May 4 is the Beltane New Moon — a Sun-Moon conjunction right at the midpoint of Taurus. We’re not up to that yet; more details will be in Thursday’s edition, and then Monday Morning 175 one week from today. Keep this event on your radar, however. It’s unusual to have a New Moon right on the cross-quarter, in tune with our “interesting times.”

Image by Stephen H.

This week, I have more squares to tell you about. There are a lot of them at the moment, due to a concentration of planets in Aries and Capricorn (two signs on the cardinal cross).

The two big patterns are the Saturn-Pluto conjunction square Eris; and then Chiron-Salacia square Pholus-Quaoar. Note that they all involve minor planets (not asteroids) and are not likely to be getting much ink over in the mainstream astrology-industrial complex.

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Monday, the Sun is conjunct Uranus in Taurus for the first time. Last year when the Sun conjoined Uranus, it was still in Aries, before making a brief visit to Taurus last spring and summer.

Power House Mechanic by Lewis Hine, WPA.

I’ve found that conjunctions of the Sun to outer planets give a clue to how the outer planet can manifest. With Uranus in a new sign, many people are curious. The conjunction is exact Monday at 7:07 pm EDT. Counting Monday’s, there will be a total of seven Sun-Uranus conjunctions in Taurus, with the last one being on May 17, 2025. Each one counts. Each will shake up the world in its own way.

One of the reasons that Uranus in Taurus is so interesting is the contrast. It’s like a hot fudge sundae. Uranus is known and revered for its eccentricity, inventiveness and association with revolution. Taurus is known for its respect for custom and tradition. Any Taurus person I know aspires to be dependable and consistent, and has a touch of the old-fashioned.

So when you combine the two, you get this futuristic impulse in Uranus mingling with the stability and continuity of Taurus. Yet there is a fierce creative potency contained within Taurus that I’ve hardly seen matched by any other sign, save for possibly Libra (in traditional astrology, both are ruled by Venus). The contrast is striking, and relevant. My take is that Uranus will activate the deepest creative quality of Taurus in many different ways.

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Three nearly concurrent events drive the week’s astrology.

In the background of everything is the Libra Full Moon. Exact Friday at 7:12 am EDT, the Moon opposes the Sun across the last degrees of Aries and Libra. That has an edgy feeling, and it may also serve as a release point of the Sun passing through the Saturn-Pluto-Eris square configuration on the lunar nodes. Squares are looking for some opportunity to express themselves, and an opposition is a good way to do that.

Neptune, from Voyager 2. Mars will soon square Neptune.

Soon after the Full Moon, both the Moon and the Sun enter new signs — the Moon enters Scorpio, and the Sun enters Taurus.

That will be exciting: the Moon’s first move is to oppose Uranus, the planet of surprises; the Sun’s first move will be to form a conjunction. This will be a refreshing change from all of the tense square energy we’ve been living with the past few weeks, as the Sun has emphasized all the tension between Aries and Capricorn.

Second is that Mercury is joining the cluster in early Aries (apparently inescapable), so early Aries will look like this: Mercury, Chiron, Salacia and Vesta. Mercury will also square Quaoar and Pholus in Capricorn — yet another way of highlighting the square between Aries and Capricorn.

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We are now in a new era of astrology: the Pluto-Eris square. Maybe you’ve been following along. There was the Uranus-Pluto series of squares in the 2011-2012 era; there was the Uranus-Eris conjunction of 2016-2017; and now, the torch has been passed to Pluto square Eris — the rarest of all of these combinations.

And while this is happening, we are experiencing the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, the first 2020 aspect that will be exact on Jan. 12, 2020 — and which is working at close to full force right now. Note, I cover these events succinctly in the first half hour of tonight’s Planet Waves FM.

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We’re about to experience one of the most unusual Mercury stations in a generation. On Thursday, Mercury turns to direct motion in an exact conjunction to Neptune. This takes place in Pisces; that is Mercury churning through a lot of water.

Chart for this week’s Monday Morning horoscope, depicting Mercury stationing direct in Pisces. Full-size image at this link.

The conjunction of Mercury and Neptune has been going on for many days, and will continue well into April. It is a defining feature of our moment along the river of night, and it seems to be asking more questions than it is providing answers.

This is difficult in a time when so many people are expressing a desire for resolution and to move on. But it’s been satisfaction with false answers and moving on from responsibilities that have led us to where we are today.

Many others spend their lives waiting for a moment that never arrives. There have to be alternatives to these approaches.

Neptune and Pisces tend to drop to the background; in the foreground we’ve been experiencing a dramatic conjunction of the Sun and Chiron in Aries, bringing in many other influences from the cardinal signs. I covered this in detail last week and the prior week.

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This week is the equinox: when the Sun enters Aries and spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere. That takes place Wednesday, March 20 at 5:58 pm EDT). Moments after the Sun enters Aries is the Libra Full Moon, making this an unusual equinox with quite a lot of momentum carrying both the energy and resulting events.

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Ferry from Fauntleroy to Vashon, by the Vashon Photographer.

Well the joint was jumping, going ’round and ’round,
Hey! reelin’ and a rocking, what a crazy sound,
Well they never stopped rocking, till the moon went down.

Lately I’ve been looking at the astrology charts, and getting the same feeling, wondering the same thing: when does the story resolve?

When you get astrology, you usually get my words, translated into narrative format. I have to write each piece with a beginning, middle and end. I’m an English major, too old to be a postmodernist. I try to tell you a good story, one that makes sense, with interesting characters. When I get the astrology, I’m looking at a circle, and the planets are always moving in their cycles, around and around.

Maybe I have a murky feeling because everything is gathered around Neptune in Pisces these days, and Mercury is retrograde, heading for a 10-day conjunction to Neptune. This is not a picture of certainty or resolution. I’ve never seen this happen before, the end of Mercury retrograde occurring conjunct Neptune. This could turn the whole world into a seance. Get your Ouija board ready.

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