Lynn Hayes

About Lynn Hayes

Lynn Hayes has been a practicing astrological consultant in beautiful North Carolina for over 30 years, working with clients all over the world both in person and by phone. She focuses on therapeutic and healing approaches which encourage greater empowerment and personal growth. She is available for personal consultations (see the readings tab on this website).

Sunday poetry: Can you feel it?

art by Helga Joy

In honor of the big transits that are happening in my own chart right now (details at the bottom of the post) and my own inner explorations, I offer this beautiful piece of inspiration to let go of blocks and anxieties that keep us locked in a prison of our own story and help us convert this prison into a prism of possibilities. 💖

Can you feel it?

Life breaking through inside us like an undeniable rising tide of wild brilliance and truth..

Asking us to wake up and rediscover ourselves as the planetary beings and hearts that we are

Inviting us to break through our fears and separation

Melting the divides to find a melody that unites us.

A tune that activates all of our hearts.

A song that tells us who we are growing into.

A truth that touches us so deeply that we long to hear it with every fiber of our being,

that gives us permission,

that takes off our brakes

that unleashes the love and creativity of our whole species,

that tunes us back into the soul sanity that lives us,

that serves to ignite the more that we are

so that the power of our collective awakening

breaks us out of the mould that has held us back

and delivers the quantum shift needed

to activate our profound potential as restorers

of life’s exquisite and miraculous balance.

My current Big Transits: Uranus opposite natal Pluto/South Node, Chiron opposite natal Saturn/Sun/Neptune conjunction and squaring natal Uranus.

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By |2023-09-10T08:09:45-04:00September 10th, 2023|Inspiration|8 Comments
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My writing sabbatical starts this week

Last year I had a very big birthday with a 7 in it, and ever since then I have been pondering my future. I had been wanting to update my VisionCrafting workbook for those of us in the third age of life, the time after the second Saturn return at around age 58 when we realize that time is passing quickly, and the more I worked on that update the more I realized that I myself need this work before I can pass anything along to others.

I’ve been writing regularly about astrological topics since 1991 when I was asked to write a horoscope column for a new monthly spiritual magazine called Connexions. Rather than write sun sign horoscopes I instead began writing about the astrological effect of planetary movements and called my column Skywatch. When I started my website in 2002 I began posting this column on the web (you can see an archive here – not much has changed in the past 20 years!). There turned out to be at least one other astrology column called Skywatch so I changed the name to Planetary Illuminations, which was really a more accurate name anyway.

Thirty years is a long time, and since then astrology has swept into the mainstream. You can now read about Mercury retrograde in every major magazine and news outlet, and details about the new and full moons are everywhere. A search for “full supermoon august 2023) generated 44.6 million results! it has become more and more difficult to find new and creative ways to write about frequently occurring astrological events.

I’m not going to give up on presenting this material altogether, but I do need a break to see where my […]

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By |2023-09-25T21:51:36-04:00August 31st, 2023|Blogging|17 Comments
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Planetary news this week: Virgo season, Pisces Full Moon, much more!

Astrological update for the week of August 21-18, 2023

There’s a lot to unpack this week! Grab a coffee or cup of tea and let’s get cracking.

Sun enters Virgo August 23. The Sun’s entry into Virgo technically marks the beginning of Virgo season, but with Mercury and Mars already in Virgo the focus on order and the world of the mundane is already well underway. The shift from Leo to Virgo will help to soothe some of the fiery energies that have been flying around lately – the only planet left in fire will be Venus in Leo. Since Venus is retrograde, though, some of that fire will be muted as Venus looks back to the past in order to revise and recreate our values and passions. In Virgo season (in the northern hemisphere) the days may begin to cool somewhat, symbolizing the passage from the heat of Leo to the cool deliberation of Virgo.

Mercury turns retrograde August 23. Speaking of Virgo, Mercury has been in Virgo since July 28 and thanks to the retrograde cycle it will remain in Virgo until October 4. Virgo is one of the signs ruled by Mercury meaning it is at home in Virgo where our mental data processing can be done purposefully and efficiently.  Mercury is an air planet but is quite at home in Virgo, an earth sign, where our ideas have a practical application. With Mercury in Virgo the flood of ideas and chatter that we sometimes see with Mercury in Gemini can be assembled into a cohesive picture in the pursuit of perfection.

By now most people know that when Mercury is retrograde communication and information processing becomes more important. Mercury is at its closest point to Earth […]

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By |2023-08-21T10:27:33-04:00August 21st, 2023|Planetary news this week|0 Comments
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Sunday inspiration: Reach in the direction of your heart’s calling

artist unknown?

Over the next few days Mars in Virgo opposes Neptune, the planet of transcendent creativity, imagination and the truth that stretches beyond that which is known. Mars in Virgo is more crafty; it seeks order and purpose, so this is a complicated planetary combination that asks us to reach outside of our comfort zone in order to find a structure within which magic can happen.

I first found this as a little meme on Instagram, but the whole piece is quite beautiful and really speaks to this stretch of Neptunian inspiration we have right now. 💝

One day you will realize that true success is not the way things look, but how they feel. And a life that feels truly good will require you to be uncomfortable. It will ask you to stretch. It will force you to be vulnerable, to lay your heart bare. It will prompt you to make the hardest choices, and to reconcile the fact that sometimes, what’s hard is also what’s right. It will force you into integrity. It will open you where you’ve tried to build every wall. It will make you process every hurt you thought you had moved beyond, only to discover it’s been lingering somewhere inside, waiting to be felt, to be held.

One day you will realize that true success is not someplace you might arrive one day, but the way in which you take each step in stride. It is the way you move forward, how you make the most of anything and everything around you. One day you will realize that the path to where you want to be is paved from the pieces that are already in front of you. One day […]

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By |2023-08-20T07:38:27-04:00August 20th, 2023|Inspiration|3 Comments
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Planetary news this week: The rise of Venus and the Leo New Moon

Astrological update for the week of August 14-21, 2023

art from Displate

Venus as morning star. On the heels of Sunday’s conjunction of the Sun to Venus (called the “cazimi”), we begin to see Venus rising as the morning star as she passes the midpoint of the retrograde period. The symbolism 40-day cycle of Venus retrograde is pretty profound, as that 40-day cycle can be found frequently in religious texts. At the beginning of the retrograde cycle Venus is ahead of the Sun and rises near sundown, but after the Sun/Venus conjunction at the midpoint of the cycle Venus sneaks ahead of the sun and rises at morning.

This midpoint of the Venus cycle marks a shift from the looking back period and welcomes the replacement phase of the cycle. We’ve already recognized aspects of our values and relationships that require change. This is the opportunity to begin to put change into motion, a process that continues when Venus turns direct.

Leo New Moon, August 16. The New Moon in Leo, the beginning of a new lunar cycle is a marriage of heaven and earth. The Moon is in the sign of the Sun, and the conscious solar principle unites easily with the lunar instincts. Leo is the sign that celebrates the Self – the healthy Ego, open-hearted, generous and full of life and an ability to embrace joy.

The New Moon is accompanied by some potent planetary juice including an exact square to Uranus, the radical planet of change and breaking out of routine. Normally the disruptive influence of Uranus would be somewhat destabilizing, but the Leo Moon can be excited by change. In addition, there is a dearth of the watery element of emotion which […]

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