14 FEBRUARY 2025
Well it’s obviously way too late to say Happy New Year! So I’ll say Happy Valentine’s Day instead and I do hope that so far 2025 has been treating you kindly. It hasn’t been an easy start to the year here because of illness, as I caught my first ever dose of Covid in December. In itself it wasn’t too bad apart from agonising laryngitis, but the follow up was a chest infection that pretty much wiped me out for the whole of January. This explains the lack of newsletters from me!
I caught Covid from Evie Soldatos, who runs the cat sanctuary. I was with her the night before she tested positive. Unfortunately, she suffered pretty badly, ended up in hospital for ages being treated for influenza and pneumonia, so I counted myself as fortunate being on antibiotics in my own home. Hope am now full of precious antibodies.
A team of people stepped in to look after the sanctuary but Evie is still struggling with her energy. I’m definitely still getting back to full power myself so I can totally empathise with her tiredness. One of the main things to suffer in the process has been her awareness campaigns on social media as the sanctuary relies on donations.
I meant to send this out on Wednesday but ran out of time, as I try to do fundraisers for Evie on the Leo New Moon (August) and the Leo Full Moon at this time of year. There are many readers on my list who always put something in the pot and this time it’s even more important than usual, so am thanking you on behalf of Evie in advance.
You can follow Evie on Facebook –
https://www.facebook.com/evie.soldatos
The Cat Sanctuary page –
https://www.facebook.com/rahilefkas
DONATIONS
There is no active funding website page at the moment but donations can be paid directly into her PayPal account or mine. Small amounts really, really do count. 5 Euros feeds a cat for a week –
https://paypal.me/joannawattersGREECE
FULL MOON SQUARE URANUS
The Leo Full Moon that we’ve just had fell on Wednesday, conjunct Mercury and square Uranus, so this is how the beginning of the week shaped up –
Monday 10 February
- Mercury 23 Aquarius square Uranus 23 Taurus 19.29
Tuesday 11 February
- Sun 23 Aquarius square Uranus 23 Taurus 19.31
Wednesday 12 February
- Full Moon 24 Leo (square Uranus) 13.55
An excerpt from the weekly blog that went out as usual on Monday –
Mercury the Winged Messenger brings communication issues to the fore – information, news, decisions, meetings, conversations and so on. Uranus determines the nature of the news – eg the unexpected, shocks etc.
Also treat the first half of this week as if Mercury were retrograde. Uranus just loves to throw spanners in the works and pull rugs from under our feet. Make no assumptions. There may well be things that we don’t yet know that will soon make a difference.
One of the main jobs of the Full Moon is to illuminate. So whatever is on your priority list as the week gets underway is likely to change shape but culminate midweek. The Full Moon is of course also linked to lunacy, and Uranus is the whacky wild child of the skies, so the overall theme is one of unpredictability – the astrologer’s nightmare! Remember that Uranus is also the divorce planet, rules splits of all kinds.
One thing’s for sure, even if we get some things right, Uranus nearly always catches us out with something else that hadn’t even occurred to us. Very left field, but that doesn’t necessarily = bad. Roll with it, not that you’ll have any choice.
I wish I could tell all the stories that have come my way, but I can assure you that they more than bear out all of the above. My own “left field” story was that I was contacted by Sallie who runs the dog sanctuary here (the canine equivalent to Evie) who told me that the word on the street was that Jo Watters is sending cats back to the UK to be sterilized. This was so nuts that I was actually speechless – a rare event lol. Turned out to be one of those wonderful lost in translation moments – the vet I use here is called Aglaia, and the Greek word for England is Anglia.
Leo of course is the feline sign and that square to Uranus is all about change, including having to make changes before they’re thrust upon you. Evie is reluctantly accepting that her days of running the sanctuary are numbered. She can’t take on any more newcomers as there are already 7 kittens in the house, and in total more than 40 cats under her care. The workload and the stress are getting too much. The focus now is on finding homes, here and abroad. Uranus is a key player for disbanding, but it’s all easier said than done.
Do you know of any rescue centers or individuals who would adopt a Greek cat/dog? This is slowly happening as there’s a van service called Pet Zen who transports the animals to their new forever homes. So far this has included the UK, various countries in Europe and even Canada. Do get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
MERCURY INTO PISCES
So as I write Mercury is moving from 29 Aquarius to 0 Pisces, Mutable Water – it’s pouring with rain! The last degree of a sign and the first degree of the next are known as the critical degrees, often encapsulating stories of transition, from endings to beginnings.
This theme is evident in the news this morning as negotiations (Mercury) are going through a critical stage with regard to protecting the deal to release Hamas hostages/Palestinian prisoners, and also with Trump’s intervention re arriving at a pact between Putin and Zelensky.
This story jumped out too – poor LA, this is one transition they could have done without, talk about one extreme to the other –
Large debris and mud flow pushed a Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) vehicle into the Pacific Ocean in Malibu on Thursday. The LAFD member was able to leave his car and went to hospital with minor injuries, fire officials said.
The storm brought torrential rain to LA County, affecting fire-ravaged neighbourhoods and causing mandatory evacuation orders.
Pay close attention to what unfolds in your own life today and over the weekend, especially if you’re going through any kind of transitional experience yourself. There’s a double whammy going on as the Sun is poised to tread exactly in Mercury’s footsteps, making the minor aspect to Neptune (Pisces planet) before changing sign –
Thursday 13 February
- Mercury 28 Aquarius semi-sextile Neptune 28 Pisces 14.31
Friday 14 February
- Mercury ingress Pisces 12.08
Saturday 15 February
- Sun 28 Aquarius semi-sextile Neptune 28 Pisces 21.40
Monday 17 February
- Sun ingress Pisces 10.08
So we’ll start next week with the Sun heralding the Pisces time of year, and I’ll be talking more about this sign in the weekly blogs to come. For now here’s my take on Mercury in Pisces, from my book Essential Astrology.
MERCURY IN PISCES
Sign of Detriment/Fall
Mercury in Jupiter’s feminine sign can be a fish out of water. We all know what it’s like to try and “reason” with someone “in love”. Like oil and water the two simply don’t mix. With Neptune, god of the sea, as co-ruler this Mercury is at the mercy of feelings and thoughts that are free flowing, boundless, staggeringly deep and teeming with undercurrents. These individuals often have early experiences of emotional hardship, in which their feelings were disregarded or minimalized.
Making sense of emotional matters may be a tall order but this struggle often produces exceptional poets, singers and songwriters. What they cannot say as easily or as deeply as they would wish they express through rhyme and song. The pure voice of Celine Dion can be located in her Mercury in Pisces exactly conjunct beautifying Venus. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with a Stellium (4 planets or more) in Pisces, including Mercury, penned How Do I Love Thee, possibly the most famous love poem in the world.
The tricky side to this detrimented or fallen Mercury is distortion of the truth, from white lies to outright deception. Jeffrey Archer, with the double whammy of Mercury in Pisces opposite Neptune, is a textbook example. Here is the weaver of tales, the consummate story teller, the man whose books have sold 250 million copies, but whose political career was blighted by scandal eventually leading to imprisonment for perjury. When is it “right” and when is it “wrong” to smudge the line between fact and fantasy? It’s all about appropriateness. In a work of fiction it’s a gift, in a courtroom it’s a criminal offence with dire consequences.
In a nutshell: vulnerable, emotional, empathic/deceptive, unrealistic
OTHER CELEBS WITH MERCURY IN PISCES
- Alan Rickman
- Aretha Franklin
- Billie Holiday
- Brigitte Macron
- Bruce Willis
- Edgar Cayce
- Elizabeth Taylor
- Elton John
- Heath Ledger
- John Travolta
- Johnny Cash
- Kurt Cobain
- Lady Gaga
- Mariah Carey
- Nina Simone
- Reese Witherspoon
- Robbie Williams
- Sharon Stone
- Victor Hugo
- Yoko Ono
THE WEEKLY BLOG
This is 3k words and goes out every Monday without fail, I didn’t even miss a week in December and January in spite of covid playing havoc with me. I cover the horoscopes of anyone prominent in the news and then unravel the astrology for the week ahead. I try to
write in such a way that anyone can understand the aspects and cycles but I also include plenty of learning tips for the serious student.
NO INCREASE IN SUBSCRIPTION RATES
If you’d like to start receiving the weekly blog the subscription rates are designed to be affordable for everyone.
You can choose from a monthly or annual subscription –
- Annual subscription £57.00 (£1.09 a week)
- Monthly subscription £5.95 (£1.37 a week)
- SINGLE ISSUE – any week, any time £1.65
HOW TO SUBSCRIBE
If you don’t want to use PayPal just let me know so that I can give you the other options, eg UK bank transfer – joannaw@otenet.gr
Otherwise, you can go straight to my PayPal account, they will send me a notification of payment and I’ll then add you to the mailing list at this end –
https://paypal.me/joannawattersGREECE
Or you can click on the yellow PayPal button on the home page of my website –
SUMMER SCHOOL 2025
There is no increase in course fees for next year, all courses are £375.00 for the week. Flights in on Wednesday, return flights the following Wednesday.
Contact me direct to find out the options re package deals, flight only, finding your own accommodation and so on.
- 4 June 2025: SYNASTRY & THE ASTROLOGY OF RELATIONSHIPS with Joanna – suitable for refresher and intermediate levels
- 3 of 10 Places Available
- https://joannawatters.com/course/astrology-relationships-course/
- 11 June 2025: MOONOLOGY with Elisabeth Brooke – suitable for all levels
- 4 of 10 Places Available
- https://joannawatters.com/course/greek-island-moonology-course/
- 3 September 2025: TAROT & ASTROLOGY with Joanna – suitable for all tarot levels & beginners/refreshers astrology
- 6 of 10 Places Available
- https://joannawatters.com/course/tarot-and-astrology-course/
- 10 September 2025: – DISCOVERING ASTROLOGY with Sally Kirkman – suitable for beginner and refresher levels
- 6 of 10 Places Available
https://joannawatters.com/course/discovering-astrology-course/
All enquiries for courses, private tuition or readings – email joannaw@otenet.gr
or WhatsApp me 00306976296085 – for questions or to arrange a phone call 🙂
with love from Lefkada
Joanna
