Bolivian folk dancers in the Carnival parade in Belleville, Paris.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
Pluto’s station retrograde tonight at 11:55 pm EDT might be your simmer. The Aries New Moon 2:57 pm EDT (18:57 UTC) Saturday could be your sizzle. It’s likely there is some of both going on for most of us right now. If that’s true for you, take a tip from the astrology. Have patience with the simmer. Practice appropriate timing with the sizzle.
Whenever Pluto changes its apparent direction, it’s about as subtle as astrology gets. This particular station retrograde has been simmering a long time.
Pluto is at 15+ Capricorn, where it has been since the beginning of March. Where it will be until the beginning of June. Basically three months of slow motion oscillation in one teensy-weensy degree of the zodiac since the previous season. Since Uranus in Aries squared Pluto for the last time. Since what may seem like ‘back when’, given the pace of events.
All the while, a lot has undoubtedly transpired for you, as it undeniably has for the world and in astrology. If you can find the simmer as it has manifested for you over the last six weeks or so, you will have located Pluto in your life. Think of it as something slowly cooking without a stir. Be patient. Take your time. It’s not done. Still, now would be a good time to be mindful so you will know Pluto’s manifestation for you when you find it.
In the meantime, on another burner of your life, things are heating up. That’s the image of the Sun nearing the end of yet another annual tour through its Aries exaltation. Especially now that the Moon is catching up once again.
The Sun basically takes a year to go through all 12 signs of the zodiac. The Moon’s apparent motion is more than 12 times faster than the Sun. Hence, about once a month, the Moon catches up with the Sun so that both spend a few hours occupying the same degree of the zodiac (and moving through the sky) together — a New Moon.
The immediately previous New Moon was also a total solar eclipse without precedent for more than three centuries. That was at 29+ Pisces on March 20. Minutes later, the Moon moved on into Aries. Hours later, the Sun followed the Moon into Aries for the vernal equinox, initiating a new season. That was hot.
This weekend, the Aries New Moon will be hot as well. Not because it will be an eclipse. We have no more eclipses until September. Not because the Sun will change signs the same day. The Sun does leave Aries to enter Taurus until 5:42 am EDT (09:42 UTC) Monday. It’s because the Sun is exalted (another word for “intense”) in Aries, and because the most intense part of any sign is in the very last few degrees.
The last few degrees of a sign are called “anaretic” by astrologers. Nearly ten years ago, Eric answered a reader question about the latter part of Aries by (in part) citing Finnish astrologers Kirsti Melto and Raimo Nikula, who observed that the anaretic degrees of any sign contain “the whole experience and extension of the sign.”
Think about that: all of your experience since shortly after the total solar eclipse of March 20; the extension of everything that has happened in Aries (and in your life) since that time. All concentrated, all accumulated, all culminating with the current lunar cycle in a New Moon at 28+ Aries this weekend. Sound like a sizzle to you?
Just as with locating where the simmer is with Pluto, you would do well to locate where the sizzle is for you now. That way you will be prepared for the weekend. It means being consciously aware of what is most intense for you right now and making those things the focus of your attention lest sizzle become burn. As anybody who has cooked at high temperature knows, that means exercising good timing.
Fortunately, the sizzle will not last long. Basically, it will last through the weekend. While it does, however, that’s where your attention should probably be. So why not put your experience of the Sun’s time in Aries to work for you? What have you learned about timing during the last month or so, as the Moon was making its rounds and the Sun was expressing itself with intensity?
More specifically, what have you learned about all the things timing means? It can mean moving quickly while there is time. Yet, it might also mean being very deliberate and taking your time. Once you have located and focused on what is sizzling in your life, remember the lessons about timing you have learned during solar Aries. Take what you have learned into this weekend. Anticipate where you might apply that learning, and act appropriately.
That way, you are less likely to begin solar Taurus on Monday feeling burned. That’s how you can move with the Sun, the Moon, and the rest of the sky into next week. Think of it as a short-term protocol to keep your patience for the long term, while Pluto slowly simmers.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
Giovanni Paolo Pannini’s stunning Teatro Argentina at the Louvre, Paris.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
From now into the weekend — but especially today and tomorrow — is one of those times when your motivation is likely running high to move on projects that would otherwise be daunting. This is good news, though it comes with some caveats: you’ll need to plan; watch out for unnecessary risks (especially of the physical variety); and keep a tight rein on things like stubbornness and ego. Some subtler, slipperier factors will be at play, too.
Photo by Amanda Painter.
The main event is Mars in Taurus squaring Jupiter in Leo. This is exact Friday at 8:29 pm EDT (00:29 UTC Saturday).
Taurus, which is ruled by Venus, is not the most comfortable sign for Mars; it can be patient and persistent there, but that persistence can easily become stubbornness and possessiveness — especially with regard to money and sex. Jupiter in Leo can be very courageous and generous, but it can also get egotistical, prideful and extravagant.
With these two planets squaring each other from fixed signs, you’ll want to beware of getting stuck in one (or more) of those less-productive frames of mind. Because if you do, your judgment will become compromised, especially regarding impulsive risks. You might feel determined to barrel through whatever you’re facing, and you’ll have plenty of energy with this aspect to launch yourself and keep going. It’s the very energetic nature of this aspect, according to Rob Hand, that can be put to productive use.
What you are feeling, sensing or imagining is real. To say that you are moving rapidly toward one of the most significant turning points of your life, or certainly your life so far, is an understatement. Despite your fears, there’s actually very little you could now do to make things turn in a negative direction. The real question is about freeing yourself, that is, freeing your mind, enough to take advantage of the possibilities. Somewhere, lurking in the midst of a lot of great notions and dusty dreams, is a real concept of not just who you want to become, but rather, who you already are, and who can emerge effortlessly into the world. Focus on this. Let nothing get in your way, or cloud your focusing inner vision.
The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our All Access and Core Community members. See this link for more information.
This article can be read in full on the Cosmophilia website, where you’ll find Eric’s grand-slam readings for this year. You’re invited to comment here or on the Cosmo site. — Amanda P.
by Chad Woodward
Astrology can bring enchantment and connection back into everyday experience, helping us to reinvigorate the familiar axiom, “As above, so below.” Long before the advent of the scientific method, when only seven planets were acknowledged by ancient astronomers, human beings had derived this simple understanding of the universe that still pertains to this day.
Photo by Alan Fitzsimmons / ESO/A under Creative Commons.
This ancient hermetic axiom tells us something truly profound about our existence in such a delightfully simple way. It tells us that everything is connected, that the universe is a reflection of consciousness, and that the state of the external world communicates — it gives us messages and signs.
Astrology is just a sophisticated evolution of reading tea leaves, but the premise is still the same. The universe speaks to us. While our modern mechanistic worldview would snicker at such a notion, tainted by what astrologer and historian Richard Tarnas calls cosmological disenchantment, some part of us can’t help but feel a resonance with that truth. Why not? Why do we need to explain astrology through a concrete mechanistic principle for it to have validity?
This is not to say that such an explanation will never emerge or that it’s irrelevant to the conversation, but what’s wrong with entertaining the notion that the universe is a reflection of all existence? Modern science has pretty much come to the conclusion that matter is made up of empty space — that what we experience is pure energy. When Einstein proposed Relativity, he presented a new modern axiom: time is relative to motion. The stars that we perceive are in vibrational accord with our very cells. If true, the universe that we experience is one being, moving in an incomprehensible cosmic unity.
And so we’re back to what the ancients knew all along. When you ponder this, your existence makes perfect sense. You are an expression of that infinite cosmic dance. You are a piece of all existence, and your perceived separateness is an illusion relative to your speed of motion.
What’s so beautiful about life is that every nuance is significant because it’s an expression of the entire universe. Every seemingly petty and mundane experience has a deeper, metaphysical meaning beyond what it appears to be. If time is relative to motion, then we can surmise that human beings, encased in these fleshy bodies and inundated by fears, dreams, hopes and desires, have chosen for some reason to slow down, to stop and smell the roses and take in all the stars.
When I think about that, I smile inside. It makes the pain, suffering, joy and happiness all the more valuable. When I think about why I’m here, I just remember that I’ve chosen to slow down, to take in the now and glimpse the intimate moments of time and space — those moments that have such value for soul growth and the acquisition of understanding.
I didn’t always feel that way, and I still don’t on some days. I’ve always felt detached from the world and life itself. Astrology has brought me so much understanding about myself. So clearly and poetically astrology reveals my existential plight illustrated in the harmonics inherent to the universe. For whatever reason, I chose this experience. I’m here and I’ve decided that while I’m here I’m going to make the best of it.
Where the sidewalk ends, and the calanques begin. In Marseille, at the end of the Avenue de la Madrague de Montredon, the famous calanques – steep-walled coves along the Meditteranean coast – start to emerge.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
Mercury enters Taurus today at 6:51 pm EDT (22:51 UTC), less than three hours after the Moon ingresses Pisces at 4:12 pm EDT. Those two sign changes amount to a greater shift of emphasis in the sky than would normally take place in one day. Even though it’s a celestial phenomenon, the nature of that shift will be best and most vitally understood in the body.
It has to do with how Taurus is a fixed earth sign, a milieu of solidity. It’s also about how Pisces is a mutable water sign, an environment of change and flow.
Tangible water and solid matter are both what your body is made of, and what you know best from physical contact. That’s because you find both water and solid matter collected and concentrated where your body resides, on the surface of the Earth.
Even though the Moon is far above the surface of the Earth, nearly all of astrology’s lunar connotations are best accessed and expressed through what the body feels rather than through what the intellect abstracts. Additionally, the rapid changes in the Moon’s visage as it proceeds through its phases graphically correlate with the ebb and flow that physical feelings and water have in common.
Hence, after two-plus days of the Moon moving through the rigid thought forms corresponding to the fixed air of Aquarius, it will not take much imagination to actually feel lunar qualities begin to express themselves more strongly later today. Indeed, you would be best off to dispense with imagination all together and simply pay attention to what your gut feelings tell you about where you are and what you are doing.
Fortunately, going with the flow of what your body tells you of the Moon in Pisces will also help you to more fully initiate and appreciate Mercury in Taurus. Even so, you will probably need to do a bit of stretching, both literally and figuratively.
That’s because Taurus is not as natural a fit for Mercury as Pisces is for the Moon. Nevertheless, if ever there were a time to make the most of Mercury in Taurus, it is now.
For you live in a time when it is vital to (as Eric put it yesterday) “claim your humanity back” from an electronic environment that has become increasingly robotic and less creative. An environment of, by and for the mind that closely correlates with Mercury as it is commonly expressed in your life. Yet, an environment that is also making your mind more like a machine and less a part of what your body feels.
Implicitly, then, you will need to avail yourself of uncommon expressions of Mercury, such as through the solid, tangible, physical, human values of Taurus
Additionally, if you are to “feel the disturbing extent to which something about you has been taken from you,” you will probably need to feel it through the body first. Then, you must allow what you gather through the body to inform the mind with physical feeling rather than with digitized information.
That will be a stretch. More specifically, you will be required to stretch. You will need to stretch your legs, your back, your neck; pay attention to what you feel, and think about what it means. You will need to place your electronic devices so that you have to stretch more to reach them — so that your body will tell you about those things you might have been doing mindlessly for so long, you don’t think about it.
Most of all, you will have to stretch your mind. It may be as simple and vital as taking the time to (heaven forbid) prepare your own food from scratch, with all the discernment, preparation, measuring, evaluation, and time away from electronic devices that requires.
Indeed, if you can do simply that — cook from scratch, for the next two-plus weeks while Mercury moves through Taurus — you may very well change your life substantially. For in addition to rediscovering some humanity over a hot stove, you might actually improve your mind’s nourishment enough that it notices the difference. If that should happen, you will be less likely to forget that your mind and body are in fact one.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
