Mercury enters Sagittarius

image: 'Abacus - a 12 part color wheel'

(image credit: DigiLab AVU, 2002)

Mercury is entering the Sagittarian realm on December 5th at 2:43 in the morning UT/+0 time. And that it’s doing so by hitting 0 Sag at a moment when it can be the thing shoehorned in between fixed star Toliman and universal(ist) Sappho would seem to say that everybody has stuff on their mind.

It's a bit of that Toliman thing...the what we can do but which we may or may not get around to doing (or being)?

Oh yeah, we’re all a bit at sixes and sevens with ourselves. No doubt we’d like to think we’d like things to be simple. But considering the evidence of how complicated all our lives seem to be?

It would appear that we humans don’t actually want anything to be simple. It would be antithetical to our big-brain beings to have nothing to think about, no matter what the meditation-prone think. Meditation and philosophy and all those things, those are coping mechanisms. They’re ways of gaining insight.

But for those who think any sort of silence or stillness or directed thought is going to change life? It may change their life, yes. But that’s because they’re changing the way they think.

That’s the Mercury precept. Whether we’re running through life, thinking about life or planning what we’re going to do with our lives, whether we’re using our thinking mechanism in a focused manner or merely to process our dance steps through life (I’m currently highly partial to electro swing, if you care) that’s the Mercury precept.

Mercury in Sagittarius has a reputation for lacking bounds and boundaries. So it would figure we will all have a lot…too much…the stuff we would rather not be thinking about…floating through our heads. And being that we’re humans (a mouthy species, it seems) some of that will fall out of our mouths and we will hear ourselves speak. Or we’ll hear others speak. Or we’ll have to contend with what we’re being told about ABC while we’re trying to finish up thinking through XYZ.

Yet for all that Mercury in Sagittarius tends to lack boundaries, for that same simple reason this is a hallmark of moving ahead. So you may be feeling like you need to ‘get out there.’ Or you need to throw off some shackle, some limitation, some old way of doing things because it’s just too confining.

The pitfalls during these weeks of Mercury in Sag (December 5th – December 24) are generally twofold. The all that’s out there and the wanting to get to what you want to get to can cause us to rush. Or be sloppy in some way which is going to trip us up.

Some of this is going to happen. So we take charge of what we can get ourselves to take charge of and we try and think through why we were sloppy in the moments when we were sloppy. What was so fool important and did we at least maintain enough of a sense of priority that the thing we did screw up on wasn’t something which is going to extract some life lynchpin?

A couple of days from now you’re going to hear that Mars is entering Libra. Considering that, it would seem that we have a time of opportunity.

And maybe we need it, yes. A lot of us have come to  Orcus' station with one path blocked, creating a consequence (Orcus) which is our needing to adapt... change...find a new way.

So some of us need to reach out. That quality - and minding who you're being as you reach out - all that becomes heightened once Mars gets into Libra. But there's more - the need to break through or break barriers for many of us is going to require striking out into uncharted territory of some type. That would be Mercury in Sag as the exploring and Mars in Libra as a 'conscious putting of Self (or what we do, have done or haven't done) on the line.'

Then as the month rolls forward we get into Uranus territory, which in raise tensions propels some of us into that 'new action' (creating our own 'breaking through' - namely of our own hesitation or resistance). That being mostly for those who have been having it in mind (or planning) coming into mid-December, others will find this period manifesting as new cracks in their mental asphalt and fractures crazing their nice neatly whitewashed image of things.

All of which gets us back to that Sagittarian ability (and tendency) to force the reality of the unknown on our imaginings. You know: learning differently. Or the different way. Or about the different thing. Or that your thing isn't what you thought it was, begging the examination of why you believed something so patently untrue.

(Oh yes...you wanted it to be true. You held onto its being true all during that long, long Mercury transit of that fixed emotions sign Scorpio.)

So yes...Mercury in Sagittarius is a great time for expanding horizons. Some will tell you it’s even a good time for taking a trip – which is a fine sort of idea as long as you’re starting out from the perspective of exploring what you could do.

Mercury in Sagittarius is a great time for the possible. But it also can raise your hackles. Those who can do the cheerful ‘letting water run off your well-oiled back feathers’ do pretty well under Mercury in Sagittarius… although there is some tendency to look like you don’t care. Or like you’re flighty… irresponsible... overly self-convinced without any real reason to be so full of yourself.

A lot of what is going to happen over these next few weeks will have a societal aura connected to it. That could be direct (as in: them and me) or it could be exclusionary, as in ‘I’m getting away from all that (and them).’ Ruling factors suggest a time when we’re in our heads and we’re thinking about how we feel about this or that and it all adds up to a lot about who we think we are, a world we’re living in which may or may not be what we were raised to think it was going to be…what ‘they’ know…what (as we all say from time to time to ourselves) we’re sure ‘they’ have no idea about with regards to our world.

Looking along the path ahead, Mercury’s doubling up on the Sun’s presence in Sagittarius probably heralds a few bobbled, messy days after which Mars enters Libra and we fly a bit less intensely but not any less proficiently until the weekend of the 14th when energy really begins to (Mars/Uranus) pop.

Or for you, maybe it’s a sizzle. Or a crunch, crackle or creak. 

The Omega Nebula (Messier 17 or NGC 6618) in Sagittarius

(photo credit: ESO/European Southern Observatory, July 2009)

We need to move on. This whole time is about moving on – not in terms of other people, but in terms of who we are. This is a time of rapid-fire re-estimations and when our values are going to be flexing, fluxing and squeezing out our impurities.

Or maybe keeping the impurities and squeezing out the good – there is that chance…which may be the point.

The thing about learning is we don’t know what we’re going to find out. Sometimes we learn things and they completely revolutionize our world. Sometimes things get tossed into our life and we hate them but they turn out to be good for us.

There are famous stories among astrologers about Sagittarius – it’s a sign which can be all about the magnanimous mentor and equally all about the over-convinced person determined to set themselves up to tell you the truth.

Except the trouble is…under Sagittarius, those who talk the loudest are often not able to make much stick. They may tell you what you want to hear or what you don’t want to hear not for your benefit, but because you aren’t even part of their equation.

Some call Sagittarius the sign of ethics. The truth is, Sagittarius can be ethical, but then again – your boundaries on ethics may not be the same as that someone else has.

Who’s right?

The Sagittarian response: “They are all equally right and equally wrong.”

Why that would be, could be and should be is the difference between understanding our Self and our Self among others – or as one part of the Whole which you may call society, Existence, whatever.

Sagittarius is where the zodiac breaks out it’s boundaries in every way. Where the first four signs are about learning to be who we are and the second four are about how and who we interact with, the last four signs are global and pluralistic.

They’re where we stop looking at everybody else and begin looking at ourselves through the perspective of everybody else. Every time any planet moves into Sagittarius and from there into Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces we know life is going to be more global. Speaking astrologically, we’re currently living through a period when generations are being shaped on this global level and when many of the powers which have kept individuals apart are being melted away.

It’s to think about, surely.

In that, these next few weeks will favor stepping light and keeping pace with yourself. Knowing what you’re doing is a good thing but that doesn’t mean you should only do what you know – or what you know will end in some manner you can predict.

It’s time for us all to take a step up, lest life tell us to take a step back with Mercury’s transit of Sagittarius merely being a timer pertaining to matters we need to learn from. The major influences which go along with this transit (Mars-Uranus in opposition plus Uranus and Venus stations) are all about getting us to flex and let go of old ways, limits, patterns – even alliance which no longer function as support or even supportively.

As we all know, when it comes to life and growth, we can change or we can be changed. And sometimes those things are one and the same – an idea which in its own right is rather hallmark Mercury in Sagittarius.
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Orcus at 6 Virgo: Our Possible Price

The Young Man and Death by Gustave Moreau (1865, oil on canvas)

Consequences. That’s the Orcus thing – consequences. Specifically those we can’t avoid.

And you know how much we all like a good unscheduled consequence, right….?

(Wrong!!)

Considering this (and changing the subject slightly if not at all), it continues to amuse (or maybe amaze me, I’m not sure) how the astrological world-at-large doesn’t make more of Orcus.

After all, look at all the attention Pluto gets. People are just fascinated by the allure, the craven draw of Pluto in all its potential disastrous-ness. Heck, we humans even get off on wallowing in the pain of our Pluto disasters. (We are quite the race, aren’t we?)

Our Pluto silliness isn’t really what I’m on about here…what I’m getting to is that Pluto is a dwarf planet. So is Orcus. Not to sound repetitive or anything, Pluto is also a Plutino – meaning it’s orbit is controlled by Neptune, the ‘big blue’ of our solar systemic planetary world.

And so is Orcus.

So…! Why DO we-who-are-metaphysically-inclined pay so much attention to Pluto and virtually NO attention to Orcus?

Answer: because Pluto’s energetics pertain ONLY to ‘what happens.’ We don’t much notice Plutonic consequences…we just feel the deliciously dangerous draw of their allure.

Pluto effects really hit in an event’s wake. It’s energies embody a less-than-fully-planetary-sized processing of our ability to forget (for good and ill), ignore (for the best and otherwise) and attempt to outguess eventuality (good luck with that). Where Plutonic forces function as part of our legacy, not all of us care (though some do fervently, granted) and where they pertain to our projecting our greatest desires on the future Pluto brings us those Grand Twists of Fate. Pluto is also about that we inherit through being born to whomever we were born to and how we harness (or don’t harness) our abilities in relationship to the world around us and our life in general.

Artist's image of Pluto based on Hubble's photographs

(image credit: C. M. Handler, December 2010)

In other words, Pluto is something we work with.

Orcus, on the other hand, is about consequence. In other words, Orcus is about that which is over, done, finis – and about which we can do nada, zilch and exactly zero.

With Pluto, in other words, we still have hope. How well founded that hope is….? Well, that’s what we might call “the Neptune side of Pluto” and all about how realistic we are and how well we deal with our emotionality. (And there’s nothing like a Pluto transit to teach us where we’re a wee bit wanting in the Emotionality Department… do I hear a seconding of this notion?)

(Don’t all groan at once, please…)

But to the point: where there is Orcus, there is no more negotiation. There is no hope of changing the situation as it stands. To the Romans, Orcus was the god-type who greeted you on the other side of the doorway through which you passed when leaving this life. And true to form when it comes to so much that Rome adopted from ancient Greece, apparently Orcus was the chilling godly sort of type who welcomed folks to the afterlife and then walked them to their destined destination in the underworld while having a (perhaps tastefully critical) conversation with them about what they did in life which… well… wasn’t so nifty keen and cool.

Nothing like a reminder after the fact, is there?

Like all of the objects controlled by Planet Neptune, Orcus tests our (Neptunian) responses to our own feelings and our reaction to being made to feel those feelings. With Pluto, the ‘lure’ (if you will) to get us into the situation which tests is primal and desirous.

With Orcus, it’s just fact. And it’s the very coolness and dispassionate factuality of Orcus which is so very daunting.

Yea verily to some – or to all of us on some occasions - even frightening.

Still, the thing to understand about Orcus is that the idea of ‘this is now dead and done, you can’t change it’ is not always as final as it sounds. Certainly we might expect to see (and yes, do see) transits from Orcus or to someone’s natal Orcus when someone dies. But Orcus isn’t a ‘symbol of death.’

It’s just an indicator that where you have been coming from – particularly as that pertains to what’s “ideal” to you emotionally…or idealized by you emotionally…that said ‘Neptunian illusion’ is no longer valid.

And maybe it was never valid.

Where Orcus is concerned, we face the utter lack of control which Pluto makes us think we can somehow get hold of.

And now Orcus is going retrograde.

The date: December 6, 2013 – which means the ‘window’ for station effects opens around December 4th and extends to…let’s say December 8th. During this time life will be becoming ‘ever more Sagittarian’…busy but introspective and filled with ideas and things which need – and which are worth contemplating.

But to put this a bit more cut-and-dried-ly, Mercury will be moving into Sagittarius on the 5th (the Sun is already in Sagittarius) and as of the 7th, Mars will move into Libra.

That puts Orcus – this ‘vibe of consequence’ (or maybe ‘consequential vibe’) right between two influences which would tend to say we went too far too fast and have either said too much or too little…and that we now (Orcus) are recognizing we have to face the consequences of our actions. Or lack of actions.

What has happened, what we’ve done or not done is the Orcus part. How we feel – and indeed whether we feel, whether we are willing to deal with our reality? That’s the Neptune part.
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A simulation of Orcus' orbit as example of the path followed by any of the Plutinos,

 all of which 2-to-3 resonance with Neptune.

Here’s the magic: with Neptune, to accept is to enshroud yourself with the ability to learn better (always good) and to – if you want to – improve things by adopting the Neptunian position of humility and admitting your errors or vulnerabilities at least to your Self.

That Orcus is going retrograde at 6 Virgo reminds us that the person we have responsibility for Self but at the same time how life cannot become a matter of our ego or ego drives, positive or negative – that when they do (or because they have) we may be ‘judged’ as wanting.

Unless of course, you’re willing to ‘own’ your own errors. At that level, Orcus transits (and stations, yes) are about knowing there are consequences…and how that pertains not just to us, but to the consequences others may ‘pay’ for us.

That’s the thing which over time…after now having had even just a handful of years as an astrologer in which to watch new (to us here on Earth) points and think them through…that’s the thing which is becoming more obviously to me than ever about Plutinos. Yes, they do each have their own particular ‘test’ and way of bringing about big shifts in our lives. At the same time however, they all also represent a ‘class’ of astronomical object which has (and should have) it’s own astrological meaning.

What I’m referring to here is the fact that what makes a Plutino a Plutino is the fact that its orbit is controlled by Neptune through Neptune’s amazing ability – as a planet - to influence vast swaths of space (and just about everything wandering through that space) all along its orbital path.

In short, Plutinos generate the sort of vibe which has a peculiar sort of ‘radiant’ quality. Think of Pluto in the unfortunate case of a terrible traffic or train wreck which everybody then has to come and stare at. Pluto has that ‘magnetic’ effect – the lure and allure, the fascination and all the possibilities of guilt and guilty pleasures which go with that.

And Orcus?

Orcus isn’t the train wreck…it’s what we do to create a train wreck in our own lives. And considering that, Orcus going on station at 6 Virgo says a lot. For one, the Sabian Symbol for this degree is ‘A HAREM,’ – a singular collective which stresses receptivity, with noted astrologer Marc Edmund Jones referring to this as ‘a fateful (even if sought after) subservience to the vagaries or desires of the emotional nature’ with Dane Rudhyar counting by thinking of this state of existence as ‘an emptiness of waiting’ which begs to be used for positive purposes.

Why we create what we create, and why that was important enough to serve as sufficient motivation to bet the most irreplaceable thing we have in life (time) is at least as important as what we create or what others think of us. It would seem we have each – in some part of our life – gotten ourselves to a place where we can do nothing but wait for some right moment or turn of tide.

Having created our ‘consequence’ (good, bad or mixed) we are now being asked to look at what some might think of as the most restrictive or punitive parts of our experience as a source of personal enlightenment.
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December’s New Moon: Illuminating Our Self

A clay oil lamp used in India's diwali festival

(photo credit Arne Huckelheim, November 2010)

Life as a Mobius Strip…yes, and that’s apparently what we’re in for. The whole of the incoming lunation which starts on December 3rd at twenty-two minutes after midnight (UT/+0 ) seems somewhat akin to an astrological Mobius Strip.

A Mobius Strip - technically, a one-sided

piece of paper.

 

I remember distinctly what my reaction was when someone told me there was such a thing as a one-sided piece of paper: I looked at them as though they were crazy.

Assuring me they were not, this person then demonstrated how if you took a strip of paper and taped its ends together after installing one twist in the paper strip… how if you then lay that twisted loop of paper down on a table and apply a pen to it, how by drawing the paper beneath the pen… how slowly but surely you’d get back to where you started – and how in that process you had drawn on both ‘sides’ of the paper, theoretically proving it to be one-sided.

And don’t we all do a little bit of that one-sidedness, even while we’re veering hither and yon through life?

Any Sagittarian lunation is going to force us to do two things: learn or learn better (that would be the Sagittarius part) and feel about it – that being the Moon-ish stuff.

Or we could even feel what we think about having to learn something. Or think about our feelings. Or think about how the whole feeling thing applies in the grander scheme of life.

Sagittarius is ‘big’ like that, being one of the last four signs of the zodiac. When Sagittarius turns up on the energetic menu, no matter who we are or how we live we’re moved into a mode where “it” (whatever we deal with) is not precisely about us. That Sagittarius is a fire sign means our ability to envision is called upon…but whether your vision is about what could happen to you or how you could make something work or what glorious new opportunity might come of something you really don’t want to tackle…?

That’s up to you.

One very good thing about fire sign energy – especially where the Moon is concerned – is that the fiery ‘imagining’ and/or ‘not real, just in theory’ quality syncs rather nicely with our intellectual mode of thinking… which may just be entirely useful now as we’re all plowing through whatever complications are normal in your life as a side dish served up with the holidays.

Let’s face it – the holidays are complicated. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t celebrate worth a figgy pudding, you still have to cope with all the people who are celebrating and doing the whole festive thing.

Plus…(dare I say?)…Venus is about to go retrograde, a fact which is likely to summon up that splendidly flagrant human tendency to celebrate before all goes to pot. Call it the binge before the fast - or more likely, the splurge before the budget.

As a matter of fact, just as this New Moon occurs (December 3rd) Venus begins slowing down. (It probably should be taken as a hint.) Wherever Capricorn (the sign Venus is in) falls in your chart, that is the department which is going to come in for some sort of stress during Venus six weeks of retrograde.

Into which comes this Sagittarius lunation. Sagittarius being the sign immediately before Capricorn, we have an uncomfortable semi-sextile which thematically combines ‘hurry up’ and ‘do more’ (Sagittarius) with Capricorn-ian deadlines, obligations, limits and responsibilities to self and others.

As for the degree of this New Moon, that’s 10 Sagittarius - and this is where the magic begins to happen, as despite all that stuff which may sound trying, challenging, even wearisome, 10 Sagittarius is a degree which speaks of the promise and opportunity… even the fateful occurring of moments which teach how our polarities within are the polarities we create in life and between our Self and others.

The trick is to remember that we’re attracting them so that we can understand our own capacities.

In other words, don’t blame them – bless them, particularly when they point out you’re better than you’re letting yourself be.

That’s what that cry of conflict in your soul is all about – and that’s what this Sagittarian lunation will bend in upon itself to show you, though you’re highly likely to be surprised by how things work.

As I say, this starts with 10 Sagittarius – the position of the New Moon. With Antares just behind at 9 Sagittarius, the idea of success hinging on ‘not being obsessed’ is in the mix throughout the month, but what that means is purely individual. With Jupiter (ruler of Sagittarius) pictured in exact conjunction with Black Moon Lilith the choice would seem to be between something about our Self that we wanted to ‘leave behind’…or something about our Self that we refuse to own which, what with energy being sneaky like that, someone else is owning (or has owned) for us of late.

I admit…there’s a whiff of that recent eclipse thing in the air. It’s symbolically suggested by Mercury still being in Scorpio (26 Scorpio) in the chart of the New Moon.

Mercury’s been in Scorpio since September 29th. Do we all have that much unpacking of our emotional psyche to think about?

Evidently yes.

Link to the 2013 MERCURY IN SCORPIO post

On the other hand, does the Scorpio tendency to make us feel so much about something mean it’s not real?

Link to (2013) SUN IN SCORPIO post

 

Maybe it is real. If so…what does that mean? What does it say about us as people that we can or cannot deal with our Selves and each other as people? How is it that we are so drawn to those who will inevitably test us at the most rip-prone spot in our Being?

And is ripping all bad? Or does it afford us room to grow?

Representing relationships, how well we relate and the process of self-experience we connect with through the process of relating (or refusing to relate), the Lunar Nodes are also still at 7 Scorpio/Taurus in this New Moon chart.

7 Scorpio is the degree the nodes slid into back on October 2nd - as life laid on five or six weeks of pretty intense experiencing in keeping with the Scorpio solar eclipse.

(Oh joy, oh rapture, right?)

And now we’re on the other side of that. With this New Moon, the last New Moon (the solar eclipse) begins to ‘gel.’ Think of it as a cut or thorn prick which finally knits over enough to stop bleeding.

No, things aren’t yet healed. But the universal process which promotes healing has been summoned, and in most cases as been started.

The Sabian Symbol for 10 Sagittarius reading as follows: IN THE LEFT SECTION OF AN ARCHAIC TEMPLE, A LAMP BURNS IN A CONTAINER SHAPED LIKE A HUMAN BODY. Since the New Moon is in fiery Sagittarius (a sign we can typify as ‘expansion of what you know’) and the lunation “arc” goes from that ‘envisioning/realizing’ New Moon in Sagittarius to a Full Moon in airy, option-sorting Gemini knowing that the next New Moon (January’s) will be in earthy Capricorn, land of achievement, social status, all things governmental and generally life consequential… what would seem to be implied here is a pretty straight on process: you get the idea, you think through the parameters and then you choose to act or not act.

And according to the symbol, all of this has to do with ‘a light’ which has, which is being or which has been “left” in the ‘left’ section of an archaic temple. And the lamp…? The ‘light’ may either be ‘shaped like a human being’ because it is a person, or it may be an ideal or idealized person – the ideal furnished by some person.

Considering how ‘light’ often represents information, education or some sort of ‘message’ or mentoring being given to us (or possibly left with us), the whole aura of Sagittarian ‘learning further’ may be our proceeding on with learning and pushing our boundaries or trying to cope based on something we believe we need to understand.

And that left section in an archaic temple – that’s particularly intriguing. Why? Because ‘left’ – especially when you’re talking about the human body in metaphysical terms – is a reference to the future. And yet (she says blithely), the symbol very specifically refers to an archaic temple – in other words, something we did hold high at one point, but which we have walked away from or given up on.

….Which may (now that I’m thinking about it) work very well with astrologer Marc Edmund Jones’ original commentary on the Sabian Symbol as dictated to him by the psychic: ‘The value of the “return to the body” advocated by modern thinkers in order to balance the stress on intellectuality and objective consciousness’ (to which astrologer/philosopher Dane Rudhyar adds ‘relying on organismic responses’).

Und zo…….Remember that Mobius Strip thing? What the above is saying we are now moving into our (left) future (where we will also find we have ‘left’ today’s present behind) we will reconnect in some way, at some level with something which we have allegedly left behind.
Maybe we have, maybe we haven’t.

Could we be headed back towards it? Maybe, but if so, according to the structure of this lunation chart, you’ll know that’s the right thing to do.

Give or take, you know. Before we get to the aspecting and all the planetary do-si-do’s, it seems prudent to add one more note about the Venus retrograde. In occurring on the 21st of December (in the UT/+0 time zone) this Venus station/retrograde falls immediately after this month’s Full Moon, a Full Moon which occurs on the morning of December 17th (UT/+0 time).

The suggestion here is that after the Full Moon, there’s something of a ‘retreat’ (if you will) from outside influences. Certainly there will still be commerce, but it would be natural, given these markers to see the general frenzy and crush as something we’re participating in begin to ‘take a turn’ after the 17th – and seeing that the Solstice and Venus’ turn to retrograde happens on December 21st, it wouldn’t seem unnatural for us to take that moment to do something we would find meaningful and which would move us at some level.

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Just to pause a moment here, do you feel like perhaps it’s taking me a very long time (even for

me) to get to the point?

Ah, but grasshopper….that IS the point!

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The way this New Moon chart is organized, it’s a bit like a Rube Goldberg machine. You know…you get to this through that and you end up getting somewhere you hadn’t suspecting you had started out to arrive at?

We start with the New Moon and 10 Sagittarius, and in looking at the lunation’s chart note that it’s the apex of a t-square.

This t-square is being presented in early degrees of mutable (learning as you go) signs with Sagittarius, a sign about seeing how the thing works in reality and the changes, additions or refinements you need to make in order to maximize effect. That means that at least from here until the Full Moon (on the 17th) will be spent trying to get a fullest perspective on our efforts – replete with all the usual Sagittarian caveats.

The ‘object’ of this t-square is imaged as Chiron at 9 Pisces with Chiron being that thing we can’t imagine doing (or knowing how to do) and 9 Pisces lending the aura of all which is felt when you face the Great Undertaking.

You know…the one you know you need to undertake in your heart of hearts but which just seems full of SUCH grief?

Yes, that undertaking.

And it’s that undertaking that the New Moon is sitting astride of, telling us that whatever you think is at stake…you’re probably thinking too narrowly about the subject. Yes, there may be some really good reason why you (9 Pisces) need to do something, and doing that something requires your substantial (10 Sagittarius) abilities – those things you are really good at.

You’re probably thinking that you need to do ‘XYZ’ because you will achieve ABC…and yet, this image says there’s more to be gained (part one) and that you can indeed achieve your aims (and gains) if you will only approach the problem from not a personal, but a more universal basis.

In other words, life may feel like its all about you or all about one particularly prioritized project when its far more likely that what you are doing involves a far greater set of influences than you are currently thinking of.
So that’s Unknown Factor #1.

And on top of that goes Vesta at 7 Libra.

 
Vesta concerns the protecting of the self and those with whom you abide through the honoring of everyone’s needs and the keeping of one’s promises. In Libra, relationships, negotiations, conversations or the process of ‘relating,’ ‘conferring’ or ‘selling’ are possible…and where they are possible, availing yourself of same will benefit you.

However….

 
…with Uranus at 8 Aries (in opposition to Libra) there’s been or needs to be some flexibility brought to the fore, lest promises and priorities go awry and things come shuttering apart in a show of broken self-conception. In facing off against Vesta, even if Uranus wasn’t retrograde it would be suggesting some self-questioning as to whether there’s somewhere you need to change, flex, join the group – something!

But wait! That’s not all either.

(Yes, I know…I’m beginning to sound like an infomercial.)

 
There’s a little issue called “Pluto at 10 Capricorn” which enters into this mix now. And that Pluto, representing some sort of ‘structural power’ or ‘power structures’ in your life or in your heart is getting in the way. Are you being too rigid. Are you too unstructured? Maybe both?

This is a bit of a oddity as a t-square (yes, it’s another t-square) in that the object is the Uranus in retrograde.
What does that tell us? That tells us that in order to achieve your desired or needed internal changes (or the ability to be flexible) things, your very concept of power – what is yours, what isn’t yours – needs to shift.  

And when it comes to that, then we’re back at the entrance to the maze we’ve just gone through, courtesy of a Grand Trin between Pluto, Pallas and the South Node in Taurus.

Put simply, this incoming lunation thus becomes more about coming to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it…

…Which is rather the definition of illumination.
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