Monday will be the day we recall when the collective consciousness / worldwide Grammys audience was schooled in the gentle art of the divine feminine. Fully inhabiting the archetype of the Mother in every sense, Queen B's performance was grace personified.

Oh Valentines Day, here you are again already. Another Hallmark hero looming over us and the lore behind the day swallowed up in a sea of satin hearts and overpriced roses. Tosh.

Musing on catastrophe as a giant swathe of Australia today sweltered through a heatwave that induced catastrophic conditions. After our last fatal firestorm the top tier was upped, in order to avoid a repeat of that heartbreaking natural disaster.

By now the bizarre magic that is the core competency of eclipse season has its claws in your life. It ramps up from here. Feel the door to that cage of yours rattling as the entire structure starts to swing. Our lunar Leonic version of the species is less than a day away and in my little corner of the conservatory, temperatures are rising in every sense.

We are deep in the zone of the next pretty pair of eclipses. Our full moon in lovely Leo this weekend is a lunar eclipse and the new moon in Pisces' mystic river at the end of Feb is a solar eclipse. Notorious for their ending / begin again two step, eclipses also ripple along particular astrological axes and always ping the prior pigeon pair.

When I think about the twists and turns my life has taken thus far it occurs to me that the very best of it has come as a bolt from the blue, a random tangent through happenstance or circumstance forcing a giant deviation from The Plan.

Under these slow cooked retrograde skies, all that was fixed and known is shifting. The movement is slow and organic without our constant adjustment and intervention, tectonic in its changes.

The intensity of the Scorpio full moon is in full throttle and her beams are searing through us. If you woke this morning gnashing your teeth or sobbing at the awful news or at breaking point know that Lady Lune is doing her good work on you.

The Scorpio full moon is on the rise. The time is nigh to dance with your denizens in the pale moonlight. Yes in this economy. Excuses have run out. If you have never bravely stepped toward your own shadow, preferring instead to select a saccharine excuse or point the finger all too quickly at everyone else's dark side, this Scorptastic lunation will make short work of your unholy two step.

The sun sweeping into Taurus is ever the grounding antidote to the Aries firestorm. We need the Ram's chutzpah and vim to put a rocket beneath us, drying our tears and heating us back up after nearly drowning in Pisces eclipse season. And then as the weeks roll by in a blur of imperatives and explosive breakthroughs, I crave the Venusian vibes that our little bull brings.

Dark matter is a favourite wonder of mine, believing as I do that all potency and potential waits patiently in the spaces between, poised and steady, already knowing when to leap into the light. Let these wondrous words (and there's plenty more from whence they came) carry you fearless and delighting into your shadows.

Both Pluto and Mars have turned retrograde, joining taskmaster Saturn and truth bomb Jupiter in reverse gear. And although it may well feel like the brakes have been slammed on, in truth this an invitation to enter the shadowlands prepared to spend some highly instructive and revealing time walking among our skeletons, the denizens of our dark.

After the spectacular whirlwind that has been the first quarter of this year - I'm still looking at you eclipse season - we're all more than ready for a hearty dose of slow mo. In the next month we will find ourselves having the pause button repeatedly pushed by three retrogrades as Mars, then Pluto and finally Mercury all haul themselves into reverse, joining long players Saturn and Jupiter.

If I met you reading tarot you will already know how much I love being able to reflect what's going on in your life back to you, as the cards whisper your story to me. It is a privilege to be invited into someone's world this way and one I honour in every reading I do. For years now I have read at markets and gatherings, parties and events and in cafés and healing havens and bookshops. I offer readings on Skype as well. And hand in hand with reading is writing, my first great love. You'll find it here most days as I interpret the moon and stars and the world around us.

The moon is nearly new in Aries, a chest thumping firestarter that marks the end of one era and the beginning of another. It is no surprise that there's almost a coven of dark goddesses with a magic hand in this tipping point.

Irritation is an Aries dark moon

Paddling in paradise