Remember as you move through the next few weeks that Mars retrograde is still working itself out. That event, from the first day of winter through March 10, drew Mars in Leo back like a bow string, and how we are slowly watching Mars proceed forward through this sign. Mars retrograde was for many complex and frustrating, and now we’re in a process of disentangling ourselves from the issues that arose or that we somehow created.
I trust that by now you’re aware of a 14-year conjunction that occurs on June 8, and that I’m proposing this as the inauguration of the 2012 era. Jupiter and Uranus enter Aries (Uranus, this week!, within moments of the Sagittarius Full Moon), and this turns on the Aries Point at full strength: the meeting place of the individual and the collective dimensions of existence.
We have reached that moment of the Sun’s ingress through Gemini. This astrological cycle, which began last night or this morning (depending on your time zone) presents us with some of the most adventurous astrology of our generation. Yes — designed to shake us up and therefore potentially frightening to some, yet no less amazing in its potential.
It’s the last Tuesday of the solar month. (The Sun enters Gemini on Thursday or Friday, depending on your time zone.) I’ve just finished the June monthly horoscopes; and per tradition and good astrological housekeeping, I will publish the first one with the Sun in Gemini, on Tuesday, May 25. I’ll be sitting out today’s edition and possibly Friday as well, catching up with myself as the Sun changes signs and a new cycle begins.
The other day I got curious about the term ‘self-actualization’, which I hadn’t heard for years. The first time I encountered it as a kid (in the ’70s, when people seemed to talk about this stuff more than we do today) I intuitively knew what it meant. To me, it was about the process of becoming real, that is, of becoming fully human.
Good Tuesday to you. Mercury, after being retrograde since April 18, stations direct in Taurus today at 6:26 pm in NY, 3:26 pm in California and 11:26 pm in England. It has been a heck of a retrograde for life on the planet: a volcano, an oil volcano, a bitterly fought election in the UK, massive flooding in Tennessee and other states, tornados in Oklahoma, banking fraud by Goldman Sachs exposed, a 1,000 point dive in the stock market and an attempted terrorist attack in New York City. A Supreme Court nominee was announced the day before Mercury stations — that nomination, well, let’s just say that it has issues.
It’s ominous to me that the explosion aboard the BP/Transocean/Mitsubishi oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico happened within hours of Chiron entering Pisces on April 20. Chiron, a planet that has a knack for revealing the weakness in a system, ingressed Pisces at about 1:31 am CDT; by 10 PM the oil rig was in flames and 210,000 gallons a day of crude was leaking into the gulf. A survivor said in an interview that the workers had about five minutes to evacuate.
