This week ushers in the astrological Beltane, which is the moment the Sun reaches the midpoint of Taurus, on May 4 at 9:42 pm EDT (01:41 UTC May 5). The Taurus New Moon takes place shortly after that, on May 6 at 3:29 pm EDT (19:29:27 UTC). The last days before the New Moon, coupled with two inner planet retrogrades, make the first few days of this week the ideal slow-down-and-review moment.

Beltane maypole antics. Photo by Paxus.

Eric has written plenty about the cross-quarter days and their relationship to the Aries Point (see here and here for example).

The astrology of this week treads the intersection between the personal and the collective in a decidedly Taurean way. It does so by emphasizing the logical path of our values.

What I mean by this is that when we subscribe to a particular set of morals, this can have consequences wider than ourselves. Note the effect of Christian morality imposed on, for example, sex education and birth control in public schools.

For you, this week, there is a calling to review your own values — to ask yourself searching questions about what you truly believe. The time to do this is when you find yourself in some sort of quandary or issue over what is important, or what decision to make. Values are not abstract. They are connected to choices and to action.

It helps to be real with yourself, and to not play games when it comes to admitting what you want. Yes, this is a process, though it’s true that well begun is halfway done. Give it a go. When you’re asked something, experiment with giving the real answer and see what happens.

You might not get the result you were expecting; you might get a better one, and you’re likely to shift the dialog. These kinds of changes in direction are part of what Mercury and Mars retrograde are about.