Zodiactivities for April 22-28, 2012

Focus of the Week: Spring Cleaning

Last week ended with lots of Taurus energy ~ the Sun moved into Taurus and we had a New Moon in Taurus. The Moon remains in Taurus through early afternoon on Monday. We’re experiencing a very strong Taurus start. When the Bull starts strong, he’s got a marked advantage.

Spring cleaning tips for last week included getting all your copper items polished and gleaming. Since Sunday is Earth Day, how about using a homemade copper cleaner and committing to staying green. Making your own copper polish will save lots of shiny pennies and keep the chemicals out of your house. It works on brass, too.

6 Tbsp flour
6 Tbsp salt
Enough vinegar to make a paste
Spread on copper items with a soft cloth and rub lightly. I used a cloth-covered dish sponge.
Note ~ Salt is abrasive. Make as fine a paste as possible so you don’t scratch the copper.

Ketchup can be used to clean copper, too, but it doesn’t have the scouring power of the salt. This recipe works!

Why all this emphasis on copper? Copper is the metal of Venus, traditional planetary ruler of Taurus and Libra. It’s well-known that the goddess of love and beauty likes shiny things ~ jewels included. She’s also crazy about cash, btw. When you touch anything made of copper, you are touching Venus. Indulge!

Let me take a second to say that I believe the real planet that should be associated with this earthiest of signs is the Earth itself. That’s another post altogether, though. In the meantime, I’ll stick with traditional associations.

The Moon moves into breezy Gemini on Monday afternoon and stays through Wednesday. Gemini is associated with things like newspapers, magazines, and automobiles. If you’ve got piles of old newspapers and magazines laying around (yes, I know you’re planning to read them later), get rid of them. You won’t believe how good it feels to be out from under the burden of old news.

Did you catch that association with automobiles? That extends to the room where your car is kept ~ the garage. If your garage looks like mine, you’re probably not champing at the bit to clean it out now. Where to start?! The car is another matter entirely. It doesn’t take long to remove all the clutter and do a quick vacuum. Keep one of those handheld vacs that plugs into the cigarette lighter in the car all the time. They work great.

Cancer brings the Moon home early Thursday morning and keeps her there through noonish on Saturday. Cancer is the zodiac sign dedicated to house and home. Cancer Moon days give you time to focus on absolutely anything you want…or nothing at all. Sometimes we just need to sit back and enjoy our home ~ big or small, clean or dirty, built on a foundation or travelling across the country on top of wheels. RVs let you take your home wherever you go. Sounds good to me!

If you want to focus on one specific room, focus on the kitchen. Cancer is all about food and nurturing, bringing tiny tender lives into robust health. I’ve noticed that when my kitchen is sparkling I want to cook more. And I usually cook healthier foods. I usually pull my kitchen completely apart every couple of years and scrub absolutely everything. It’s a 2-3 day job that’s exhausting and thoroughly satisfying. Since I skipped last year, it looks like 2012 is the scrub-down year. Now where did I leave that bottle of Murphy’s oil soap? It’s great for degunking wooden cupboards.

By Saturday afternoon the Moon will leave Cancer and enter Leo. Have some fun! Invite some folks over or bag an invitation and just kick back. Ride out the rest of the weekend with Leo lightheartedness.

We started the month of April with the Moon in Leo and suggestions on spring cleaning spaces used for entertaining. We’ve come full circle through the signs and arrived at where we started. There’s a comforting sense of looking back while knowing that we are moving forward. That’s the magic of Moon cycles and living in rhythm with nature.