds. The Moon is at 6 Capricorn 23 as She takes Her first tentative steps out-of-bounds in almost nine years. From this point onward, for the next nine years, the Moon will go out-of-bounds twice each month, once north and once south. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is “A veiled prophet speaks, seized by the power of the Divine.” What insight might we gain from this symbol? The Moon will be out-of-bounds for almost 20 hours. Be sure to “listen” for messages from the-Universe. These messages may be auditory, visual, or you may feel them. Be open to all sources. With the Moon being south out-of-bounds, they may have to do with or come fromsomeone from your past. Note your dreams, insights and all sensations tonight.
My take on this is that if we do not give our feminine side its time away from the world in the other world of Yin for this next 9 year cycle, we may not survive as a species.
4) The moon is in its waning phase so waiting until March 24th to make big decisions will prove to be very efficacious.
5) Saturn goes void of its course for 53 hours beginning at around 5:00 PM Thursday eve which only happens every 2.5 years approximately. Saturn void-of-course? Saturn is about maintaining control, obeying the rules and following instructions. When He is void-of-course there may be a greater tendency to take chances, to skip steps or just see how much one can get away with. Don’t! Once Saturn enters Aquarius reality will set in and you will regret any skipped steps or other transgressions.
6) Along with Saturn void, the moon will also be void all day Friday. Yes, it is the Spring Equinox but it may not feel like Spring until the new moon in Aries late on Monday night March 23.
In summary, give yourself permission for inner work this week. Journal, listen to podcasts, release old traumas with a skilled therapist. This is what Mercury in Pisces is calling for, and speaking of calling, it is the time to avail yourself of what is calling you now. Discovering your next soul purpose requires nurturing the inner soil and understanding your soul contract for 2020 and beyond.
Yes, we are living in a time that is teaching us great resilience and honoring of our feminine essence. For your sake and the world’s…
With great love and affection,
Dr. Toni
March 8th
Just as gods and goddesses were created by humans with super hero qualities and flawed character to teach us, so can we draw great lessons from our modern day version sometimes referred to as celebrities.
Dr. Toni Galardi
A few months ago I began sharing stories about famous iconic people to give us lessons to draw from. There are plenty of astrologers on the net who share information on famous people with a gossip columnist quality to their articles but I think that sharing the shadow of people whose talents we have worshiped can teach us so much more, if we understand the myth they contracted to play out for themselves and us, much like the stories from Ancient Greece, Rome and Sumeria, etc
Further, their human limitations is often more relatable than that of Buddha or Jesus. I’ve chosen to share my take on Audrey Hepburn as she truly embodied so much for us to learn from. The astrological archetypes of her personal chart are very present for us right now as Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are transiting the signs of Aquarius, Pisces and Taurus.
Audrey Hepburn’s sun sign was in Taurus, her moon was in Pisces and her Mars was conjunct Pluto in Cancer with an Aquarius rising. I won’t get into the technical details of her chart but here are some facts that give us a clue to her love/hate relationship with food that like all mythic lives, leads to a higher destiny:
- She was a chubby baby and toddler who loved chocolate so much that her mother, a Dutch baroness instructed their cook to lock the cupboards.
- She spent her teen years in the Netherlands during the war years and almost starved to death when the Nazis punished the Dutch for trying to thwart their occupation by cutting off the food supply between 1944-45.
- She learned to fantasize ( moon in Pisces) that she wasn’t hungry so that her mother could provide for the other children.
- This ultimate control over food and vast imagination would serve her as a dancer later and then as an actress. In a time when the ideal woman had an hour glass figure like Marilyn Monroe, coming out of the ballet into modeling and acting, she had a unique look that stood out. Hired to play a waif like character on Broadway, she was offered the opportunity to come to New York from England by luxury ship so she would learn her lines. Having access to rich food and chocolate, she arrived 12 pounds heavier 10 days later. The producer, shocked at her weight gain, demanded that she lose the weight immediately which she did and then some. Thus began her interesting relationship with food.
Although her chart indicates a passion for food, her son insists that she was as thin as she was because she only ate a little of everything. A long time smoker, I do believe she had an eating disorder ( she was 5 ft 7 and weighed 105 pounds) that engaged her in her later passion which was to become a Unicef Ambassador ( Aquarius Rising) to help starving children in third world countries. It was very common for women of that time to use nicotine to speed up their metabolism and control hunger. Audrey really cared though, very much about the fate of the world’s children. Clearly, her own experience in Holland during the war engendered a deep empathy for starving children.
Audrey Hepburn took the wounds of her childhood and devoted the last years of her life to Unicef.
The planet Mercury rules communication and the conscious mind.What Miss Hepburn has to teach us especially right now as Mercury has gone back into Aquarius in retrograde is to reflect these next few days on how you can engage humane acts toward the betterment of others irrespective of race, gender or political orientation. In a week, Mercury will go back into Pisces until April 10 so we are being called, each of us to expand our empathy. How often when someone acts so differently than you, are you able to put yourself in their shoes? I know I struggle with this one. One of Audrey Hepburn’s finest qualities was that she saw the good in people, all people. It is unfortunate that she passed at age 63 of a rare form of colon cancer. Although she had beautiful features, what made her so beautiful in her early 60’s, ( with no cosmetic augmentation) was that she was lit from within. Kindness is a great cosmetic. Of course, having Givenchy dress you ain’t bad either. ha!
Astrology Tips for Your Work Week
1) Monday and Tuesday could be a little wonky. We are adjusting to the time change and we have a full moon in Pisces/Virgo and Mercury stationing all within a few hours of one another. And this is a super full moon meaning it will closer to the earth than usual. Remember, the moon rules the emotional body.
2) When Mercury comes to the end of a retrograde or at the beginning of it going direct, information can come to light that we didn’t have or didn’t see earlier. Dr Joseph Mercola, well known integrative medicine doctor published an article today that gives pretty compelling evidence for the Corona Virus being a bioweaponized pathogen just as SARS was. Wuhan, the city in which CO-VID 19 was first identified is a Biosafety Level 4 facility.
My take on these viruses is that vaccines are not the answer. Building your immune system up with impeccable health habits is a harder path than taking a pill or shot but it is most of the time, the best route to not contracting this or any virus. And fear also lowers the immune system. Step away from media and government fear tactics. I predict we will be seeing a lot of fear driven messages in the coming months based on Donald Trump’s astrological chart and its dovetail with the U.S. chart. ( more on that in a future newsletter)
2) It will take Mercury a good two weeks to get its mojo working for you most effectively ( remember that Mercury rules the brain) as it will be back in watery Pisces in one week. Listen to your intuition through the body wisdom.
3) The moon will enter its waning phase on Monday as well so waiting until March 24th to make big decisions will prove to be very efficacious. A moon wobble is coming next weekend which can make for intense emotional responses.
4) Meditation can really help this week.
A closing thought from “Holly Golightly” ( if you haven’t seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s I recommend it!):
Remember you have two hands: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others. Audrey Hepburn
With great love and affection,
Dr. Toni
March 1st
Pleasure has a place in discovering your soul purpose. It either takes us into addiction, and then recovery helps us discover our purpose, or… if we engage pleasure with curiosity, not shame, we might be able to go straight to discovery.
– Dr. Toni Galardi
One more week give or take for Mercury in retro in Pisces. I am going deep into the watery realm of Pisces as this is such a time to be exploring the God that exists in our shadow. Yes, Pisces rules the direct experience of God or if you prefer, the mystical realm. And, it also rules sensuality and drugs. What is the God of your shadow? What addiction has or is taking you to a deeper relationship with your soul?
I thought I would share a little about one of the 20th centuries most prolific writers who became famous after giving up his partying ways to join the Catholic monastery. The Trappist life is about as austere as it gets and yet Thomas Merton, known to have had plenty of women in his college days, was not ordained until age 34. In his short life of twenty more years, he wrote more than 50 books.
To quote wikipedia, “Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dali Lama, and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh.”
Ahem, he also authored successful books on Zen buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism in the most conservative era of the 20th century, the 1950’s!
There is a documentary on Merton’s life on Amazon and a journalist makes the comment that after many years in the monastery, Merton was invited to speak at a major conference in San Francisco in the 60’s and while they were having coffee in a cafe, he became quite distracted by all the beautiful scantily clad women he observed.
This piqued my interest. So, of course, I had to look at his chart and there was an accurate time of birth. Fascinating.
Thomas Merton had a Pisces rising so he gave the appearance of a monk but was a true radical activist in his core. If he hadn’t made so much money for the church, they may have never let him engage with the East and his passionate commitment for us to understand Eastern religious philosophy in the West.
Thomas Merton had 6 planets ( if you include the north node) in Aquarius in Aquarius’ house, the 11th. Aquarius of course rules the rebel, the future, and bringing humanity into oneness. However, his moon was in Leo in the house Leo rules, creativity, fun, and personal love in great ease with his Venus in Sagittarius in the 9th house of publishing. That’s a lot of fire in the planets that rule love and sex.
Here is a quote that so expresses his Leo moon: “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Perhaps, if Thomas Merton had not had his 20’s to live in the world with all its sensual appetites, he may not have been able to transmute those passions into his work as a writer and author away from the world. And he was very passionate about writing. However, one can only sublimate carnal passion for so long.
He began having aches and pains that took him to the hospital where he would hear on the radio of the social unrest, Kennedy’s and then King’s assassination. This galvanized his writing to take on a social activist’s tone. A passionate but semi-clandestine relationship with a young nurse called Margie Smith, was discovered by his superiors at the Abbey of Gethsemani, who issued him an ultimatum of choosing between the woman and a reaffirmation of his vocation as a celibate monk. He chose to cut it off but shortly after, he supposedly died of electrocution ( Aquarius rules electricity) from a fan after getting out of the shower not long after breaking off this relationship. An autopsy was waived by the church.
As we get closer to the elections, I close with this from Merton: “Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but see these things in yourself, not in another.”
What Merton was not able to reconcile was his own personal passion ( moon conjunct the south node in Leo) and his impersonal mission ( stellium of planets in the 11th).
What we can take from this is to include time in our lives for monastic retreat to be curious and inclusive as to what we are truly passionate about now with non-judgment. What is calling your soul needs a respite from the world as part of every week. Every day taking time to feed your soul by asking it, “what will nourish you today, my friend?” Otherwise, the shadow gets our attention through our addictions.
Astrology Tips for Your Work Week
- Mars comes back into bounds Monday March 2nd. Hopefully, this will calm everyone down a bit as we move to election day.
- The moon will go out of bounds on Wednesday March 4th for about 4 hours. With Mercury in retro until March 10th, I would not recommend making any important decisions that day. When a planet goes out of bounds, we see the extreme version of that planet. In the case of Mars, it brought excessive anger out in people. With the moon, we make emotional decisions that we regret when Mercury turns direct and we see more clearly what to do.
- If you must make a decision on something before March 10 when mercury stations direct, Monday and Thursday are best.
One last quote from Thomas Merton’s journal: “This day of my life will never come again.”Imagine beginning each day with that contemplation.
With great love and affection,
Dr. Toni