With a holiday weekend coming up in the U.S., many of you probably don’t want to do a lot of work. Not to worry. Venus and the Moon have you covered, and will serve to measure your life. You just have to take it in. It all begins overnight tonight with Venus in Cancer reaching an opposition to Pluto in Capricorn (separation of 180 degrees).

By Monday, which will be Memorial Day in the U.S., Venus will have moved away from an opposition to Pluto and into an opening square aspect (separation of 90 degrees) to Uranus in Aries.

Less than ten minutes after the square aspect from from Venus to Uranus is exact, the Sun in early Gemini and the Moon in early Virgo will follow suit with their own opening square aspect. That is the first quarter Moon, shortly before 1:19 pm EDT (17:18:49 UTC) Monday.

This lunar first quarter serves to measure where you are with what you initiated during the Taurus New Moon on May 17 (or May 18, depending on your time zone). It will be an appropriate time, especially on a holiday, to evaluate your progress and fortify your gumption in the face of any doubt you might feel.

Weather permitting, you don’t need an astrologer or a calendar to know when the lunar first quarter is happening. You can see it. After the Sun goes down, Luna appears half lit and half dark at or near its highest point in the sky for the evening.

If you point at Monday’s sunset with one hand, and at the first quarter Moon with the other, you will find your arms forming a right angle. It’s the same angle of separation (90 degrees, or a “square”) the Moon will have opened up from the Sun during the week or so since the two shared the same degree of Taurus as they moved through the sky together. Hence, it’s called an opening square aspect, the prototype for the same aspect between planets.

Uranus and Pluto are now in the process of separating away from their own opening square aspect. It started with their conjunction in Virgo, which was repeated three times from 1965 to 1966. In between their three exact conjunctions, Uranus and Pluto were never far part. Hence, it would be fair to say that Uranus and Pluto were conjoined continuously for at least two years. Compare that to one day for the Sun and Moon in conjunction. Imagine a New Moon lasting for two years. For Uranus and Pluto, that’s what happened.

Then beginning in 2012, and finally ending on March 16 this year, Uranus and Pluto reached a precise opening square aspect an unprecedented seven times. Once again, you could fairly say the aspect was continuous. Uranus in square aspect to Pluto was essentially one event lasting at least three years, which is now gradually spreading apart.

During this extended weekend, Venus will essentially be taking its measure of the spread that has opened up between Uranus and Pluto since March 16. Venus will move from 15+ Cancer (opposing Pluto in the same degree of Capricorn), to 19+ Cancer (to square Uranus in the same degree of Aries). In doing so, Venus will in effect be measuring your progress since March, and even since 2012. Indeed, you might go so far as to construe Venus taking its measure of history (and all who have lived through it) since the 1960s.

There will be no need for you to work overly hard to understand what Venus will be telling you. The information will probably be at least hinted at by the lunar first quarter. In the week or so from last Monday to next will likely be a prototypical parallel and representation of longer time frames.

Assuming you are not spending all of the next four or five nights distracting, intoxicating or exhausting yourself, all you have to do is take it in. Weather permitting, you can begin by watching unmistakably bright Venus in the western sky, and just take it in. With your eyes thus transfixed, take in the last week. Then the last two months. Finally, take in what you can of the last 50 years or so.

As you take it all in, search within. Feel out themes that emerged this week. Look for corresponding tableau that emerged this season. Reach for correlations in your life. Take your own measure from simply gazing upon Venus and the waxing Moon.

Provided you can allow yourself time for the contemplation of time (ideally under the sky) over the next four or five ‘darks’, you might find the days between take on a new meaning. You might even find the days after your holiday to hold more than you ever expected them to as the Sun and Moon move further apart — even as Uranus and Pluto are now doing.

Give Venus and the Moon a chance with a little of your holiday time. You just might see that time expand forward in proportion to how far you were able to take it back. You could do a lot worse.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

Much of life comes down to taking responsibility for ourselves and for our ‘stuff’, and doing so before we’ve let it undermine us in our dealings with others. Yet there’s the rub: we learn a lot from our mistakes.

Four women (sisters? I mean, look at that hair and synchronized sipping…) waiting for their flight to be called. Photo by Amanda Painter.

We see the truth of our baggage not when it’s all tightly packed and stowed in the overhead compartment, but rather when the zipper fails as it’s been tossed onto the conveyer belt. Suddenly everything’s all out in the open.

And if we’re honest with ourselves, we can admit that maybe we did over-pack that bag, and maybe it is time to sort things out and travel lighter. If displaced anger and shame take over, suddenly the mess is everyone’s fault but ours — and the next time we fly, we repeat the whole uncomfortable scene.

It’s that anger element I want to touch on for a moment. On Tuesday, Eric wrote to Planet Waves subscribers about Monday’s square between Mars in Gemini and Neptune in Pisces, exact May 25 at 7:38 pm EDT / 23:38 UTC. (This aspect also involves retrograde Mercury in Gemini as it develops next week).

He said, “There’s rather significant potential for self-destructive behaviors to resurface. The coolest heads must prevail in all sensitive matters of communication, and even in the most ordinary.”

I’m reiterating his message here because Mars aspects tend to be most palpable as they approach, rather than the day they are exact. Aspects to Neptune also have a very wide orb of influence (that is, they can be felt for days on either side of being exact).

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Shortly before 4:45 am EDT (08:44:44 UTC) Thursday, the Sun will enter tropical Gemini. That will mean you are two-thirds of the way through the season that started on March 20, when the Sun entered Aries only hours after a total solar eclipse in the last degree of Pisces. It also means the great illuminant of sky and astrology is bringing its light to what’s going on in Gemini.

The actual Sun is inseparable from the light of day. The symbolic Sun of astrology brings a similar light — that of consciousness. Whether in actuality or in astrology, that light is reflected by other objects in our solar system.

From your perspective, the actual Moon (in Gemini today, in Cancer for most of tomorrow and on Thursday), appears to reflect solar light most brightly most of the time. That’s because the Moon is, of all objects in the solar system, routinely closest to the Earth.

For reason of its brightness most of the time, the Moon is classified as a luminary along with the Sun. Actual planets, because of their distance, appear less reflective of the Sun. Even so, it is because of the actual Sun that you are conscious of the rest of the solar system. 

The symbolic Sun serves a similar purpose in astrology. It is the point of reference that determines our relationship to the Moon and planets. For example, Saturn’s opposition is now peaking not only because Earth is moving between actual Saturn and the actual Sun, but also because the glyph for Saturn is in the process of being opposed by the Sun’s glyph on the zodiac circle. The same is true with all oppositions, defined both literally and emblematically by the Sun’s position relative to the rest.

In analog, the symbolic Sun of astrology illuminates your consciousness of all of the zodiac. Most of the time, the greatest degree of emblematic enlightenment will be received with regards to the sign occupied by the Sun and any planets in the immediate vicinity. Such could be the case for you with Mars and retrograde Mercury, two planets already in Gemini. First, however, you must realize something about yourself.

You must realize that you are part of astrology, not separate from it. You must also acknowledge that the enlightenment you seek is what you are most likely to find.

You can always find reasoning (however out of proportion, context and scale) to support what you want to believe, even if what you believe is demonstrably not true. As soon as the Sun enters Gemini, it will rapidly move towards a separation of 90 degrees (a square aspect) from foggy Neptune in Pisces as if to prove the point. As with all square aspects, you must act to resolve the tension. Veracity can only be gained after you have acted to resolve discrepancies and demonstrate (rather than simply assert) the truth. 

Hence, you might want to discard your hand-me-down notions of what Gemini, Mars and Mercury retrograde “mean” by the time you wake up on Thursday. Avail yourself of an opportunity to awaken to a greater degree of truth. Give yourself (and the great illuminant) a chance to get your consciousness out from under any attachment to prejudice.

Give the Sun, in Gemini until the Cancer solstice on June 21, a chance to shine light on your experience and banish the shadow of hearsay. Let Saturn (in Sagittarius opposing the nascent Gemini Sun) restructure your awareness. Allow yourself to navigate through fog (Neptune) to reacquaint yourself with life’s energy (Mars) and regain mastery of your mind (Mercury).

All that and many other adventures await you in solar Gemini. Just remember, it will all begin with and ultimately depend upon you and the Sun.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Sarah Taylor

What make you of a Queen, and two Twos?

There is something to be said, here, of an aspect of the personality that has been made present sometime in the near past, which is bringing about change on a material level. This includes the materiality (mater-iality) of who you are — and how this transitions into change, and a regaining of equilibrium on the mental plane.

Queen of Wands, Two of Disks, Two of Swords from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Where are you in this? Maybe you are still in the throes of the Two of Disks.

That would be more likely: that, right now, you are not sure of where you are, of what is happening, and of where things stand. What you can know is that things will not be the same again. You, and your life, are changing in some tangible way.

The catalyst lies at the left: the emotional, watery nature of fire. She is Leo in her most queenly form. A witch in her most potent form — and when you look at her, you are looking into the mirror. In a key way, you are her, and she is you. I wonder what would happen if you were to look at the card and strike the same pose? Finger resting on your chin, coolly regarding yourself with inner fire, lips closed. But if they were to open, what would you say to yourself?

“Do you know yourself?”

Perhaps you do. Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you think you know. What feels true when the Queen of Wands appears next to the Two of Disks is that there is a part of you that is becoming known to you, and it has the potential to rock your world. The word “change” doesn’t appear on both the Queen of Wands and the Two of Disks for nothing. No. There is a reason for this change; the fire has come through to shake things up a little — or a lot. Your creativity, your passion, your ecstasy, are calling you out.

This call is not heartless, however, because the Queen of Wands is not without heart. Her gaze may be implacable, but her exposed left breast indicates that her feelings are right there for the world to see. She is utterly unafraid to live her vulnerability along with her fire, her motherliness along with the lioness. Her Mama Lion roars are an activating force — maybe out of direct ear-shot, but they are reverberating nonetheless.

Do you know yourself? What would change if your existence were a lived-out declaration of what beats at the heart of you? Because those flames are licking right through you, baby. Can you feel them? You are them, and they are you. Can you ride the heat without losing your cool? Can you be your inner fire-keeper?

I think you can. And the reason for this is held in the relationship between all three cards, and particularly both Twos.

While red predominates with the Queen, my eye is also drawn to the spatters of green on the lower half of the card — spatters that continue onto her headdress and morph into two green ribbons that hold between them a key. This key is pointing to the Two of Disks, as if it unlocks something that sets the two Disks into motion.

In the Two of Disks, the red of the Queen is still apparent in the mauve sky behind the lower Disk. Her quality is acting behind the scenes, shifting and drawing three near-metallic arrows out of the clouds on the horizon, which then become the agents of change. They direct and hold the Disks — two magnetic, hematite spheres — in a new paradigm of relatedness.

The arrows, like the key, point to the next card as if leading my eye to a third metallic element: two swords lying horizontally, hilt-to-point. The invocation of the fiery feminine was what was needed in order to redress an imbalance and open the skies up to new possibilities.

The Two of Swords — Peace — is another card that speaks of transition: the creation of a through-point that clears the skies enough that you can journey to new land. And it looks like the journey itself could be one beautiful adventure, if you are open to moving in a way that you may not be used to, open to living with a lot more (head) space than you may be used to.

First: change. It’s the change that gets you to the space. With that space, you can choose to leave an element of your life behind that in some way has felt stuck or barren. You don’t need to be there anymore. The through-point beckons. Adventure — your passion, your heart — is calling.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Queen of Wands (the watery aspect of fire / Leo), Two of Disks (Jupiter in Capricorn), Two of Swords (Moon in Libra)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.