By Amanda Painter

Today, Thursday, Mercury in Libra opposes Uranus and Eris in Aries. This is the planet of mind and communication in the sign of relationships and preferred harmony facing across the zodiac to the planets of surprise, technology, chaos and subterfuge in the sign of self and identity.

Sun-glare and sumac; photo by Amanda Painter.

There’s a lot of energy in this setup, especially mental energy. It looks like it wants to express itself on the level of ego, and in interpersonal relationships.

In a very basic way, this could mean you’re feeling irritable, impatient or adventuresome. Erratic behavior and communication is something to watch for — and to flow with.

Think of it this way: anytime the unexpected happens, you have a choice: get angry and complain; or try to pretend it didn’t happen and keep doing what you were doing before; or get creative and work with it. Usually that third option takes the least amount of energy and leads to the best (if unanticipated) outcomes. Yet we human beings choose that route first less often than we could.

Some people seem to be better wired to go with the flow, and get curious or strategic when thrown off-guard; for others, it takes a lot of effort to get out of their own way. Whichever description fits you, consider that astrologer Robert Hand suggests that despite the challenges of Mercury opposite Uranus, you can use the energy productively if you can seek out new experiences and new people that challenge your thinking.

In other words, if you can own and initiate that process, it feels less like you’re being ambushed and more like you’re on a grand adventure with eventual rewards. You’ll need to develop flexibility in your thinking if you tend toward rigidity, but really that just means being more conscious of when you go into default mode and then questioning your thoughts.

Here’s the rub: although Mars conjoined Pluto in Capricorn yesterday and is now separating (so its effect should be lessening), it’s possible you’re feeling somewhat raw from a recent power struggle or question of control. That sets up a challenging environment in which to meet the unexpected, since you might be feeling like you’re still on high alert to protect or assert yourself in some way.

Adding to the potential difficulty is the presence of Eris with Uranus in Aries. Granted, their conjunction has been spanning this whole year, so it’s not a new influence. Yet one look at the US presidential race and the way it has blown up social media will tell you how wild Uranus-Eris is: things just keep getting weirder and more shocking. We can’t stop talking about it, virtually nobody can get a real handle on it since half of it seems to come out of nowhere, and we have no idea what the landscape might look like when the dust clears.

That level of uncertainty keeps people off-balance. If you’re feeling similar uncertainty in your life on a more personal level (especially in any intimate or work relationships), that lack of balance can make it harder to respond to the unexpected in productive ways.

For example, what happens when you want to do things ‘your way’, yet you keep telling people what they want to hear? Usually you end up holding a lot of tension until it erupts, or you end up going behind their back to do things ‘your way’ without engaging in ‘uncomfortable’ confrontation.

But what if you can develop some flexibility in your thinking? For example: reframing a situation to see how it can benefit all parties; looking for the long-term achievement beyond a short-term inconvenience; thinking in terms of ‘new adventure’ or ‘creative opportunity’; pulling your focus back so you can see a bigger picture beyond certain details.

Or maybe part of the issue is that you think you have no power in a situation, when really you do — if you’re able to express and exercise that power in a mature way. That is, no tantrums, stonewalling or metaphorical hitting when you can state your needs and desires clearly, and offer a point of meeting or compromise.

Whether any of those ideas helps you either to function more freely or to speak more forthrightly will depend largely on the situations you’re in. But they’re worth considering.

Remember: ass kissing is not the opposite of confrontation; it’s just an insincere cousin with passive-aggressive potential. True harmony can handle it when you put your cards on the table if it’s done with integrity, generosity and emotional maturity — something to keep in mind as the Sun enters ‘secretive’ Scorpio Saturday evening (7:45 pm EDT / 23:45 UTC).