Some basic principles of astrology carry over to life in general. The importance of timing is but one case in point. If you need daylight to complete a particular task, it’s probably a good idea to start in the morning. Specific to astrology, there is the ancient practice (still observed by some) of planting seeds during a New Moon.

The reasoning behind planting at a New Moon is simple. Once every month or so, the Sun and Moon move through the sky together for a day while also sharing the same degree of the same sign. On that day, the old cycle of lunar phases ends, and a new one begins — unseen like a seed in the ground.

Right now, we are about three weeks from the next New Moon. In addition (and as noted in this space previously), it will be a while before there are similar meetings among planets which can be observed without magnification. Even so, astrology observes events other than conjunctions that can be interpreted as auspicious when it comes to scheduling. An example pertinent for the very near future is when a planet leaves one sign behind to ingress another.

There are many ways to express the relationship between a given planet and a particular sign. Shamanic astrologer Sheila Belanger compares a planet to an actor and the sign to a costume. You might also think of how some young athletes move with the seasons from one sport to another. You could even get extremely abstract, such as Bertrand Russell did when describing Einstein’s relativity as an interaction between “event” and “field.”

Regardless of how you describe it, an ingress is significant. Hence, you may want to consider going beyond merely paying attention to what happens when first Mars, then Venus and finally Mercury leave old zodiacal territories behind to engage afresh over the next handful of days. You may want to experiment.

This coming Sunday, Mars will end a traversal of Gemini that started back on April 21, and move on to the next sign: Cancer. Two days later (on Tuesday, June 6) Venus will at long last enter Taurus (one of its two astrological dominions, along with Libra). Just hours after Venus transitions, Mercury will make a similar Tuesday entrance to one of the two signs it rules (in addition to Virgo): Gemini.

The astrology of three sign changes within three days is inherently complex. This particular preview however, will be short and sweet. In short, you could plausibly devote the time between now and the middle of next week to safely try something (or things) that you have curious about. Then, beginning Wednesday (or soon thereafter), endeavor to repeat as closely as you can the same experiment(s) after Mercury, Venus and Mars have all re-ensconced for the longer term.

The nature of your ventures need not be especially adventurous. The first step is to satisfy a personal, but as of yet unsatisfied, intrigue. Then (after Mercury, Venus and Mars have re-positioned themselves), the next step is to contemplate how much you brought to the new experience versus how much the experience brought to you.

Simply trying a new type of coffee later today or tomorrow, then following up with another cup a week later could be all you need to do. The idea is to subject your desire (Mars), tastes (Venus) and thinking (Mercury) to unaccustomed exposure (which correlates to a new sign).

The protocol described here is to be your own astrologer in a very real way through the use of timing. It’s a chance to transform what previously had been only a story into life — your life. If there is anything to astrology, the time is right.

Offered In Service

INVOLUTION has now been published! Order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here for instant access, or choose your individual signs here. Check out our all-new video preview.

One common assumption worth questioning is that age confers wisdom. In fact, there is no such correlation. True, there are many who have made good on learning from long experience. Just as evident and abundant are the examples of those who stubbornly persist their whole lives with perceptions that no open mind would consider sustaining.

Of course, persistence is not always a bad thing. As the I Ching repeatedly states, “perseverance furthers.” Yet, a closer reading of the ancient Chinese oracular tome also advises discretion when it comes to when and how your capacity for tenacity should be applied so as to result in actual progress.

Sometimes it is appropriate to act with steadfastness when it comes to things greater than you. Other times, it is best to be diligent and determined only with smaller, more personal matters. When you consider the astrological context of how the Moon will be moving this week, anyone with an open mind should be able to grasp the sort of discernment from which authentic wisdom springs.

As the Moon continues to wax through fixed and fiery Leo for all of today and about half of tomorrow, you should have a chance to see how diligence can sometimes be an end in itself for either good or ill. After the Moon moves on to mutable and grounded Virgo tomorrow (and into the first quarter phase on Friday), it should become more apparent how things go when pertinacity serves as a means to an end instead.

Provided you are observant enough, lunar motion over the next several days should yield information regarding the difference between doggedness and intransigence. Assuming you are able to occasionally release some attachment to a predetermined outcome as this week goes on, the data your observations glean could make you significantly wiser.

With the Sun in Gemini for basically three more weeks, an air trine aspect (120 degrees of separation) from the Libra Moon this weekend holds a potential to show clarity gained. Even so, it is also important to remember your place in the solar system. Yes, you are occasionally called upon to be receptive in order to further the sky’s implications, but rarely is it appropriate to be passive.

If the full potential implied by the Sun, Moon and planets are to be manifested, it is nearly always advisable for you to play an active role as a fully-fledged player in the cosmos. The promise specific to this week is consistent with that principle, but a bit more specific. The question indicated from above as May ends and June begins is not whether you should persevere, but how, when, where and to what purpose.

Offered In Service

INVOLUTION has now been published! Order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here for instant access, or choose your individual signs here. Check out our all-new video preview.

When you consider only planets visible without magnification, there are no conjunctions right now. Mercury is in Taurus. Venus is direct in Aries. Mars is well on its way through Gemini. Jupiter is retrograde in Libra, and Saturn is likewise in backpedal mode, but in Sagittarius.

Of course, there are exceptions. Conjunctions of other objects are undeniably a salient part of astrology right now.

First, of course, is the monthly meeting of the Sun and Moon — such as the two luminaries sharing the same degree of Gemini for a New Moon yesterday. It is never advisable to take a New Moon (and what initiates with it) for granted. Specific to our current era, the Aries conjunction of Uranus and Eris is also indisputably a dominant long-term astrological theme.

After the Sun and Moon, it is legitimate to consider the visible (also frequently called: “classical” and “traditional”) planets to be next in order of astrological importance among solar system objects. We have been observing them for a long time. We know them pretty well. You might say humanity grew up with them. That’s how you can say a disparity of conjunctions among the members of such a small club is significant in itself.

Any aspect between successive conjunctions represents a stage of the cycle. It is not uncommon for astrologers to consider the opposition (halfway through a cycle; for example: Full Moon) as a time to evaluate both the previous and next conjunction. That’s how the impending opposition from Mars in Gemini to retrograde Saturn in Sagittarius may be considered significant as well.

With aspects involving Mars, it’s best to look at (and work with) them in advance. That’s the reason to consider Mars opposing Saturn now, even though they will not occupy the same degree of opposite signs (Gemini for Mars, Sagittarius for Saturn) until shortly before 3 am EDT (06:54:45 UTC) on Monday.

In an evolutionary sense, we are still growing up with the planets. Astrology’s perception of both Mars and Saturn is one case in point. As premier astrologer Robert Hand wrote in the 20th century: “Mars has traditionally been considered a malefic planet in astrology, that is, more likely to produce evil than good. But this is not so.”

Now, with all planets, there are no black or white hats. Rather, there are gradients between complementary upsides and downsides.

Broadly speaking, Mars is what Robert Hand called “an energy planet.” More to the point, Mars has to do with the types of energy better mastered than mastered by. The energy that goes with desire is but one example.

Saturn has a similarly broad tableau, generally having to do with form, order and structure. Think of Saturn’s upside as that which defines, and the downside as what confines, to get the idea. In combination with energetic Mars, then, the possibilities represented by Saturn can range from liberating to laborious — depending on which part of their respective gradients you are aligned with.

If you are running your energy more than it is running you, you are in good with Mars. If you are choosing to define (rather than confine) yourself more often than not, you can apply the Martian energy so as to create a container for your life that is easier to live with.

Slow-moving Saturn had already been in Sagittarius for nearly one continuous year when they last met up in the 10th degree back on Aug. 24, 2016. That conjunction was the beginning of their current mutual cycle. Now, with their opposition, their sequence of successive aspects (leading around to their next conjunction) is nearly halfway complete. Hence, it’s now a good time to review not only where you have been putting your energy, but also how things are both tangibly and metaphorically shaping up.

Just as it is advisable to get a jump on Mars aspects, it is also often helpful to be patient with Saturn. Here, at the opposition of Mars and Saturn, you have had enough time to see consequences. There is also much time remaining for you to act on evident results. You have the opportunity to change their direction or patterns as you please before Saturn and Mars meet up again to conclude the current cycle; they’ll begin a new one in early Capricorn as March segues into April next year.

For astrologers, oppositions represent the complementary far more than the conflicting. We have also evolved to understand that both Mars and Saturn are not destined to wear only black hats. You have a word in the matter.

If you can see all of that operating this weekend, in context with what has happened in your life since late last year, you will know something of where you are. You will also have information to help you decide where you want to be (and how to get there) by the time Mars and Saturn initiate a new mutual epoch — one that can be marked by constructive activity when 2018 is still young.

Offered In Service

You may pre-order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here. What we’re living through today is not written about in any book. We’re its pioneers in consciousness. For us, in our time, the revolution must be within. INVOLUTION will be your guide.

Yesterday’s unspeakable tragedy in Manchester, UK, puts astrology and most other human enterprises in their place. No matter how lofty their endeavor, nobody can yet restore a life once it has been taken. Murder is obscenely easy. Vengeance is always senseless. Meaningful justice is rarely a straightforward proposition, and frequently elusive as well.

We know our sympathies will not bring back loved ones lost. Yet we extend our condolences nonetheless, knowing the same grief could have come to any of us. Another thing all of us can offer is to keep living so as to create (rather than remove) reasons for both ourselves and others to live.

It is therefore not to mock us that objects on the zodiac keep moving. Even if you should feel helpless, cycles of the Earth and sky show life’s way: to go on. In what is about to happen with the Sun and Moon is therefore a symbolic implication. What will be occurring at the same time with Earth’s oceans will be both a sympathetic and tangible indication of much the same theme.

The Sun has been moving in Gemini for several days now, with more than three weeks to go. Timed with that particular traversal is an awareness that your current season (a quality always mediated by the Sun, regardless of where you live) is heading towards a change. That’s how Gemini is considered to be a mutable sign. In a little less than a month, the Sun will move on to a solstice after leaving Gemini to enter the sign Cancer — initiating the season to follow.

As any season enters its last weeks and days, it is not unusual to be at least wistful regarding all that is due to pass with it. Even so, the Sun moving through a mutable sign also gradually prepares you for what is to come. To cite just one example, compare your clothing today to what you were wearing in the final week of March when our current season was just getting started.

On Thursday, the Moon will leave Taurus (where it is now) to also enter Gemini. About seven hours after ingress, it will share the same degree of mutable air with the Sun. That will be the next New Moon. Also moving through Gemini at the same time (only a handful of degrees away from the New Moon conjunction of the two luminaries) will be a calculated and oscillating point in the Moon’s orbit: the perigee. The lunar perihelion (as it is also called) represents the part of the Moon’s orbit that is closest to the Earth.

A Full Moon at, or sufficiently near, its perigee looks bigger, and is nowadays frequently called “super” by those who favor the pop culture persuasion. As with all New Moons, a conjunction of the Sun and Moon near the lunar perihelion point does not present a visual tableau in the sky. Instead, the impending Gemini Moon will be most in evidence where life evidently began (and is still substantially sustained): the vast seas.

When the Moon moves between the Earth and Sun on Thursday, only the side facing away from us will be reflecting solar illumination. The very same alignment (combined with the Moon’s proximity to us) will not pass without effect, however. Instead, and through the force of their combined gravity, the apparent merger of the Sun and Moon for May will assert its undeniable and predictable influence largely through tides of even greater magnitude than with the Taurus New Moon of April. Indeed, some of the highest tides of 2017 are due this week.

There is precedent for making the daily rise and fall of ocean waters a metaphor for the range of human emotions. There is also scientific evidence that it is the tides, even more than the existence of water in liquid form, that have made the emergence and abundance of earthly life possible.

While a profound tide at its greatest extremes can indeed cause stress (and even destruction) for living things in the immediate vicinity, such examples are only part of a greater — and providential — continuum. With the rising part of the cycle comes fresher water and nutrients for some. With retreat, yet others find their sustenance. The idea is to somehow go on living through the most challenging part so as to see the other side.

As it is with the tides, so it is with the seasons. Some periods are easier on life, others harder. Yet, life itself cannot be simply turned on and off to function only when conditions are most favorable.

Every moment must be lived through so that the next moment may come. It’s not an ideal situation, but that’s what we have. That, and one particular form of power even greater than the tides.

Unlike the oceans, and even the planets, you have an occasional ability to choose. With the power of your will, you can very often choose to support life itself. With the power of choice itself, you can sometimes make subsequent moments better, rather than worse, for at least some of those you are fortunate enough to be living with. Even the Sun and Moon combined can’t do that.

Offered In Service

You may pre-order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here. What we’re living through today is not written about in any book. We’re its pioneers in consciousness. For us, in our time, the revolution must be within. INVOLUTION will be your guide.

With the Moon now in Pisces until Sunday, the stage is set for the Sun to ingress Gemini shortly after 4:30 pm EDT (20:30:51 UTC) tomorrow. When you look at what’s going on concurrently with the zodiac as a whole, the beginning of solar Gemini this year can be said to signal the start of what could be referred to as a new version of what’s normal.

It is actually no big deal for what’s normal to change. For example, most of you have lived through more than one continuous decade during which you went to school nearly every weekday.

Then, one day, that was over and a new normal had to begin. For many, daily schooling is replaced by being compelled to show up for work. Now, and interestingly just as a season of scholastic graduation is getting underway, one can almost hear the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” playing from above.

Start with how Uranus and Eris are just now separating from a months-long continuum of three conjunctions in late Aries. Then, add how the recent Mercury retrograde ended precisely in the very narrow gap that had opened since the final meeting between Uranus and Eris. Next, fold in Mercury and Venus only now getting up to their usual speed of motion around the zodiac after many weeks of uncharacteristic sluggishness.

Finally, consider Mars, which is currently about two-thirds of the way through Gemini. In the longer scheme of things, it is quite unusual for Mars to be ‘ahead’ of the Sun, Mercury (now in early Taurus) and Venus (currently near the Aries midpoint) all at the same time. That’s because the average zodiac speeds of the Sun and Venus are nearly twice that of Mars. For its part, Mercury is capable of clipping through the signs at almost four times faster.

Yet, and indicatively, Mars pulled out in front of three faster objects just as Uranus and Eris were oscillating in merger to very possibly conceive a new era. Now, the Sun, Mercury and Venus are catching up. Mercury will be first to meet Mars, smack in the middle of the sign Cancer on June 28.

As July 26 segues into July 27, the Sun and Mars will finally (and after a long courting) share the same early degree of Leo. Last (but not least), Venus will conjoin with Mars about two-thirds of the way through Virgo on Oct. 5. By then, it should be possible to evaluate whether transition to a new normal is either in process or being brought along.

Transitioning from school to a similar schedule of attendance in the workplace heralds a new era in the life of many young people. For each person, it’s a different process. For some it is easy and short. For others it is challenging and long. Nobody, however, goes back.

Even those who resume or subsequently add to their education never return to precisely the same lifestyle left behind after graduation caps and robes have served their purpose. The same thing tends to happen for groups, and the world as a whole.

If the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Uranus, Eris and more are saying anything coherent right now, it’s probably that a new normal is in your (and our) not-so-distant future. During the transition (which looks to include at least most of what remains of 2017) will come choices.

You can choose to deny or resist the only constant in this world: change. Usually, any attempt to hold off what’s inevitable does not work out so well. You can also elect to go with the flow and let things happen. Sometimes that works out very well, and sometimes it doesn’t. In every case, however, the choice of a passive (or even receptive) approach affords little in the way of an opportunity for a do-over should the results be unsatisfactory.

Indeed, there are precious few do-overs. The old normal always passes. A new normal follows. If you can see the transition coming, however, you have yet another option

Absolute control over the future eludes even the most powerful and self-assured individuals among us. It is possible, however, to participate. Provided that your anticipation and timing are accurate enough, you can contribute to co-create any new normal before it takes shape and sets into place.

Assuming that this particular reading of our current astrology is anywhere near realistic, it’s definitely not too late to initiate or join something both proactive and cooperative yourself. By doing so, you will go a long way towards assuring that any possible new normal includes at least some of what you want, and need, it to be.

Offered In Service

You may pre-order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here. What we’re living through today is not written about in any book. We’re its pioneers in consciousness. For us, in our time, the revolution must be within. INVOLUTION will be your guide.

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun’s arc of travel is currently getting higher and higher in the sky. This phenomenon translates as longer and longer days above the equator. Below the equator, it’s the other way around. Regardless of where you are, however, the Sun’s tour of Taurus is winding up.

Depending on who you are, the Sun in the final five degrees of Taurus can mean different things. No doubt, some of you could stand to see a lot more of what comes with the symbolic Sun of astrology expressing its corollary to waking consciousness through the field of fixed earth.

It is also understandable if you are feeling a bit fatigued with patterns of awareness that have characterized the last 25 days or so. After all, it is not wrong to desire a change of external scenery for its own sake. Therefore, as you move through the remainder of this week, keep in mind that your own point of view on the world at large will very possibly be at greater variance than usual with that of others.

Interestingly, the final days of solar Taurus will also be characterized by astrological indications implying a change of internal scenery. First, of course, is the waning Moon. By leaving Capricorn behind to enter Aquarius today, the Moon is inviting you to appreciate how much a collective perspective can vary from any given personal circumstance.

Then there are the only two planets that move between the Earth and Sun: Mercury and Venus. Earlier today (or overnight, depending on your time zone) Mercury returned to Taurus a second time.

The first ingress of Mercury into Taurus this year took place way back on the last day of March. Then a subsequent retrograde ultimately returned Mercury to Aries on April 20 (interestingly, just as solar Taurus was beginning). Mercury resumed direct motion on May 3, but has taken this long to ingress Taurus yet a second time.

Even with a change of sign, however, it would be fair to say that Mercury (and its predominantly intellectual correspondence) is not quite out of the proverbial woods. The same is true of Venus. As of today, both Mercury and Venus are still confined within the narrow zodiac corridors where their respective retrogrades recently took place. To the extent that both planets correlate with your inner life, you might say that they are both in a state of having “been there, done that.”

When you hear somebody recite the phrase “been there, done that,” they may be expressing either empathy or indifference. In both cases, however, there is an implicit sense of both recognition and resignation that closes the door on a true and individuated sense of compassion.

Fortunately, the confinements of both Mercury and Venus are about to end. On Thursday, Venus will pass the point where its 2017 retrograde started, and will enter new zodiac territory for the first time since the end of January. Then, just hours after the Sun enters Gemini this weekend, Mercury will accomplish its own figurative jailbreak and begin moving over new ground for the first time since the end of March. The timing could not be better.

By next week, every object inside of Earth’s orbit will have been emblematically refreshed. With such an occasion comes the possibility that your own doors of perception will be cleaned. With that potential will emerge the prospect of your own refreshment in turn — both inside and out.

Of course, and as usual, it will take some participation from you to manifest the sky’s potential. It will not be difficult to put yourself in harmony with what looks to be a clean slate developing up above. In fact, the protocol will be quite simple.

First, make an effort to be fully aware of your thoughts before expressing them. Then, every time you are tempted to either write or say “been there, done that,” take just a moment before you do. Look within to find other words befitting a new day, unbound from all that is best left behind. If you can bring yourself to do just that much, meaningful refreshment will almost surely follow.

Offered In Service

You may pre-order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here. What we’re living through today is not written about in any book. We’re its pioneers in consciousness. For us, in our time, the revolution must be within. INVOLUTION will be your guide.

The waning Moon in Sagittarius today and most of tomorrow sends one message: “lighten up.” As Saturday transitions to Sunday, however, a lunar move into Capricorn implies a complementary (but not quite contrasting) vibration more consistent with the rest of the zodiac: “look up.” In other words, don’t hang your head, lest you miss something you would have wanted to see.

For as long as human beings have been walking around, the sky has provided a tableau that complements events on Earth. Above, air and fire are the most evident themes, and the corresponding subject matter leans toward the ethereal. Below, earth and water co-mingle to evoke grounded, immediate and practical motifs.

It’s easy to become preoccupied with and attached to that which is below. Look into things a little deeper, however, and it becomes evident that there is what you might call a synchronized exchange between Earth and sky which provides what is often vital information. From above, for example, comes the sunlight and rain that nourish botanical life on the ground.

If you observe and correlate long enough, it becomes evident that there are cycles and patterns in the synchronization between the Earth and sky. The seasons are but one case in point. Day and night are another. During the day, the Sun is preeminent, making events on the ground easier to see. With nightfall, the solar dominance yields, drawing attention to both the Moon and lesser lights: the stars and planets.

After a while, those who remained awake (for whatever reason) during the night noticed yet other cycles and patterns. In the Moon and lesser lights are a deeper and more subtle background, which exhibits further symmetries of exchange — both empirically expressed and more subtly implied. In the implications, imagination meets observation much as Earth and sky do along a horizon. From that exchange, in turn, comes the human activity of astrology where the complementary synchronization and patterns correlating inner and outer life are revealed to be systematically consistent with everything else.

Hence, the physical activity of looking up to the sky (for subtle indications that provide anticipatory information) complements the metaphorical practice of looking up from the more tangibly mundane. The mundane constitutes much of that which is evident — necessarily occupying much of your waking attention.

Yet, there is an inherent hazard in looking only at what’s evident. Doing so reveals things only as they are. Looking up, on the other hand, engages with the imagination to see things as they could be.

Unless you are a fortunate exception, much of the way things currently are is usually survivable, but often less than satisfactory for thriving. Hence your reason (as implied from above) to look up both literally and metaphorically this weekend.

Those who either ignore or disparage the boundary where the observed and imaginary conduct their own exchange often see things only as they are — whether satisfactory or not, and often with no alternative but to ask “Why?” The evidently smaller number who live on the horizon between the inner and outer (an extension of above and below) have other options.

As implied by the fact that you are reading these words, you are at least potentially among those who have the option of imagining things as they could be, and asking “Why not?” By doing so, you fulfill one of the greatest of your human potentials — contributing to both fuel and sustain a synchronization, symmetry and even an exchange between you and the universe. If that’s not a reason to look up this weekend, what is?

Offered In Service

You may pre-order all 12 signs of INVOLUTION here. What we’re living through today is not written about in any book. We’re its pioneers in consciousness. For us, in our time, the revolution must be within. INVOLUTION will be your guide.