Mercury enters Aries

This blog is being posted on March 8th and is about something which will happen March 9th – namely Mercury entering Aries at 5:48 in the afternoon (UT/+0)

So why post a day early?

No, it's not just about the time difference. 5:48pm is quite late enough in the day that Mercury will enter Aries on the 9th no matter where you are.

(Well...except if you're like in New Zealand or Fiji. For you it'll be March 10th by the time Mercury gets its planetary bustle into Aries.)

So why post this on the 8th? Because immediately before Mercury gets to 0 Aries, it will be at 29 Pisces – an astrological descriptor of intensity and emotional evocation even without any other descriptors, of which there are several!

And what are they? Well...how about Uranus? That'll rattle your dice, eh? And also calculated Lilith (aka Black Moon Lilith)? Talk about your cold shoulders!

Plus there's Scheat, the fixed star any self-respecting Roman would have given a thumbs down to in the Coliseum.

(Okay…so maybe not. It’s hard feeding stars to the lions, I get that. But it's a nice concept…)

Of these three, Uranus is the most abstract, tending to be about the moment when things change. All throughout its transit of Pisces, Uranus has been about provocative levels and types of feeling or the provocation of emotionality and it’s not about to change now!

Less abstract and certainly less personal, the calculated form of Lilith is all about things we value which society doesn’t like (or wouldn’t like about us if it knew!) and/or things about “our world” which we don’t particularly want to know anything about. This isn’t just about something we don’t want to be involved in – this is whatever it is in your world which you habitually, even quasi-ritually make it your business to keep off your personal radar.

Another dislikable quality about Black Moon Lilith is that it tends to represent not only what we would like to ignore in our world – but what the world seems apparently determined to ignore about us.

This ability to treat us as less than valuable (even viable…even visible!) which tends to manifest when Black Moon Lilith is around is it has rather in common with Scheat, a fixed star which represents the ability to have your ideas (even when they’re right-on true!) rejected and even ridiculed.

It doesn’t exactly sound like a bowl of tutti-fruity, right?

And it’s worth being warned about this Lilith-Scheat thing, as it’s going to be with us for the next ten days or so – it perfects on March 19th, which would probably be not the best day to announce you’ve discovered the cure for the common cold!

I mean…you could announce it fine. Just don’t expect to get anything more than a bunch of disbelief hurled your way in return.

And a few sneezes, of course.

With all this energy piled up at in the last degree of Pisces, Mercury’s passing over this point as it presses forward to exit Pisces and enter Aries may indicate a coagulation of opinions, values – and like as not, at least a deal of acceptance-versus-rejection issues. Since Pisces (among other things) evokes, asks and tests all we think is worthwhile, that sets the stage for Mercury entering Aries.

And hence, the age old question: what do you want to be when you grow up?

Okay, so maybe a little sooner than that. Or even instead of growing up!

Mercury in Aries has a reputation for haste. For doing things quickly – either with great precision and mastery, or in a totally off-base manner which leaves out at least one really important factor.

Mercury in Aries can also be incredibly self-focused… which may or may not contribute to the above! Apart from that, the focus on the Self is really useful during Mercury in Aries if what you are trying to focus on is how to do something well. 

Unfortunately, this is also a passage which just seems to bring out the selfishness in many – and the overly dramatized in a few!

The determination there is really what this passage is all about – if, during Mercury’s stay in Aries you manage to remember to do things because they need to be done…or because the world (and thus your world) will be a better place for the doing it, then Mercury in Aries is an asset.

But if you’re going after the It’s All About Me award…? You may get it, yes. But you won’t win anyone’s love, respect or long term affection.

Aries as a sign has a reputation for burning hot on any given subject for a brief time. Then it fizzles out. Aries is the rocket, not the marathoner. Aries does the daring deed, but please don’t bore it with tedium.

 A depiction of Dorando Pietri at the end of the

1908 London Olympic Games Marathon

And yet…under Mercury in Aries, if you know why you need to undertake some incredibly intricate, overwhelming, job, you will like as not be able to conquer it. Aries is, after all, the sign of the warrior and Mercury does come equipped with a helmet of invisibility (except when he lends it to Perseus once every thousand years or so for slaying gorgons!)

Something to bear in mind however, is that Mercury in Aries can also be a time when we’re more easily frustrated than at other times. We want to go, go, GO!….and not everyone is with us.

Why not?

Well…let’s just put it this way: you’re feeling like the warrior-in-charge and so are they! So things can get to be something of a one-upmanship issue now…and going forward.

How much forward?

Far be it for me to hedge around here, but Mercury is going to be in Aries for a good, long sorta time.

And the minute I say that, if you’re half way into astrology you’re going to say ‘uh-oh…that means there’s a Mercury retrograde coming up!’ And you would be RIGHT!

Mercury will go retrograde just before the end of March, crossing into the shadow of that retrograde on March 16th, as it happens. From there until the station (which will occur on March 30th), you may feel even more pressured – don’t let life stress you out! Some things will arise during these days and go from solid problem to puddle like an ice cube on a tin sheet in the middle of highest summer.

But those things which don’t….?

Here’s the rule: if you know Mercury retrograde is a’coming and something just isn’t falling into place, don’t push it! It may resolve in during the station (March 28 – April 1st)…and things associated with stations often do indicate real ‘turning points’ in life.

But if you don’t get the yea or nay – or receive that information or answer you’re looking for by March 30th (maybe April 1st), figure on not resolving the matter or getting the final word on the final word until Mercury goes direct again in late April.

And during all this time, Mercury remains in Aries, first sign of the zodiac.

Being first, Aries is what you might call a very ‘basic’ sign. It’s about being. It asks what we’re being and how we’re being and what we want to do with our being-ness. As Mercury transits Aries it would be a natural thing to make plans, or do something to better yourself in some way.

It’s a very singular, very essential, very experimental sort of sign. Aries is willing, but easily discouraged – except where real need is involved, particularly the needs of a loved one.

Associated with the head, eyes, muscles and blood, Aries actually has a ‘sympatico’ sort of thing with Mercury, which is about thought, choice (of actions) and communication – which astrologically includes ‘communicating’ yourself from one place to another!

The combination can indicate the odd headache – real or psychological. And since Mercury is entering Aries in direct opposition to Typhon, Nemesis and Black Hole M87…gee, if you’re going to have a problem, feel entitled to have it now!

Black Holes always refer to ‘alternative realities’ which from Aries to Libra can easily be what you thought was ‘going to be’ which turned out entirely differently. With Nemesis and Typhon in attendance, the implication is that you knew better (Nemesis is the all time “I told you so!” figure) and that something uber-ultra basic is what was basically throwing you off your game.

Since Nemesis and Typhon are both in retrograde, there is also the chance that you’re going to be spending this next while thinking things over or making up for something which went off the rails some time ago.

Considering that the South Node is conjunct Betelgeuse in Mercury-ruled Gemini as Mercury itself enters Aries, there’s a strong desire for everything to be ‘just fine.’ But considering everything else…as much as you might like all to be peaches, sweet peas and rose petals, it probably isn’t.

But that is something you could work for…you know, while Mercury transits Aries?

Enter the Nodes: Trying Anew - and the Utterly and Truly New

 

As of March 3rd, the Lunar Nodes will shift from a North Node in Capricorn and South Node in Cancer to the North Node transiting Sagittarius with the South Node transiting Gemini.

What exactly are the Lunar Nodes and why do we think they are what astrologers say they are?

Well, look at it this way…the Earth orbits around the Sun. Metaphorically, that’s the path of life – of all of life, which on a human level we think of as ‘the world.’

The Moon meanwhile, orbits around the Earth. Where the Sun is more global, the Moon is our feelings and memories and resources – it’s connected to all things personal…mostly because we react on a personal level to things around us!

Anyway…think of the Moon as orbiting around Earth – and as it does so, it crosses that (imagined) orbital path of the Earth around the Sun.

The two points of crossing would thus be where our personal life intersects life in the world around us…which is why we think of the Lunar Nodes as all those places we intersect with the world or society. Nodes are often involved (by transit) with getting a job. Or zeroing in on how to get people to respond to you. After all, the Nodes represent not just the intersecting for you, but where the You of life is able to intersect with society. 

So what’s the rub here?

Yes, there is always a challenge! (big sigh…)

Going back to that idea of the Moon orbiting Earth, crossing Earth’s path around the Sun at two spots, one of those crossing points would be as the Moon is moving ‘up’ through Earth’s path – which is known astronomically as the plane of the ecliptic. This is known (trumpets, please…) as the Ascending Node. 

And once I tell you that, it doesn’t take a genius to realize the other Node will be the Descending Node. 

The Ascending Node would require (like anything else uphill-ish) more effort. Think of pushing a bike up a hill. But once you get to the top? Wheeeeee! It’s a fun ride down the mountain! We know how to do that part, right? We like doing that part!

Yup, that’s the Descending Node.

The Ascending Node is the North Node. And while we could wax all philosophic here about phrases like ‘going south’ and such, the reason for this is more realistically that this is about the Moon rising up through the plane of the ecliptic, heading for Earth’s northern pole.

The Descending Node is the South Node – for reasons which are just as evidently obvious.

And our response to the Nodes? They’re very much exactamundo in keeping with the bicycle image: we don’t much like being made to push that bike up the hill and we all love coasting back down.

For those into the concept of past lives, the South Node represents what’s ‘easy’ for you, considering you learned it in a past life. For the rest of us, it’s just easy because it’s easier to do than tackling all that drudgery and trudgery going up the hill. As an astrologer, if you name a novice or newbee’s North Node task you can expect to get at least a groan, and sometimes a wholesale flack attack!

(Yes, sometimes being an astrologer requires flame proof armor.)

Because the Nodes have an 18.6 year cycle, they change signs about every 2.5 years. And yes, that 18.6 year cycle does relate to why so many societies think of childhood as lasting until we’re 18. And why at that point we’re fit for college and the military and such. Not that we’re really grown up or anything – neurology types now put the age of full brain maturation at around age 26.

But maybe there’s a benefit to inducting us into hard core life choices before our brain has a chance to fully develop a sense of consequence – as medicine now projects to be around age 21?

That’s a whole other blog. This one continues on by pointing out that the Nodes changing signs about every 2.5 years means that the last time this happened was back in August 2009, when Pluto had just committed to its transit of Capricorn – the sign the North Node was moving into at that time.

Because the Nodes (like the Astrological Ages) move backwards, this means Pluto was at the beginning of Capricorn as the Nodes hit the end of Capricorn.

Think ‘pincer movement’ – society got caught between these opposing forces. And as the Nodes counted down (backwards) they rather swiftly (in astrological/cosmic terms) arrived at the wee degrees of Capricorn (North) and Cancer (South) with Pluto still in Capricorn’s first decanate.

A pause here to contemplate how those things which move backwards….the Nodes, the Ages…they all have to do with the big shifts of society…time unfolding, unfurling and marching by…

Why would that be? Maybe they’re not ‘going backward’ so much as they’re ‘coming towards us’ where “normal” motion has to do with our efforts to move forward in our lives?

As the Nodes moved into and through Capricorn’s last (lowest) degrees, things became very personal, very vital, entirely physical – on a societal basis. There was a shooting in Arizona where a member of the US Congress (government/Capricorn) and by-standing members of the public (citizenry/Cancer) were killed. Across the Middle East, citizens (Cancer) rose up against their (Capricorn) governments and “ruling classes.”

Eighteen years ago (back in 1993), the Nodes were in this same zodiacal region. Did we see such things back then? No. But then, Pluto wasn’t in Capricorn at the time.

Signal combinations add meaning, yes. That’s why simple, computerized astrology generally doesn’t work. Yes, computers can tell you where celestial positions are, just like computers can now analyze blood tests. But when it comes to putting together a stellium of symptoms, you need a doctor – or in the case of a stellium of astronomical positions you want to interpret on the metaphysical level, an astrologer.

(Someone hand me my lab coat, please…)

Anyway…getting back to that moving backward thing, what this means is that when the Nodes change signs, they enter the next set of signs at 29 degrees, the last degree of any given sign. You’ve heard me talk about 29 degrees as a ‘critical’ degree, though ‘intense’ or ‘fervent’ may be a better sort of term. Twenty-nine is where the sign is at it’s maximal pronouncement – for better or worse, pro and con. It’s as if it’s on a deadline, racing around trying to get everything done before the due date.

Some of us work well under pressure. Astrological symbols…? Sometimes yes, but often not so much!

But since the work symbolized by the Nodes is to bring society, opportunities and social forces home to us…(hoping we’ll do a little North Node thing and improve life!) in Nodal terms, the ‘extreme’ is when they reach zero – the Nodal “end of the line” signifying its maximal effort in any given sign.

So as the Nodes move into 29 Sagittarius and Gemini as of March 3rd at 12:38 (UT/+0) should we expect much intensity but not the flat out affect we saw when the Nodes were in the 0, 1, 2, 3 of Capricorn/Cancer?

Well, sort of. And to understand my hedging, we have to consider the signs. Capricorn is an earth sign. It’s pragmatic. Cancer is a water sign. It’s emotional. As an axis and polarity, Capricorn/Cancer is all about how life works…and of course that ever popular adjunct, life sucks! and this isn’t working for me or anyone else! 

Considering that, it’s not shocking that around the world, as the Nodes backed through Capricorn and Cancer, lifestyles were on the line and governments (and business, seeing that Capricorn is ‘commerce’ or ‘the business of business’) …governments and business got yelled at a lot.

Not to mention all the yelling which went on inside governments, business and so on!

Sagittarius/Gemini is a whole other thing. Sagittarius is a fire sign. Fire equals imagination and the idea of it. The positive of Sagittarius is that it forces us to put things out there and in the works in order to find the hidden glitches which only show up when things exit the drawing board and meet up with real life. Sagittarius is all about learning better and finding the flaws in order to correct them and by correcting them, come to be able to reach your goals.

Gemini, on the other hand, is an idea and concept driven air sign. In Gemini, it’s a lot easier to talk about it than get to the task of doing it. Planning is fun, assembly not so fun. The popular notion of Gemini as being all about ‘many’ is valid in that we should see what the choices are…but in the end, Gemini asks that we make a choice and follow it through far enough that it can get put out there in the Sagittarian polarity and we can see what the flaws may be, correct them, and get somewhere in life.

The optimal thing would be to use the whole of this polarity in an integrated manner, looking through our choices and choosing something (Gemini) which we then follow through on, learning from the doing, from the effort, from the little - even substantial problems along the way (Sagittarius).

However...with a South Node in Gemini, we’re far more likely to hear a lot of talk and not as much choosing. If 'broken' apart from the North Node in Sagittarius, things which should be renovated, corrected, worked through or replaced will get debated and if they fail, critiqued.

North Node in Sagittarius asks us to critique usefully – to find the flaw and fix it. But it doesn’t suggest we should set ourselves up as judge and jury on others! Far from it – North Node in Sagittarius asks us to grow. It asks us to learn what ‘just’ really is by opening both our hearts and our minds. Like as not, it will be useful if we do. Even profitable. Even necessary. North Node in Sagittarius asks us to expand our personal world and grow the greater body of world knowledge. It asks us to try something new and accept things which seem odd to us. We may not love them...but maybe there's a reason they exist? That which is new and unfamiliar, the "road less traveled" is where opportunities may well lie. Do we want to capitalize on new ideas? Or just cling to the known?

As the South Node enters Gemini, its within zodiacal ‘spitting distance’ of fixed star Betelgeuse (at 28 Gemini), a star all about ‘ease of accomplishment.’ For some of us, this will herald a time when what we have been working for becomes easier to achieve while for others, taking that ‘easy way out’ becomes more of an allure than ever.

Moving quickly, the South Node conjuncts Betelgeuse during early March and moves on, entering the 5 degrees of orb inside at the very end of Marsh, after which we can expect a tinge of 'affect' representing fixed star Bellatrix (at 21 Gemini).

Bellatrix is pretty much the opposition dynamic to Betelgeuse, challenging us to get our ideas out there against objections, hassles and – like as not – people so in love with their own point of view that they’d rather see something useful or good go down in flames than let go.

The symbols here: Agamemnon (strength), Psyche (the mind), Medea (self-defeating love) which by the time the Nodes get into the Bellatrix district will be hanging out at 20, 21 and 22 Gemini.

 

Medea - a poster for Sarah Bernhardt's

theater production by Alfons Mucha (1898)

And considering that about this time Atropos (endings) will be coloring the North Node, there is an ending coming. What that ending is…that’s up for grabs, except that we know Medea is sitting with the South Node.

We also know that as of 10:14 am (UT/+0)...a little over two hours before the Nodes shift signs...Medusa, Ye Olde Asteroid named for She Who Symbolizes Frightening Knowledge moves into Gemini.

The former note tells us that if what you are doing is actually about doing the right thing (as simply opposed to something which will work well for you) you will in time, win through. 

But yes, you  have to first get there. And if what you are doing isn't right, you can face the music now...or be faced down by fearful truths soon enough.

And yet there is that odd little quirk about Medusa - namely that when you reflect on what you learn which seems so frightening, you can actually deal with. You can 'slay the gorgon,' as it were.

(Don't know Medusa's story? CLICK HERE.)

With all this in mind, we do know that in moving forward into this new Nodal 'slice-of-life,' there is some benefit in taking some cherished 'something’ out there. How do we know that? We know that because as the North Node enters Sagittarius in conjunction with asteroid Child. So what is “your baby”? If it fits the Sagittarian criteria of being something new, useful, mind expanding, philosophical, correcting of flaws…(etc.)…then this is your time to give your baby project or idea a public whirl.

Just don’t expect things to be simple, easy, or without a lot of uphill bike-pushing.

The South Node will reach Bellatrix by mid-August, 2011. But seeing as we will have an eclipse in Gemini as June arrives, dynamics will be changing long before the South Node rock meets up with the Bellatrix hard place.

And lets not forget...Bellatrix and Betelgeuse are stars which are part of Orion, the archer and hunter.

 A diagram of Orion the hunter by Mysid

And Sagittarius? That is also the sign of the hunter.

So this period is all about hunting what we need and want in life...which does require (North Node) efforts! 

But maybe for now, the best place to start with is recognizing the difference in social mindset. Much of life has been focused on ‘hard facts’ (Capricorn/Cancer) during these past couple of years. And maybe the lesson is that we really need to recognize the problems in order to now grasp that it’s a time to choose (Gemini) to fix (Sagittarius) things, in our life, and in the world which supports that life.

This March's aura of the Nodes moving into the third decanate of Sagittarius/Gemini may remind us of times in mid-late 2009 when we saw everything going on and going wrong in our world. That was North Node in Capricorn’s 3rd decan, South Node in Cancer’s 3rd decan. Most people pulled back and got protective about their power, their positions and what they were wanting to achieve.

That was very Capricorn/Cancer. The considerations then were very tangible and they felt pragmatic. Now the considerations will be more of a 'thought reaction' and seem less about need than 'what's right' ...and maybe 'what's right for me.'

 .

 Sagittarius the Archer as illustrated in

an old English manuscript

We can hope we won't just feel self-protective, as we did when the South Node was in Cancer. But can we get past our instinct to just talk about it and want to know more and procrastinate and find someone to ask and, and, and, and...

That remains for us to see. The Nodes will be in the 3rd decanates of Sagittarius and Gemini until mid-August 2011. This will seem the time when we have less of a 'handle' on things.

From there they move into the 2nd and emotional decanate (think: evocation of emotions...) until late in February 2012. It can be a joyously exciting, or a seriously over-stimulating time.

In late February, 2012...then the Nodes move on into the physical and 'real life' portion of Sagittarius and Gemini until the very end of August 2012. That's when we'll see whether we acted with sufficient alacrity - or whether we babbled while we painted, ending up in our own corner.

But the totality of this...does that strike you as 2.5 years? From March 2011 through August 2012 doesn't register with me as being anything close to 2.5 years!

And that would be....why?

The 'why' there is about the fact that just like all other celestial cycles, the Lunar Nodes have 'short' and 'long' passages. This next one is a short one. That may mean we can get our work done quickly. That may also mean we need to have life 'compact' a lot into a little temporal space in order to get us to....to what, make the Gemini choice or to venture away from what tend to be our Sagittarius assumptions of life should be?

Whatever happens is up to us. And though we do need to obviously think about what to choose to do, we also need to get on with the doing.

Sounds like a busy year or so to come...with much to be realized and discovered, if we will only require that we give ourselves a chance to grow!

Mercury into Capricorn: A Big To-Do About Doing?

 

 The Grand Cross described as Mercury enters

Capricorn on January 13, 2011 at 11:26 (am) UT/+0

What with Capricorn being the traditional sign of commerce, government and durable success, to have Mercury entering Capricorn in year’s early days sounds pretty good. After all, the Mercurial quality of ‘activity and communication’ is a plus in negotiation, commercial transacting and the sort of focused efforts which go a long way towards producing accomplishment...right? 

Absolutely right.

So to have Mercury entering Capricorn on January 13th at 11:26am (UT/+0) is a definite positive.

Right?

Well, yes. But....there is the fact that with the North Node sitting right there at 1 Capricorn there’s a whole lot of discussion, transacting and effort needed. There's a lot which needs doing. There's a lot which is in progress and which needs to be considered in terms of the facts involved.

Maybe more to the point, because nobody (read: NOBODY) likes doing North Node things, all this is a problem. And this isn't about people not knowing what needs doing or how to do it. They simply don't want to.

So there are the things we don't want to do on our lists,  those things we don't want to need to do on our individual and joint lists. And there are things we don't want to know how to deal with on those lists.

Hear the implied note of reluctance warming up here? Or maybe that's just plain stubbornness.

Whatever it is, the astrological figure describing this moment of Mercury moving into the worldly world of Capricorn doings is a rather grand Grand Square: Mercury/North Node facing off against Betelgeuse (ease) conjunct the South Node (what I like to do)…which right away brings in a petulant tracery of I’ll do this because I CAN. Or because I WANT do to THIS...but not THAT. 

Whether all same comes with the ‘nah-nah, nah, nah-nah’ and sticking out of the tongue...? Well, that's just decoration here. Sort of emotional buttercream frosting of the most childish short - the childishness being brought in courtesy of Cancer. Cancer always calls out old habits and in particular, childish habits. Or sometimes just those time honored 'this is the way we've always done it and by gum, that's good enough for me' sort of thing.

Ever notice how people are all for modernization and updating until it isn't their favorite subject or going "their way"? That would be very Mercury/North Node versus Cancer South Node.

 ESO's Very Large Telescope photograph of astrology's fixed

star Betelgeuse, a supergiant red star which is so big that if it was

at the center of our solar system it would probably fill the whole of

our local space out to the orbit of Jupiter. That's big! (photo credit: 2009)

It's also perhaps to consider that this moment is also brought to you by a background framework courtesy of  fixed star Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse being all about an 'ease of doing,' when combined with the 'what I know how to do (don't strain my brain!)' South Node suggests that this  moment and Mercury's several weeks of moving through Capricorn will be filled with one situation after another built on themes which mentally (Mercury) ask us what's worth changing?

And as that happens, we will not want to focus on it. And never mind that, but the idea of biting any bullets personal (Cancer), professional (Capricorn), national (Cancer) or governmental/rule of law-ish (Capricorn)...though it may in (Capricorn) reality be needed, it sure isn't (Cancer) appealing!

Looked at from the other side, these weeks ahead may also become big ones for the nay-sayers and pronouncers of doom. You know, everyone from the nothing good ever gets done, so abandon all hope and grab what you can while you can types to those announcing the end of the world.

You'd think humans would be tired of that 'end of the world' stuff...it's been going on for literally thousands of years. It there had been ancient newspapers, ancient members of ancient populaces would have been reported as announcing the end of the world on a regular basis.

It's just what people do. Why? Heck if I know - it's probably some sort of instinctive acknowledgment of our mortality. And we all do know that when things are bad, there's nothing like company in one's misery, right?

Seriously...even optimistically, we can expect to hear a lot of about 'a need to take care' and 'let's not make a bad thing worse.' There's going to be a whole boatload of reluctant to do what it takes to fix problems at the core.

Why? Because that's not fun. That's not sexy. That's not exciting. That's not even comfortable. And if there’s anything people want to hold onto in difficult times, it’s whatever sense of personal comfort (ease) they still feel they have at their beck and call.

Not to be outdone (or maybe underdone) here, this Mercury-Node-fixed star dynamic is being challenged by Athena/Lust-Uranus-Jupiter-Scheat in late Pisces facing off against Juno/Makemake in Virgo – with Makemake in retrograde.

In the Pisces quadrant, we have one background piece: fixed star Scheat, a star notorious for symbolizing “public disapproval”. So there’s just a lot of that going around – probably rather in the mold of the famous Groucho Marx lyric from the movie Horse Feathers which has Groucho proudly announcing ‘If you’re for it, I’m against it! If you’ve commenced it, I’m against it!’ 

 The poster for Paramount Pictures' 

1932 film 'Horse Feathers'

This is the background of the mass emotional consciousness (Scheat in Pisces) of this moment which is being set off by the presence of Uranus (change) and Jupiter (knowledge/understanding).

People want change. But they don’t want to deal with change. They particularly don’t want to deal with the dispassionate focus it would take to understand what kind of change would work (and why it would work) and all they’d have to learn, agree to and deal with personally as a part of change (Athena/Lust).

Opposite this Pisces grouping (the 600 pound gorilla in the room) we have Juno/Makemake: the need and desire for strong guidance. Given Makemake’s current state of retrograde we know means a willingness to stand for, learn about and master that which will work (and not just what sounds good). And that starts with us. We need to prescribe and take our own heavy duty prescription as people who in the end, are all part of a system. The haves and have not's die just as dead when it comes right down to it. The yearning for the 'good times' is not just about our good times.

Those who want what feels good and requires little to no effort of the putting-my-own-nose-out-of-joint type - they should be the first to fix the big picture. It's not 'what was' or what 'should have been' it's what is and what can be. But that can't just be for one: Capricorn is Pluto's sign of residence for some time to come - and if you think this is tough to deal with, just wait until Neptune hits Pisces!

 

  

And we all know what fun Neptune can be, right? 

Meanwhile, it doesn't do any good to think in terms of 'glory days’ or any other form of idea. That was a theme, an ideal - and with some, an addiction - drummed up while Pluto was in Sagittarius. It was good for the time. Wherever Pluto is, we get a big dose of that dynamic. So with Pluto in Sagittarius were were inspired to try new things. To push back limits. To be inspired by Sagittarius' incredible power to envision, aim for the stars and to deal with everything which stands in your way!

But then Pluto moved into Capricorn, land of reality. From heated inspirational ideals into the land of reality - the shift felt cold. For many, reality hit with a thud.

Yet in the long run, there's nothing wrong with reality. It's just what is. It's reality you can build on.

It's just that bridge which is a bit of a bitch, yes. And as Mercury moves from the hyper-imagery of Sagittarius into the more clarified actualities of Capricorn, some will feel the effect is chilling. Or hard (as in "hard reality). But it is to remember - you can only build for the long run with facts and in reality. That's the Capricorn plus - it's intrinsic strength and power.

Plainly the more we resist reality, the deeper and danker the problem gets. But that just causes us to resist and dig ourselves in, searching for that upwelling seep…that last vestige of ease and comfort we were so SURE was going to last.

Pisces: idealism vs. illusion. Fantasy vs. inspiration - the emotional as a positive when it's shared...or at least not simply or always about you and only you. Pisces indicates a collective.That can be a small collective (I and thou) or a family or a community or a class of people or a gender – whatever. But when we turn any Piscean concept into a personal thing, Pisces becomes an addiction, a confinement, an addiction to a limiting confinement or something of that ilk.

So there are all the negatives. But there are a ton of positives here if we’re willing to work for it. IF we’re willing to do our part to be the person who gets the right reaction considering the greater (Piscean) circumstance.

Mercury in Capricorn can be a time of great advances; Capricorn is a cardinal sign all about responding to the times and doing what needs doing. But we have to be willing to show some hard core conviction, some ‘take no prisoners’ sort of determination. We have to do what needs doing simply because its there to take on and the prospect of doing nothing is worse than dealing with the heck of a slog involved in tackling the beast.

And that beast isn't some 'thing' ranged against us. It's our own reluctance to face ourselves, our preferences, our egos.

 'January' by Leandro Bassandro (c. 1595)

For those still on the fence, this Grand Square (the configuration described here) describes a set of choices which feels difficult, but which can be dealt with simply by aiming for what needs doing. The temptations are weakness and unwillingness against strong arguments about what will or won’t work. Those arguments may occur around you or in everyday life or, particularly as Saturn goes retrograde later this month, be something you need to deal with within your own psyche.

No matter which way the debate goes and who poses it, the most difficult thing to overcome and the easiest thing to do is to hand off personal power because (for whatever reason) you ‘can’t be bothered.’ That may be to take the time, or to become acquainted with the problem. There are dozens of reasons we could come up with.

The point here is that given this particular configuration, the power you give away – like as not – will end up in the hands of those who won’t care. They won’t care about you or any ‘cause.’ They won’t care about anyone but themselves. Your disinterest or disgust or ignorance or lack of ambition, that’s what those who don’t care about your welfare feed on.

Polly want a cracker? Polly want to be a cracker?

Mercury will be in Capricorn until early February, moving into Aquarius as Venus – which is currently in Sagittarius – moves on into Capricorn. For those who dig in now, February will become a time of capitalizing on today's efforts.

For those who don’t dig in or who prefer doing what they’re used to, what’s easy and all the rest…for them, February becomes a time of being told ‘how things are going to be’ by those you have surrendered power to right now and going forward.