In this Newsletter:
                 Solar Eclipse                   
A recent visit to the castle
at Linderhof and the fabulous
Neptune fountain!

Dear Friends,

In the next few days, Saturn is wrapping up his transit through the sign of Scorpio.

As I like to say, life flows better when we make friends with Uncle Saturn!  So, I wanted to send out some information about how you can use this time to make the most of this transit that has been with us for the past 2.5 years. 

Also, we are on the heels of Mercury Retrograde so be sure to back up your computer and confirm your appointments and travel plans and start packing now.  This way, you are in control and Mercury can't play as many tricks on you!

On September 16, I look forward to joining Kristin Fontana on her Guiding Stars Radio program at 10:00 AM Pacific ( www.healthylife.net).  I hope you can join us!

Blessings and peace,

Scott and Sappho Wolfram
The Traveler's Well     

P.S.  Our office is open each week on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  So, our weekend is Tuesday and Wednesday.  On those days, we try to put up an out of office message, but sometimes we forget.  On those days communications flow like molasses! 


JupiterSaturn Leaving Scorpio
Saturn is leaving Scorpio after 2.5 years of dragging us through the structures, boundaries, limitations and restrictions of our sub-conscious. Many of us have been asked to mature during this time by letting go of things buried in our sub-conscious that are influencing our life day to day and potentially creating fear, anxiety and stress. We are asked to move beyond these habits and unconscious patterns and form new ways of approaching our life.

Many of our clients have planets or chart angles at 28 to 29 degrees of Scorpio and you will feel this final push of Saturn extra potently. So, if you are feeling something in your world that is causing fear, anxiety and stress and you can't identify the source, there may be something buried deep in the unconscious mind that needs to be released. This process is not easy, but well worth the effort if you can identify the source. Since the late degrees of any sign represent culminating energy, extra powerful transformation can occur as Saturn leaves a sign.

Scorpio
Symbol for Scorpio

For everyone, Saturn is testing a theme in your life via his house position as he transits Scorpio. If you locate the sign of Scorpio in your birth chart, you will identify the houses of your birth chart impacted by this transit. The sign of Scorpio probably spans two houses. Each house carries a theme and Saturn has been testing these themes in your life since October 5, 2012 when he entered Scorpio.


A core principle of astrology is that each house (as well as each planet and sign) has both a positive and negative expression. When we embody the positive expression, we experience greater success, joy and fulfillment. Alternatively, when we embody the negative expression, we experience frustration that challenges the purity of our spirit.

For example, the first house contains a theme of confident action, but a lack of confidence often leads to inaction and feeling stuck; the fourth house contains a theme of parents, home and inner identity, and this can be supportive and provide a nurturing foundation for life, but is often experienced as overly authoritative and suppressing or denying one's individuality; the fifth house contains the theme of creative expression, but also a fear of expressing one's creative potential.

Here is a high-level summary of the themes contained in each astrological house to use as a guide:
 
  • First House - Physical Body, Your Physical projection into life and how you are experienced by others, Instinctual Desires, Freedom, Beginnings, Emotional Body, Confidence, Action that serves your journey in life
  • Second House - Resources, Values, Money, Financial Security, Comfort, Self-Esteem, What becomes more valuable to you personally over time
  • Third House - Learning, Critical and Logical Thinking, Opinions, Communication and your capacity to share your ideas via writing and speaking, Siblings
  • Fourth House - Home, Family, Mother, Nurturing, Emotional Security, Safety, Identity and Heritage
  • Fifth House - How you Shine, Purpose, Creative Self-Expression, Nobility, Love Affairs and Children
  • Sixth House - Health, Service, Work Environment, Self-Improvement
  • Seventh House - Relationships - Romantic, Personal, Professional, your partner, friends, work co-workers and associates, professional network, clients
  • Eighth House - Deepest Emotional Wounds, Sexual Desires, Power, Joint Resources, Transformation, Healing, Re-Birth
  • Ninth House - Laughter, Nature, Law/Truth, Travel, Foreign Things, Philosophy, Vision of Future
  • Tenth House - Career, Social Expectations, Social Status, Authority, Maturity, Wisdom
  • Eleventh House - Deepest Aspirations, Uniqueness, Rebellion and Liberation From Social Expectations, Kindred Spirits,
  • Twelvth House - Hidden Karma, Hidden Fears, Isolation, Hidden Enemies and Self-Undoing, Impulse for the Devine, Humility, Meditation, Spirituality
 
If you have questions about which houses of your birth chart include the sign of Scorpio, please send us a note and we will respond as soon as we are able. Naturally, this offer is only for existing clients whose chart exists in our system.

Saturn leaves the sign of Scorpio on September 18, 2015. So, you can use this time to explore these Scorpionic themes one last time, and, over the next weeks, do your own internal housekeeping so to speak.

Let's explore a bit now about why Saturn transits are so important.


Saturn - The Archetype

Saturn is a heavy hitter in our birth chart and he is a malefic planet. As Saturn transits our birth chart, we feel his presence in a strong way as he tests various aspects of our life by shining the light of truth on them.

Saturn is concerned with  
a mature approach  
to the structures of our life.

What do we mean by mature approach and 'structures' in reference to Saturn? By mature approach, we essentially mean living our life in an ever evolving, more mature way. So, where a young adult might quite a job without providing notice, as we mature, we are willing to provide adequate notice to the employer and not burn any bridges. Where we might have angrily confronted an opposing opinion in the past, we limit our anger by taking the mature approach and understanding that other voices exist and we agree to disagree rather than challenging.

'Structures' mean both the foundations we build for our lives and the rules, guidelines and boundaries that build on those foundations moving forward.

In order to build a foundation in our finances, for example, we both pay our bills and we also build up finances for future needs. Our savings become our financial foundation. Then moving forward, we might establish a budget, or the rules and boundaries, for our ongoing expenditures that allow for savings to take place. As part of an overall financial plan, we might establish a guideline to pay down some of our outstanding debts. Thus, our budget, debt payment and additional saving are all part of the 'structures' in our financial life. When we establish a financial foundation and then further goals and a budget is a great example of a mature, structured approach. This is just an example.

Saturn wants our structures to have both a solid foundation and a plan with a set of guidelines, from our finances, to our work and career, the way we take care of our body through the quality of the food we eat and the way we exercise, to our inner spiritual lives.

We use these 'structures' to help make daily decisions and make choices about how we navigate our daily life:
 
  • how we spend and save money,
  • how we act and react in relationships,
  • how we make time for meditation,
  • how we chose to incorporate exercise into your daily life as we limit another activity in favor of something more healthy,
  • when we go to bed to ensure you feel your best in the morning,
  • how we declutter our world and purchase less so that our house is easier to tend,
  • how we approach our employer and career,
  • how much we chose to fix other people's problems and not our own, etc.
 
Each house in our birth chart relates to an aspect or set of themes related to daily life. So, as Saturn transits our birth chart, he tests all aspects of our life and the mature approach and structures we have put in place.

For example, Saturn in Scorpio is particularly concerned with financial debt. So, Saturn wants us to be aware of our debts (or lack of debt - Yeah!) and to build a plan to reduce that debt. So, if Saturn has made you uncomfortable regarding your debt or monthly budget, this is the time to acknowledge Saturn's message and build a plan moving forward into the future.

The Hermit Have no fear! When we think of Saturn, we often approach his transits with a degree of hesitation or even some fear, but Saturn wants you to know that he is trying to help you. He does not want you to be afraid or in denial. You might try thinking of transiting Saturn as the tarot card, The Hermit, a wise old man holding out the lamp of truth that leads to wisdom. He wants us to see the truth, or reality, of our life and to know that the truth can set us free because, when we accept the reality of our life, we become free to live our life in a more mature way.

During a Saturn transit, if you feel fear or discover a weakness or lack of mature approach or supporting structures in some aspect of your life, you can chose to make changes and begin creating some mature structures, boundaries or rules to live by. This is an important step in the unfolding nature of our soul's journey.

The fundamental goal of life is to evolve and  
become a better person.

As we gain life experience, we gain knowledge and, hopefully, we learn to stop repeating mistakes, which is the purpose of mature approach and a structure. In this regard, we think of Saturn's role as Father Time and the god that rules Karma. As we burn away our unhelpful karma, we become more stable and more secure in our everyday life. If we deny Saturn's light of truth, his transits can become cumulatively more difficult. So, we are meant to honor the light of Saturn and embrace the truth of what we see. If we have built mature 'structures' in life, Saturn transits are not really difficult and can help us to grow further or to feel rewarded for our maturity.

Saturn with the Wheel of Life, Florence Italy 

Saturn transits each sign of the zodiac for 2.5 years and makes a full cycle essentially every 29 years.

At age 29, we all experience our first Saturn Return.

Then, we start a new 29 year cycle, culminating at 58 years with our second Saturn Return.

These two return points are critical to our maturation process; a part of the Wheel of Life, the Wheel of Becoming. 






Saturn in Scorpio

Between now and September 18, 2015, as we wrap up Saturn in Scorpio, remember the themes associated with this transit. Again, Scorpio will fall into a house in your birth chart and those themes have been tested in a Scorpionic way by Saturn over the past 2.5 years.
Since Scorpio represents things that exist in our unconscious, we need to take a final look back at this transit, looking for anything we might have missed that is asking to be released so that we can move on with greater ease and embrace the fun of Saturn in Sagittarius. When something is unconscious, we may find that others see it in us easier than we do. So, ignore no feedback during this time.

During this transit, we have each explored aspects of our emotions that often remain below the surface, beneath our habits of awareness. Thus, Saturn has been revealing the truth connected with our deeper emotions and the motivations that contribute to the decisions we make. We could summarize Saturn in Scorpio as revealing the truth about our emotions, motivation and choices.

In Scorpio, Saturn the Hermit wants us to experience our emotions so that we can make new decisions about how to use our emotions day to day in a more mature manner. He wants us to be able to build a new degree of trust, first in ourselves, and then in our relationships with others. Importantly, like the Wheel of Becoming, transiting Saturn has not been in the sign of Scorpio since November 1985. Having transited through all the signs since then, Saturn wants us to recognize just how much progress we have made since 1985. Ultimately, he wants us to use that confidence to become the master of our emotions.

The sign of Scorpio is ruled by Pluto. Pluto's realm is in Hades where emotional wounds are buried, unconscious to us. Pluto ultimately wants us to transform and overcome these wounds. Scorpio can also represent where betrayals in relationships occur. People with a lot of Scorpio are aware of past betrayals and so they search for emotional clues to other people and can have strong gut reactions to people in an attempt to identify who can be trusted.

The mature approach to Saturn in Scorpio contains these themes:
 
  • learn to trust
  • break unhelpful, unconscious habits of fear
  • transform
  • take one step further beyond betrayals from the past or leave them behind all together
  • allow soul wounds to heal
  • go deep and explore your inner world
 
The structures via guidelines or rules that might be formed include:
 
  • Establish boundaries between yourself and others who have and continue to wound you
  • Ensure you break boundaries that keep you locked inside (based on a lack of trust)
  • Remove repeating unhelpful habit patterns related to unconscious fear
  • Establish new habits supportive of transformation
 
Saturn has a challenging reputation because when we meet him on the pathway of our soul's journey, he shines the light of truth into our lives, which can generate fear and heaviness and feelings limitations. To avoid these feelings, we can tend to greet his light of truth reveals with denial. Denial is something that Saturn does not appreciate and he will shine his light extra brightly if we are in denial. This brings the challenge we often feel with transits of Saturn because he does not let up. We are unable to escape his light of truth, until we open our eyes, see our world as it really is and make change by taking mature actions and building supportive structures.

So when that happens, how can you work with Saturn, especially as he is completing his transit through Scorpio.
 
First, know that what Saturn reveals to you represents truth about your life - truth that you have been unaware of up until now. What Saturn reveals is important for us to pay attention to and we need to trust him. Meaning, that this aspect of life can be made more mature so that we, for example, stop fighting against this aspect of life and the structures it requires and begin to understand what we must do. This requires trust and, with Saturn in Scorpio, trust is not easy - trust is not a "Scorpio" thing. So, if something breaks down during this time, pay attention and trust that it is something that has been brought to your attention for a purpose.

Second, while your initial response may be one of feeling fear, or a lack of trust of someone else, try to look beneath the surface to find the real source of the issue. The real issue is almost always deeper than we think. Once you have found the source, the solution is not far away. The sign of Scorpio may accentuate these fearful feelings. So, if this happens, it is important to try and not let the fear spiral out of control so to speak.

Third, Saturn in Scorpio brings the potential for a new level of emotional wisdom to be uncovered, developed and mastered. With emotional wisdom comes a new level of confidence and trust.

Finally, Saturn is both patient and he wants you to succeed. If you have any 'structures' that you have not tended to, don't worry. Saturn will actually be quite happy (in his silent way) if you take the first steps today. Once again, Saturn is a patient fellow and once you begin working with him, he can actually be a reasonable guy.

As Saturn leaves Scorpio, may his light reveal structures that are emotionally mature, sound and confident, so that you can embrace Saturn's new journey through Sagittarius.
 

Move in harmony with the Sun, Moon and Stars!



We wanted to share a bit of information about the Great Migration to Europe.  This is a brief overview because the situation changes almost hourly.  We do hope that news related to this Great Migration is reaching other corners of the world because it really feels like a global solution is needed.

At a high level, this migration has been going on for years, but has escalated in the past 12 months due to several factors with the Syrian War being a primary one.  It seems that no one pays attention until thousands are knocking at their door, which is always too late.

To use the terms laid down by the BBC, there are two categories of migrants right now:  Refugees and Economic Migrants.

First, there are migrants who, after completing paperwork, will be categorized as refugees and have the potential of being granted asylum (after a confirmation process that takes up to 18 months). Right now, it seems like Syria and Eretria are the two countries from where people are categorized as refugees.

Second, there are migrants being categorized as economic migrants. This group of people is basically anyone coming from a place that is presently not at war, but they are seeking a better life in Europe (Iraq, Afghanistan, northern Africa, Pakistan, the Balkans).  Migrants categorized as economic migrants have no guarantee of acceptance into the European Union. The rules presently state that, upon registering, if a person is from a country that is 'safe to return to', then they are not allowed entry into the European Union and must be turned back.  But, deportation rules are very unclear at this time and proving where a person is from is getting more and more difficult.

The situation is complex and is only going to get more complicated before it gets better.  We are typically more optimistic, but this crisis will test Europe's commitment to Union far more than the financial crisis (again, for a variety of complicated issues).  If the European Union can not clarify policies and agree to a solution quickly, the situation will become too big to manage, meaning simply, too many people will arrive into an uncertain environment.

In August, 120,000 migrants arrived in Germany.  In September, it seems like 6,000 to 10,000 per day, but we can't find numbers.  On Saturday alone, 13,000 arrived in Munich and Germany simply ran out of beds so people needed to sleep in the train station.  The next day, Germany closed the border to allow police and volunteers some rest and to prepare additional accommodation.  The borders are open again and thousands are expected again today. 

Munich is the entry point into Germany for the migrant route from Syria to Turkey to Greece to the Balkans to Hungary to Austria and finally Germany.  Great Migrations of people due to war and famine are nothing new to the history of mankind and the migration route will certainly change again.  The movie Casablanca highlighted the migration routes out of Europe during World War II.

This migration has reached crisis proportions and we hope a coordinated and humane solution can be identified as the weather will soon be too cold for people to survive without shelter.