Feeling dramatic?  Like you need to do something to get attention for people?  Take your time up on the “stage” of life?  If so, then you’re feeling the energy of Mars moving into Leo.  Mars is all about our actions and Leo is all about drama and being recognized.  So when Mars moves into Leo people get that feeling that they need to do something dramatic in their life.

Something to be careful about is that, while Mars is about “action,” it is also about “anger.”  If a person is for some reason denied their ability to be as dramatic as they like, they might get mad about it.  Dramatically.  Throwing a scene and getting violently upset are also possibilities of this time.  This is especially likely if Mars has challenging aspects to other planets in their chart.

If Mars in the sky has a challenging connection to your birth chart, then the Mars action gets “tense” and the chances are likely that there will be some type of strong reaction, perhaps involving violence.  How strong this Mars reaction is depends on the planetary energies that Mars is challenging.  For example, if Mars (anger) is in challenging aspect to Moon (emotions), there might be a strong emotional reaction.  However, if Mars is in challenging aspect to Uranus (rebellion), the results might be very violent indeed.

The challenge is to recognize that anger in you when it begins, and to work to find the source and cause of it.  Is it something you can do something about?  Then take your dramatic action and go make things happen!  Not something you can do something about?  Then it’s time to put your Mars drama into something else, maybe into physically getting on a stage and showing them what you’ve got!  Maybe a karaoke night is in order at this time!

Tim Wilson is an astrologer who devotes his life to opening up as many people as possible to the wonders of astrology.  You can begin your astrological journey at http://wilsontc.stormloader.com/#continue .

I have practiced shamanic work since 1995. I am an urban shaman; I've lived my whole life in Chicago. I say only half-jokingly that I'm an indigenous shaman, because I was born and raised in Albany Park, only a couple miles from the location of Life Force Arts Center, which I founded. Despite the urban landscape, I have had some powerful encounters with nature in this area, such as the time when I was 10 years old and almost drowned in the Chicago River (in Horner Park, at Montrose and California). But that is another story.

How did such a city girl become a shaman? For me, it was through the arts of music and dance, which I have practiced since I was a child. Gradually, I realized that I was engaging in the arts as a form of spirituality and energy work, rather than with the Western values of art as entertainment or self-expression. My art created powerful energetic shifts for me as a performer, and also for my audiences.

I began studying energy work, and realized that I naturally had a shamanic approach to life and work. I developed my shamanic practice, and became both a teacher and healer in this tradition.

I have lived in downtown Chicago near Clark and Division for 16 years. I live in a high-rise building, but it has a wonderful garden, and is right next to a park. Birds sing there in the spring; a woodpecker once landed on my 12th floor windowsill and stared into my eyes for at least five minutes. Between 1995 and 2001, I composed 34 songs or chants to the seasons, honoring the natural world right there in my own backyard. These are on my CD, "Season Songs."

Beginning in 2002, I was guided to offer a series of Totem Animal Ceremonies to honor the energies of different animal spirits. Shamanism is an ancient practice, probably the very first spiritual practice that humankind developed all the way back when people lived in caves. Humans were completely immersed in nature at that time, needing to have a deep connection with the animals and plants around them in order to survive.

Thus, there is a long history of people communicating with the spirits of animals, and much lore about what each type of animal represents: what it signifies when you encounter the animal. For example, that it's bad luck for a black cat to cross your path, but good luck to carry a rabbit's foot. To find out more about animal guides, just google "totem animal."

The Totem Animal that I work with in February is Wolf. In Scots Gaelic, February was called Faoilleach, the Wolf-month, and in ancient Rome, the feast of Lupercalia (lupus means "wolf") was celebrated on February 15, honoring the she-wolf who nursed the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. So February and wolves have a deep connection. I have conducted a ceremony invoking Wolf every February since 2005.

It was late at night last Saturday, January 23, 2010, as I pulled into the parking lot in the back of my building. I sent out an energetic greeting and blessing to the grove of trees next to my building, when something suddenly caught my eye. It was a large animal running through the parking lot.

I looked again, and then again. "That's a coyote!" I exclaimed. The animal loped gracefully past my car. I believe it was a male, judging from the size - much larger than a German shepherd. He had beautiful gray and white fur, and did not look at all scrawny the way some coyotes do. Perhaps he had grown a thick winter coat, to protect himself from the Chicago winter? He ran out into the street, and fortunately was not hit by any cars.

I parked my car, and went to look for him, but he was long gone by that time. I felt blessed by this encounter. What a sign to receive!

Interestingly, the lore of animal spirit guides is that Coyote has a different significance than Wolf. Where Wolf is the Teacher, Coyote is the Trickster. Books on animal guides say that seeing Coyote means someone might try to trick you (or you might be contemplating tricking someone else!). It can also mean simply to enjoy being playful, rather than so serious.

But I find that the best information is to ask the animal him or herself what energy or message s/he brings. I look forward to doing so before or during the Wolf Ceremony!

Joan Forest Mage is honored to serve as a shamanic artist, teacher and healer in her hometown of Chicago, where she is founder and executive director of Life Force Arts Center. She will be leading Totem Animal Ceremony: Wolf at LFAC on Thursday February 4 at 7 PM.

American Poet Robert Frost once said, “Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out, /And to whom I was like to give offense.”  This is great advice, but it is advice we rarely take.  All too often when someone “pushes our buttons” and starts to bother us, we take offense and “put up walls.”  Looking at the sign that the planet Saturn is in in our birth charts tells us something about the shape and nature of our “walls."

Saturn is all about “structure” in our life, including those ways we “structure” things into…and out of our life.  So when we “build a wall” to protect us from something “out there,” the building material of that “wall” is in the sign that Saturn is in.  Simply understanding this in our chart can help us recognize our “walls” before we have them fully built.

If Saturn is in Aries, we defend ourselves personally, in Taurus with our values or our money, in Gemini with ideas or words, in Cancer with our feelings, in Leo with our ego, in Virgo by analyzing, in Libra by our relationships, in Scorpio by trying to take control or overpower the situation, in Sagittarius by learning more about things, in Capricorn by being the authority, in Aquarius by being innovative, and in Pisces by being a spiritual sacrifice (i.e., often being the “victim”).

Don’t know what sign your Saturn is in?  Don’t worry, with the invention of the web, it is easy to find the sign any planet is in.  Simply go to http://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi, type in your birth info, create your birth chart, and find Saturn and the sign Saturn is in in your chart.  Simply being aware of this little piece of information can make your life much easier.  When things get tough and you feel yourself beginning to “dig in” in your comfortable defensive position, you can think about your Saturn and your sign and decide that, just this once, you aren’t going to “build a wall” without asking a few more questions about why you need to have the wall at all.

Tim Wilson is an astrologer who devotes his life to opening up as many people as possible to the wonders of astrology.  You can begin your astrological journey at http://wilsontc.stormloader.com/#continue .

The amazing thing about astrology is how our major life events occur at the same time as major astrological events.  Many of us have heard of the “30-something” years, the time that occurs around the age of 30, when we have to grow up and “put away childish things.”  So well-known is this age that there was even a television show called “thirtysomething” in the '80s.  And this time of being forced to “grow up” is called the “Saturn Return” in astrology.

Saturn is the energy of duty and responsibility, and so it is also about the limitations our responsibilities place on us.  The “Saturn Return” time is the time when the energy of the planet Saturn (which travels around the outside of the birth chart) returns to the place it was when you were born, as Saturn “returns” to its birth position.  This causes a “hard hit” of Saturn energy, where you feel the weight, duty, responsibility, and restrictions of getting older.  You become aware that you can’t do the things you used to do as a child.  Since, as an adult, you are expected to take responsibility for yourself and your actions, with that comes an awareness of the many limitations you now have to face on this “adult path” you are now taking.

So when we become or are close to becoming 30, we become aware of all these things, as we say goodbye to our childhood and hello to our adulthood.  We feel the loss of all the things we dreamed of as a child but, now that we’re older, know that we will never do.  We aren’t going to become the doctor, firefighter, daredevil, lion tamer, or world traveler we thought we might be.  It’s time to decide what career path we want to take, to answer that question we asked ourselves long ago, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”

Tim Wilson is an astrologer who devotes his life to opening up as many people as possible to the wonders of astrology.  You can begin your astrological journey at http://wilsontc.stormloader.com/#continue .