This is going to be a strong, rather turbulent, month with some very potent challenges mingling with some absolute gems, as far as lineups go. These are, in turn, significantly energised and reinforced by two total eclipses on the 7th and the 21st. Hold onto your hats!

Consistent with every February for the last decade, Aquarius is a very busy place in this one's chart, with the Sun, Lilith, Chiron, Vesta, Neptune, a retrograde Mercury and the North Node all clustered in the sign of The Waterbearer. In classic fashion, Aquarius is such a swirl of brilliant, creative, mystical, edge of consciousness kind of energy with some schizoid tendencies, and that's just on its own. Throw in the psychic heavyweights like Lilith, Chiron and Neptune and all of these tendencies get exaggerated, increasing the voltage on an already highly charged system.

We can be forgiven for feeling a little crazy at times like this, but we are not totally powerless in this either. As usual, there are some brilliant possibilities for healing, for synthesising dark and light in our systems and for some quite spectacular psychic-spiritual openings. That is, if we can look after ourselves and our nervous systems and avoid the temptation or the habit of escaping the body.

For all its brilliance, Aquarius is not the most grounded of energies and is not that keen on the emotional side of life, preferring detachment and a witnessing stance towards the more organic realms of feeling life. Those of you born with Chiron in Aquarius, in particular, will know too well the automatic tendency to take flight in response to deep wounding and overwhelming psychic or emotional experiences. In the face of this month's energy, so similar in quality, so potentially overwhelming, the challenge for all is to stay present, to keep feeling, and to learn to ride out the waves of initiation, confusion and purification, without freaking out.

As for self care during this phase, keeping things simple, regular meditation (but not too much), good bodywork including craniosacral, Reiki or similar, all will keep soothing the nervous system and gently supporting the necessary inner movements that go with big psychic changes. Also with Chiron a big player, supported by the asteroid Hygeia in Aries, there are deep healing processes that will open ancient wounds in order to release them. These demand that we honour our feelings, especially those we split off from as little ones, as it's these that get activated by the Chiron process. Whatever emerges in our individual systems, any healing and therapeutic technique can bear great fruit at times like this because our inner healers are so active.

But there are more than just childhood wounds that get worked here, as Chiron reaches into even more ancient territory - birth, in-utero, past life wounds are all part of the deal. As Chiron is the closest planet (oid?) to the eclipse on the 7th, its work is likely to peak then, not just on a healing level but also in its role in any great shamanic, psycho spiritual leap forward. Just about anything could happen with this and it's a very powerful time for deep ceremony and ritual.

The accent on feeling our feelings takes even deeper significance, as the month begins with a Scorpio moon conjunct the Dark Moon. We have a situation, then, that two of the faces of Lilith are conjunct the Sun and the Moon, one that speaks of great and ancient powers that demand we face the emotional truth of things, both in the present and from the past. Like the dark Indian goddess Kali, to ignore or deny her brings out her destructive side and, in the current situation, unacknowledged emotional energies will negatively energise the potential craziness of the Aquarian concentration. Any combination of Lilith, particularly with Chiron, will bring up ancient emotional energies, including rage, grief and betrayal, for purification and healing. Here, then, lies an opportunity to reunite the deep forces of the feminine with the exalted qualities of Aquarius, but we have to be willing to face the darkness within with courage and a commitment to keep feeling, to regain parts of our own emotional selves that we've rejected and betrayed. Tough work but truly great work!

Alongside these dark gems (and it is truly amazing what gems of light lie at the heart of Lilith and the other dark goddesses) we also have more obvious ones. Jupiter is exactly conjunct Venus in Capricorn, not exactly a gushing one, but nevertheless a celebration of love, of the creation of beauty and unity. Venus in Capricorn is traditionally an energy that is outwardly reserved, but privately a sensitive and sensual expression of the goddess of love. It has better boundaries than many other positions, but can suffer from a little too much defensiveness. Jupiter brings greater trust and encouragement to express and manifest one's heart of hearts in one's love and creative lives. It's also a very gracious energy that can hold our hearts and the little ones within well as the tougher processes are active.

Daniel Sowelu (BSc DipEd) is a therapeutic astrologer, primal therapist and group leader in his 21st year of private practice.