Shortly before 6:11 pm EST (23:10:38 UTC) today the Sagittarius Moon will square the Pisces Sun. At that time the Moon will be in its last quarter phase, which many see as a countdown to when the Sun and Moon next share the same degree of the same sign to begin a new lunar cycle (a New Moon).

In the case of this particular last quarter Moon, however, you might consider yourself to be counting up. That’s because the next week, leading up to the Pisces New Moon and solar eclipse, will be quite auspicious astrologically.

Perhaps the two most significant events taking place before the Moon eclipses the Sun next Tuesday will be Mercury and Mars changing signs. Mercury will leave Aquarius behind to enter Pisces at about 5:24 am EST (10:23:25 UTC) on Saturday.

Following Mercury’s ingress to Pisces, Mars will leave Scorpio behind to enter Sagittarius at about 9:29 pm EST Sunday (02:28:32 UTC Monday, for those of you on the other side of the pond).

Two sign-ruling planets changing signs during the last week of a lunar cycle is a big deal. When you consider that the successive ingresses of Mercury and Mars are leading up to something even bigger (the first eclipse of the year), the net image is more of accumulation than attrition. It is as though a table is being set before a meal, rather than cleared after dining. Thus the perception of counting up.

We have a hint from the sky about how to approach the Pisces New Moon and solar eclipse, which occurs at about 8:55 pm EST on March 8 (01:54:26 UTC on March 9). Think of it as a right of passage you have earned, like a college student accumulating credits toward a graduation and a diploma. That way, you can spend the next week in an ambitious and productive state of mind, working your way towards what you want to achieve as you go into the next lunar cycle.

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Far better to be ambitious and productive than to waste the next seven days worrying about things that will probably never happen. More healthy to work towards gaining something than to fear losing something.

Let Mercury and Mars show you the way. Move forward toward something new during this next week. Don’t withdraw with an anticipation of defeat. Enter a new part of your life that you have (in one way or another) been working toward, and looking forward to, for a long time.

That way, even though you may not be positioned to see next week’s total solar eclipse (visible mostly over the Pacific Ocean), you will be in the best possible place to feel that where it will be taking you is where you want to go. It’s a new month, everybody knows that. Why not also make it an ascending path towards a new life?

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By Sarah Taylor

When I turned over the three cards I drew this morning for this week’s tarot reading, the first card I drew on the left was a blank one. I was confused for a split-second, and then smiled as I realised I’d forgotten to remove the two spares from the deck (either that, or, like the jokers in a pack of cards, they’re there to play silly buggers with unprepared tarot readers). But these cards themselves are significant, and an appearance by one of them in this reading is no exception. I’ll get to that a little later. But first, card order.

Ace of Swords, Two of Swords, Five of Swords from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

I drew the card at centre first, then left, then right. In hindsight, this makes supreme sense to me given that the first card — the central one — is the Two of Swords.

Swords represent the mind, your beliefs, your thoughts, how you approach something psychologically. They also represent the written word, the spoken word, the law.

This reading is an all-Swords reading, and so your mind, how you construct your world, and how you express yourself are all fundamental parts of how you are operating right now.

The Two of Swords speaks to the idea of a temporary equilibrium. It is a point of balance, a suspension of judgment, a moment of stillness before action. It can also symbolise a contract or agreement that brings two parties together for a limited time to fulfill a particular purpose.

This is the moment you’re currently in, and it is the moment in which you get to choose between what lies to the left of the Two of Swords (the Two being your ‘contract’) and the right. In short, you get to choose between wisdom and Defeat — or between insight and conflict.

Now, back to that blank card and its significance as a ‘placeholder’ for the Ace of Swords. The Aces are discrete members of the 56 Minor Arcana cards. This is because, while they lead into the numbered cards, they are not in the world of the numbered cards. Cards 2 through 10 represent incarnate, embodied reality. The Aces do not. They are pure archetypes of the elements they represent.

The Ace of Swords is the pure archetype of Air, and given that Air represents the mind, the Ace of Swords is also the limitless potential of the mind. If we were to put words to it (which in truth we really can’t do effectively, the Ace being a pure archetype — though we can try to approximate what it means to our limited understanding), then the Ace of Swords is Solomonic wisdom; keen, dispassionate insight; the clearest vision you can have.

But here’s the thing about the Aces: they can stand for so much; they can stand for nothing at all. This was emphasized to me in the blank card I drew before drawing a card to take its place, which was the Ace of Swords. Sometimes, you might as well ‘draw a blank’ if you aren’t going to recognise that the only person who is able to manifest the Ace of Swords in your world is you. The Ace itself, divinely sent, can only meet you halfway: it stands in the non-incarnate world, and it is up to you to notice its potential and draw it down.

To put this another way, the presence of an Ace in a reading asks you to take a risk, because it is asking you to act on something that is not tangible. Is it available to you? Absolutely! But like the adage goes, “That book ain’t gonna write itself, ya know!”

That idea isn’t going to advertise itself. That insight isn’t going to apply itself. That theory isn’t going to test itself. That ground-breaking, life-changing inspiration that scares you shitless to contemplate isn’t going to do all the work for you, shoulder all the risk, and save you from the sweat of work — or the humiliation of defeat.

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No. The presence of the Ace is not a guarantee, either.

It is an all-or-nothing deal, and you are not protected from the consequences of your actions. BUT. Its potential is available to you — and its presence means you have more resources than you might at first consider possible. More, perhaps, than you can currently conceive of.

Think of the Ace of Swords as a seam of intellectual gold sitting deep in the Earth’s crust. It is there, for the taking. You are the miner. Standing there on the surface, tapping your toe in earnest, will not fill your cart. And if you go down there, you may simply fill your cart with rock.

Or you may strike gold. And the only way to do that is to commit.

The alternative you can choose in this moment of equilibrium is the card on the right, the Five of Swords. (I have a feeling that if you decide not to choose, the Five is what you’ll get anyway, given that the Ace needs your active commitment to it.)

The Five of Swords is when that temporary alliance of the Two of Swords goes tits-up, as we say here in the UK. It is not the under-handed, stealth-driven sabotage of the Seven of Swords, nor the existential anguish of the Nine of Swords, but it is a moment of “ouch!” where someone’s peace of mind is sacrificed on the altar of conflict. Blood is spilled in a battle of wills — a skirmish where there is a clear winner and a clear loser, but either way the victory is one that has its costs. It is accompanied with fiery fury and rage; emotions run very high; despair follows, even though it might be short-lived.

But to its left, there are peace, stillness, the moment where the mind can reflect on itself and see the truth: the Ace. The single sword that looks back at us in the mirror. In a sea of troubles, it is the grounded location of the lightning bolt of intuitive knowing.

But you’ve gotta reach out and take it. Sometimes having a handle on the truth is the greatest responsibility of all. Because it asks you to do something with it.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ace of Swords (the pure, limitless element of Air), Two of Swords (Moon in Libra), Five of Swords (Venus in Aquarius)

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.

So many times before, my leaps of faith — my daring to walk into the total darkness — had rewarded me brilliantly. Clear-cut improvements to my circumstances came steadily into view. The only thing clear about my choices this time around was that they’d landed me in a fog.

“Trip” by Rob Moore.

One person’s mellow glow following a hit off a joint is another’s nightmare cruise to the land of the lost. It was shown to me long ago that I’m the nightmare cruise guy.

Sure enough, there I lay, not at all sure I’d feel like getting out of bed in time for a jam-packed day of appointments still 36 hours away.

While Eric has been delving further this week into the highly concentrated activity going on in Pisces, my confounding experience with a sexual performance potion has this weekend’s Sun-Neptune conjunction in Pisces running right down the middle of it.

I am fondly familiar with Neptune’s wonderfully inspiring and visionary qualities. But I’m no stranger to its capacity to be misty and foggy, if not downright deceptive at times, and it’s these qualities that take center stage in my story today.

As Amanda Painter pointed out on Thursday, it’s not uncommon for Neptunian influences to be felt before the aspect is exact. Perhaps similar effects have become more obvious for you the closer we’ve gotten to the weekend.

Escapism was not on my agenda when I accepted the offer to indulge in this sexual enhancement potion. Quite to the contrary, I wanted to be majorly engaged. Engaged in a more exhilarating and fantastical way than I ever had before. You might say that is what tested the groundedness of my aims.

As with most interests, my sexual voracity is ever moving up and down the scale. I find regular breaks from sex quite beneficial to my body and my overall sexual appetite. However, during periods when sex is pretty much a constant for me, I can begin to question if it’s as good as it could be. Most recently, I experienced a conflicting mix of lackluster physical sensation with a sexual appetite that was making its hunger very clear.

Flash forward to a casual connection who listens to my dilemma and claims he has just the thing. Tea concoctions he’d read about online were supposedly making everything more awesome for him: sensation, stamina, full-body orgasm, and even girth when formulated specifically for men. He rattled off a bunch of ingredients that meant nothing to me; but since it was all natural, he assured it would be an asset to my overall wellbeing.

Betting these were largely a bunch of empty promises anyway, I drank it on down. Well, right away I started to feel lightheaded. Being one of the first to try Viagra when it was introduced, I know any of its effects pretty much just go right to the organ in question. This potion, though, was yielding a definite high. Truthfully, it made me feel far less sexually potent.

Oh, but that was only a feeling. Fairly soon that girth arrived on the scene. And other dimensional enhancements, too. Geez, it was like a frickin’ Polska kielbasa between my legs. And that gave rise to… well… activity. Major activity. Exhilarating and fantastical activity!

Sure, I felt a little sick to my stomach and my heart was pounding with a heaviness that concerned me but — damn! — we were going at it like crazed animals. When at last came the orgasm, it was indeed so full body this usually inaudible climaxer let out sounds I am quite sure vibrated eardrums all through the building.

If that wasn’t enough — and apparently it wasn’t — usually one to call it quits after the crescendo, I wanted to go again. I felt it would be a regrettable mistake not to. And so we went again. I was wincing with areas of tenderness much of the time, but we went again anyway, by golly. And if those tenants’ eardrums weren’t vibrated before, they were now.

But on the drive home, it became deeply clear just how horrible I was feeling. ‘Tired’ was hardly the word. ‘Depleted’ was more like it. And whereas I questioned if certain organs were still functioning, others felt as though they had been hit by a Taser.

I was so glad to finally get into bed. So tired I felt literally threadbare, I closed my eyes to welcome sleep. Accustomed to drifting off right away, I never drifted. I just laid there, my heart pounding through every capillary, my mind and eyes dead to the world but my underlying body buzzing with electricity.

Then, just as I was concluding that no roll in the sheets — no matter how fantastical — is worth this aftermath, it became apparent that something in that potion was a diuretic. I had already peed like ten times and now I had to get up and go again.

Hour after hour, I would close my eyes, open them, get up, go to the bathroom, lay back down and start all over again. The only variation on the theme was that after about twenty trips to pee, my prostate started enlarging and it became terribly difficult to go. We’re talking urgent feelings but just can’t go. Things still haven’t perfectly gotten back to normal down there to this day.

As a man happily sober since age 24, I really do not have a tolerance for not feeling good anymore. Meaning naturally, intrinsically good. For that reason, and with the aim of taking the most fortuitous path for all involved, I stop and offer my intention to my higher self before setting off to connect with others. Or before I do anything at all, really.

I knew the possibility existed on that day to address my sexual enhancement questions with this tea concoction, and I indeed offered the situation to my guidance. Satisfied that I had included the part of my self that sees beyond the immediate, I felt secure in the aftermath of the experience regardless of how terrible I felt. With levels of higher wisdom on the scene, I was deeply satisfied that there was something not only worth discovering but important that I do — although that particular herbal mixture was not the right balance of ingredients for a sensitive type like me.

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Hindsight being 20/20, however, there was the option of another path that had been quietly welling up from within me; a path more direct and free from bodily harm.

This inner nudging had been rising in and out of my awareness for a while. But any enhanced sexual experience without using substances would rely so much on my ability to be in the moment and connected, it was easy to write it off as an idealistic notion beyond my abilities. After all my unforeseen and undesirable experiences taking what looked to be the easy way out, honoring that inner nudge has now become the logical — and far more desired — choice.

There is something else, though, that spoke to my heart amid all this. It’s about being gratified by what is just naturally on offer every single day — for me, for you, for all of us. Lying there feeling so, so bad, I began to consider what is actually rather exhilarating about two people holding each other. Just holding, nothing else. Or how transcendent it can be to have fingertips running down your cheeks, arms, and legs as well as between them.

So if conditions, people, or even ideas are proving to be a little foggy this weekend, I’d say take some time to appreciate the simple things. Those ways of connecting that you know you can rely on. Those things that just feel good. No risks, no walks in the dark, just what’s there for you now. Right now.

You have probably seen your share of what might broadly be called optical illusions. One of the most famous and straightforward examples (linked here) shows either a vase or two faces, depending on who you are and how you look at the picture.

Most of you can alternate how you look at the picture to either see a vase against a black background or two silhouetted faces separated by a white background. It’s not so easy to see both at once.

If there is anything to what’s indicated by the astrology at this time, the perceptual challenge of seeing both the vase and faces at once is reflected in (and by) your life. Perhaps that is no accident. It could be that your lifetime is a very important time in human history precisely because such challenges to perception exist.

You might very well find yourself cycling rapidly, alternating between what to focus on at any given time and what to relegate to the background. When you consider how modern innovations such as text messaging constantly pull your attention away from one part of your life into another, it can be dizzying to even contemplate. In addition, with so many things vying for your attention and energy, you may often find yourself wondering whether it is necessary (or even advisable) to keep up with everything all at once. Yet, there also seems to be an imperative to perceive everything as a connected whole so that each part can be better understood.

How to respond to such apparently authentic but also daunting perceptions? Astrology appears to be providing you with some clues.

For astrologers, the outer planets, which take many years to go around the Sun (and through the zodiac cycle of signs), have often symbolized the background. That background contains subject matter represented by generations, nations, cultural institutions and other long-term phenomena. The so-called “personal planets” — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and (maybe) Mars — on the other hand, have usually been relegated to correlate with cycles that repeat many times in the course of a typical human life. Actual experience, however, does not seem so simple anymore.

Ever since Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008 (and perhaps going back even further to when Pluto and Neptune began a seemingly perpetual separation of about sixty degrees in the middle of the 20th Century), distinctions between long-term and short-term have less meaning. As Eric has often noted, “everything at once” has become more the rule than the exception. The same sort of coalescence has also taken place between the public and private parts of many (if not most) lives.

Now, with Neptune in Pisces for the last five years or so, the phenomenon of “everything at once” accompanied by a blurring of the lines between personal and political issues is reaching a crescendo. The idea is to see that as both a good and a necessary thing. As the personal planets move in rapid succession between major aspects to Pluto, Neptune and Uranus (which is in Aries), the celestial message seems to be that you must find your own way to make life manageable rather than rely on ways of the past.

Part of finding your way is determining a middle ground between foreground and background. It is no longer either advisable or possible to hide away from the world, if indeed it ever was. By the same token, it is more than any human being can manage to keep up with everything at the same time, all the time.

Join Eric and Planet Waves in the beautiful world that is Vision Quest. Here are samples of your incredible written and audio readings.

Rather, it is up to you to select what to focus on, but not to compartmentalize your life. Separation is no longer a realistic approach. Instead, it is consistent with the world’s realities to discern what areas and types of involvement will keep you conversant with the whole while not overwhelming you.

In other words, you can’t do it all and shouldn’t elect to do nothing at all. There is another way that you can contribute to developing, thereby furthering the evolution of our kind. It is a middle way, in which each individual releases attachment to being separate, while also embracing the potential to emerge from the background — as called for to make a difference when too many others retreat into anonymity and non-involvement.

Your middle way does not require a rapid oscillation between one state and another. Quite the contrary. It is determining where you are at, and finding the rest of the world there with you. It will not be easy. It is possible, and efforts of the astrologically conversant (such as Eric and others you read here at Planet Waves) can guide your contribution to make it so.

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