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The Day of Clarity: Birthdays and Planet News

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If Your Birthday is March 21
The Day of Clarity | Pre-order Your 2019-20 Aries Reading | All Other Signs

Remember that integrity is your best friend. You seem to have a good deal of energy focused on you, and may draw various people toward you in the near future. Make sure the relationships you form, of any sort, are healthy and constructive for you and for everyone else involved. That starts with surrounding yourself with honest, compassionate people, who are likely to bring forward your best and brightest qualities.
— By Amy Elliott

Written for the Planets

We’re officially in a new season, and last night’s Libra Full Moon is starting to dissipate. Yet with such a potent setup to start the Sun’s time in Aries, chances are you’re still feeling the reverberations. Continue to give yourself a little delay before replying to any recent communications that might have raised your dander and defenses the last couple days. We’re in “small cause, big effect” territory through the weekend, thanks to the fiery Aries Sun’s impending square to the centaur Pholus in Capricorn. On top of that, Mercury is still very much retrograde in Pisces, and very much conjunct Neptune — indicating potentially imprecise thinking, possible emotional reactivity in communication, and an inability to see clearly the truth of a situation (including the emotional truth).

On top of that, today’s square between Venus in Aquarius and Mars in Taurus could be kicking up some inner tension. That might simply play out as a spike in arousal, including toward someone new. But it could also indicate discord in relationships where there’s hidden or frustrated sexual energy. Venus in Aquarius describes the potential for this to rear up in a friendship where there’s unspoken attraction, rather than with an established lover or someone you’re actively pursuing. Does that Aquarian influence help to cool things off and make it more of an intellectual exercise, or does it just make it weirder? How does that align with what your body’s telling you? If you have the opportunity to express this energy sexually (whether solo or with a partner), it’s possible that taking your time with the sensuality of it while experimenting a little might yield the most satisfying results.
— By Amanda Painter

Nothing Safer; photo by Amanda Painter.

When Standing Out May Be the Only Real Option

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By Amanda Painter

When everyone around you is wounded and hurting, if you initiate and pursue your own healing it will probably make you stand out. I suspect countless people have had this thought before, but it came to mind as I was thinking about tomorrow’s conjunction of the Sun and Chiron in Aries. I don’t know how many people think of that possibility consciously before starting (for example) a therapy process; even if present unconsciously, however, I imagine it holds some people back.

Nothing Safer; photo by Amanda Painter.

Nothing Safer; photo by Amanda Painter.

Sun conjunct Chiron occurs at 2:38 pm EDT Friday (18:37:51 UTC).

And although it’s not in the very first degree of Aries, it is in the second degree, which is still Aries Point territory (the nexus of personal and political).

Whatever tomorrow’s astrology describes for you personally, it will likely resonate with issues that are prominent in our collective social environment right now.

This is the first conjunction of the Sun and Chiron in Aries since Chiron left Pisces for good on Feb. 18. As far as I can tell, it is the only conjunction these two bodies will have in the first five degrees of Aries for this particular journey of Chiron in Aries (though next year will come close; that one happens in the sixth degree of Aries).

My guess is that this means this year’s Sun-Chiron conjunction may ring the personal/collective Aries Point bell the loudest — though I don’t know for certain if it works that way. And who knows: maybe we will be able to hear the signal better once we’ve all gotten more used to this energy next year? After all, we’re also adjusting to Uranus in Taurus and wading through Mercury’s retrograde in Pisces, both of which seem to be having a slightly destabilizing effect on many people. Then again, when is there not something in the astrology describing things being off-kilter, or provocative, or confrontational, or energizing in some way?

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Getting Ready to Get Going

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By Amanda Painter

Even though the calendar page will turn to a new year in a few days, the astrological year still has most of a season left to it. Yet the sense of one thing ending and something new beginning is still strong — and there is some major astrology on its way to support that sensation, even if the timing is not exact.

Photo by Amanda Painter

Photo by Amanda Painter

For one thing, Uranus will station direct on Jan. 6. This means that ALL the sign-ruling planets will be in direct motion for a spell — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (the Sun and Moon are never retrograde).

If that doesn’t sound like a cosmic green light to finally move important projects forward, I’m not sure what does. I don’t know about you, but after the continual feeling of limbo I experienced with this year’s inner-planet retrogrades, I’m really looking forward to a phase of momentum and traction, even if it’s brief.

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No. 2 from Group IV of "the ten biggest ones"; tempera on paper over canvas by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944).

Catching What Shakes Out of the Ethers

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By Amanda Painter

Today and tomorrow are busy days astrologically. The combination of events involved suggests that tracking your inner emotional and mental landscape (or monologue) is equally important as keeping tabs on what is going on around you personally and culturally — perhaps even more so; though the moments when external and internal intersect could also be key. Here are the main events:

No. 2 from Group IV of "the ten biggest ones"; tempera on paper over canvas by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944).

No. 2 from Group IV of “the ten biggest ones”; tempera on paper over canvas by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). Her “Paintings for the Temple” relate to inner processes as conveyed in meditation via spiritual entities.

Mars is leaving Aquarius after a long sojourn in that sign — about six months, thanks to its retrograde, not counting a few weeks in Capricorn this summer. It finally dives into Pisces at 5:21 pm EST (22:20:42 UTC) today. About eight hours before Mars makes its move, we get the first quarter Moon (Aquarius Moon to Scorpio Sun, late in their signs).

Tomorrow, Venus stations direct in Libra after its own month-and-a-half or so of retrograde motion, most of which was in Scorpio. Venus makes its apparent pivot at 5:51 am EST (10:50:58 UTC). About 15 hours later, Mercury stations retrograde in Sagittarius at 8:33 pm EST (1:33:06 UTC Saturday).

That’s a lot to have happening all at once with the so-called personal planets: the bodies that represent such attributes as our motivation, physical activity and sex drive (Mars); our emotions, receptivity and intimate relationships (Venus); and our thought processes, communication and communication technology (Mercury). And although the monthly cycles of the Moon (emotions and subconscious) are perhaps less striking, the sense of moving into gear that can accompany the first quarter is certainly coloring the background.

As a result of all this, it would seem that the first order of business for the next few days is simply to stay tuned in — to your experiences, to your responses to others, to any little insights or pieces of information that come your way, to any urges or tugs of intuition, to the sensation that you’re finally answering a question you’ve been grappling with a while, and to the arrival of new questions. Standard protocol for Mercury stationing is to notice when your attention to the task at hand has lapsed so you can refocus; but with all that’s going on, it could be just as enlightening to note what other thought your mind was occupied with at that moment.

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Photo by Amanda Painter, taken at the 2016 Sacred and Profane Festival.

Expressing What’s Real: Scorpio Sun Conjunct Venus

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By Amanda Painter

As I write this on Wednesday morning, I’m hearing reports of explosive devices discovered at the homes of Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, and also at the CNN offices in New York; this is following an explosive found at the home of billionaire philanthropist George Soros on Monday. By the time you read this, there will likely be more information available; but as I write, I’m most interested in the accompanying astrology. (Ed. note: as of Thursday morning, we’re up to ten suspicious/explosive packages sent to eight people.)

Photo by Amanda Painter, taken at the 2016 Sacred and Profane Festival.

Photo by Amanda Painter, taken at the 2016 annual Sacred and Profane Festival on Peaks Island, Maine.

As if the party or parties responsible for these actions had consulted an astrologer, this all unfolded in the lead-up to Wednesday’s Taurus Full Moon conjunct Uranus (the explosive planet), opposite the Scorpio Sun (secrets, death, other people’s money). Close to the Sun in Scorpio is retrograde Venus — ruler of the Taurus Full Moon.

Sometimes it’s just astonishing how well the aspects mirror the themes of events. By now I shouldn’t be surprised, yet it can still catch me off-guard.

I’m curious whether it’s possible that the connection of Venus to laid-back Taurus is a factor in the explosives being discovered before they could detonate. Is it something about the retrograde quality? What is the significance of the lunar nodes square the Full Moon configuration; is it some kind of balancing point between what we know and what we don’t know, or a choice between paths of action?

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Shining a Light on Pluto

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By Amanda Painter

I recently ran across a Planet Waves article from a few years ago that described Pluto in Capricorn as wanting us to address the deepest subject matter of where ‘systems’ — such as family, religion, government, the legal system, and so on — pack all of their values into us, and then we end up with all that as ‘baggage’ that we have to sort through. Ten years into Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, I think it’s safe to say that was a pretty accurate description. Pretty much daily at this point we’re confronting events and experiences that center on these issues, and which ask us to take the conversations ever deeper.

Trail to Vernal Falls, Yosemite; photo by Amanda Painter.

Trail to Vernal Falls, Yosemite; photo by Amanda Painter.

At the top of the list, of course, are the ways the systems mentioned reinforce values around race, sex and the misuse of power in regard to each.

Those topics, in turn, are closely related to our attitudes toward the natural environment (and our place in it), economic mobility, the use of emerging technologies, approaches to and accessibility of health care… I could go on and on. But I suspect few would disagree that, at least in the U.S., race and sex (or sexual violence) are the two hottest of the hot-button issues in our polarized cultural dialogue.

Pluto in Capricorn is insisting that we dig into these areas as deeply as we can, and sort out what in there is entirely personal, and what is really collective. Yet I have to wonder: given the very large number of people who have direct personal experiences and even trauma involving one or both of those topics, is it truly possible to differentiate personal from collective?

I’m not 100% sure. Though I suspect that tomorrow’s square to Pluto by the Libra Sun could hold some hints. The sign Libra speaks of one-to-one relationships (among other things); with the Sun there, we get an emphasis on how we express ourselves in relation to others directly. As in, how we are in relation to one other specific person at a time.

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Above the edge of the fog bank on Bald Peak in Camden Hills State Park, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

What Hangs in the Balance This Equinox

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By Amanda Painter

Shortly after the Sun and Mercury meet for a conjunction in late Virgo today, they make a tag-team entrance into Libra. Mercury gets there first, ingressing Libra at 11:39 pm EDT Friday (3:39:15 UTC Saturday). Then the Sun follows suit at 9:54 pm EDT Saturday (1:53:59 UTC Sunday) for the equinox.

Above the edge of the fog bank on Bald Peak in Camden Hills State Park, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

Above the edge of the fog bank on Bald Peak in Camden Hills State Park, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

As you know, the Libra equinox signals the start of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and is one of two times in the year when we experience equal hours of daylight and darkness (the first being the Aries equinox, which commences Northern Hemisphere spring and begins the astrological year). Seasonal shifts are major turning points.

As such, and perhaps because of the visible shift in the day-night relationship, I tend to associate them with very specific tones or moods of emotion and energy — though this can be highly personal.

Some people relish the cooler, crisper air of fall and the sense of settling back down and in; I tend to grieve the loss of warmth, bare skin and long days of outdoor play (especially in the water). Whichever way you lean (and whichever half of the globe you’re in), I think it pays to notice the shift of the season and your response to it.

Astrologically, the equinoxes (as well as the solstices) activate the Aries Point. That’s the first degree (or so) of Aries where issues of both collective (political) and personal importance intersect and inform each other, and this quality gets extended to the first degrees of all the cardinal signs (Cancer, Libra and Capricorn being the others).

So what’s hanging out in the early cardinal signs to greet the Sun and Mercury when they land in the first degree of Libra this weekend? Quite an intriguing collection of objects, it turns out, especially if we look at the first three degrees (written as 00 – 02 degrees) of the cardinal signs.

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Excerpt from "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus; photo of a mural in Phoenix, Arizona.

Remembering How to Care on the Cancer Solstice

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By Amanda Painter

Today is the Cancer solstice: the day when the Sun ingresses Cancer. It’s the longest day of the year, kicking off summer in the Northern Hemisphere (in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the shortest day and winter begins). And this year, two of the strongest themes of Cancer certainly are at the forefront of U.S. consciousness: taking care (or not), and emotions/sensitivity.

Excerpt from "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus; photo of a mural in Phoenix, Arizona.

Excerpt from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, 1883, on the Statue of Liberty; photo of a mural in Phoenix, Arizona.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a decent amount of time this week making calls to various political officials and departments, signing petitions, and getting pulled into heated social media exchanges — all regarding the continuing separation and detention of young children from their parents at the U.S. border. As I write this on Wednesday, news is breaking that Pres. Trump has signed an executive order to reverse this policy — one that was implemented by his Administration.

While that strikes some as good news on the surface, it does not undo the trauma caused to thousands of children (most appallingly), to their parents, and even to the Immigration employees tasked with carrying out the separation and commanded not to comfort the crying, terrified kids. Additionally, the executive order appears to set up an even more complicated situation. (Addendum: it looks like crossing the border without permission could become a felony rather than a misdemeanor; and, there appears to be no plan to reunite children with their parents or to track them. I’m also seeing reports of a history of giving separated kids psychiatric drugs to keep them subdued. Please see today’s Democracy Now! post for more information on the deepening mess.)

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