January 2015 – Joan Porte

Fried Pasta

This is a good carb loaded recipe perfect for a cold winter’s dinner and quirky enough to satisfy your favorite Aquarian. Aquarians are the rebels of the Zodiac. They love to innovate and just shake up the normal flow of life. Often described as the teenagers of the sky, Aquarians have a low tolerance for the mundane.
In my cookbook, “Signs of the Tines: The Ultimate Astrological Cookbook” www.signsofthetines.com, I include this fried pasta recipe in the Aquarius section because it appeals to their sense of the different. Anyone can boil or bake pasta but it takes an Aquarian to fry it.

Serves 8
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 ½ pounds thin spaghetti – not angel hair
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-teaspoon red pepper flakes
5 tablespoons of basil pesto*
¾-cup ricotta cheese
10 sprigs fresh basil

In a large pot, add 3 quarts of water and salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the spaghetti and reduce the heat to medium. Cook, stirring often about 8 -10 minutes until al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until it just begins to brown. Stir in the red pepper flakes. When the spaghetti is cooked, drain well and pour into the pan. Stir in the best, being sure to coat the spaghetti well. Lower the heat and cook the spaghetti for 4 minutes, flip it over and cook on the other side for 4 minutes.
Turn the spaghetti into a platter, dollop the ricotta cheese on top and decorate with the basil.

*You can purchase basil pesto or make it by mixing 1 cup fresh basil leaves, 2 tablespoons pine nuts (or walnuts or no nuts if you don’t like them), 2 tablespoons for freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese in a food processor. Start the processor and slowly pour in 1 cup of extra-virgin olive oil. Keep processing until the mixture is very fine.

Our first New Moon of the New Year!

In addition, it is a Super Moon in 2015 meaning the Moon is as close as it can get to Earth and in alignment with the Sun and Earth. In other words, it is one powerful and bright Moon!

The New Moon is a time for manifestation because it is the beginning of the cycle and holds our eternal hope for growth and renewal. With this New Moon in the rebellious, innovative sign of Aquarius, there is no reason to limit your dreams. Be bold, be daring. Think of Aquarius as the teenager of the zodiac. Do you remember those days when the sky was the only boundary to your thinking and you were going to take on the world? You had no history – all was ahead of you. Go back and grab that energy when you make your list of manifestations. What do you want? Do it – think it – believe it – go for it. It is all new once again!

OK now that we are all happy about that I have to tell you that Mercury goes retrograde tomorrow. Yup, the little devil goes retro from Jan 21 – Feb. 11. The good news is that he will not do that quite as much as he did last year –but still. Mercury, known to the Greeks as Hermes the trickster, was the messenger of the gods and goddesses to the mortals.

Mercury always had the twinkle of the devil in his eyes, as he loved to disrupt some of those messages. He was the patron of communications, flow of money, quick travel and thieves! That is why when he goes retro – he really goes retro!

Did you know that in 1782, Mercury became the first symbol of the postal service?

Pope Francis

I love this Pope. Really, if I still believed in one thing Catholicism and Christianity hold I might be tempted to go back just because of him. While I crossed and blew up that bridge, I still admire him and appreciate his efforts to modernize the church. Naturally, I had to look at his birth chart.

No wonder I like him! He has the same Nodal axis, as do I with a South Node in Gemini and North in Sagittarius. We South Node Gemini people are very adept at gathering and distributing information. Context is not important, it is just all about receiving data. With his South Node in the 12th house, the house that connects us to God, he spent his past lives as a channeler, philosopher or recording of religious works. He was, as we would call, an academic or someone who devoted his life to receiving the words of “god.”

In this life, with his North Node in Sagittarius in the 6th house, he needs to embody those words – to put them into action. All North Node Sagittarius people should be honing in on one study. We need to leave the obsession with data and delve into something with total devotion. Obviously, for Pope Francis this was Catholicism. He is putting the religious studies of his past existence into action after devoting his lifetime to being a priest and now Pope.

Is he putting his religious words into action? I would think so and I can see why. The ruler of Sagittarius, Jupiter, is on his North Node and his Sun. When the ruler of the Node is on the Node it indicates that he has had opportunities to put his words into action before but it never worked out. Now the universe has given him several indicators that is his time is now. His Sun, also in Sagittarius, is wedge between the Node and Jupiter and Ceres, the planet of nurturing is rounding out this group.

His road will not be easy. He has Retrograded Vesta and Pluto in the first house, meaning there are many roadblocks and power plays running interference but with Mercury in the strong sign of Capricorn in the 7th house, the house of dealing with people on very intimate levels, his Sagittarian word will make a tremendous impact in the long run.

A Wallop of a Full Moon

The first Full Moon of 2015 comes storming in late evening on Sunday, January 4 as part of another – yes, sorry to say – a cardinal grand cross. The Moon is in Cancer, Sun is in Capricorn and “crossing” them are Uranus and the South Node in Aries and the North Node in Libra. All of these are cardinal signs infused with the energy of action and strength.

While these dynamic energies battling it out in the sky may trigger emotional crises, they are also another dose of good “change” energy abundant in the New Year. (See my blog last week about the Pluto/Sun/Vesta conjunction.)

Cancer is the sign of emotional attachment – think of it like the nurturing – perhaps too nurturing – mommy of the zodiac. Capricorn is the rather stern daddy energy. Use this energy to remove undesirable emotional attachments from your life’s baggage. Where do you have to be rather stern and say “no more?” Stopping your conditioned emotional response to a person or situation may cause upheaval. However, isn’t that better than continued suffering? Growth is never pain free. Freedom always comes at some initial pain.

To be “full” the Moon must be opposite from the Sun. With our current Sun/Pluto conjunction, the Moon is now also opposite Pluto. There is no better time to undergo a deep transformation (Pluto) regarding people and things that trigger deep emotional controls on you. Pluto wants us to be self- empowered. Who is sucking your emotional energy, or should I say who are you allowing to suck your emotional energy? Where do you not have control over your emotional responses?

With the North and South Node axis a huge part of this cross, be sure to work on breaking free from karmic patterns of emotional addiction.

There is nothing pussyfooted about this Full Moon. It is your chance to go deep into yourself, deep into your past, deep into the ingrained emotional responses that may be ruling you subconsciously and reset them.

This Moon will be making a positive aspect to Chiron, the wounded warrior. The pain evoked by your Moon work, while troubling, is coming to the surface for an important reason. Emotional healing and clearing cannot happen without the wound reopening a wound, no matter how old, and applying the necessary ointment.