There is nothing wrong with you if you feel affected by the scale and depth of the recent tragedy in Orlando. It is not a flaw for you to be both weary and wary of senseless violence. It is also important to remember that fear and grief are not your natural state of being.
You are a living being. You are naturally suited to sustain and nurture life. That’s a good thing, not a weakness. You are also a very human being, not a machine. Your feelings, vulnerabilities and needs are not liabilities, they are assets.
While none of us are perfect, there is reason to believe that nearly all of the people you meet share your goodness and assets. For that reason, there is also a firm basis to believe that there is a way to turn things around and make the world safer for its children.
The astrology of this coming week is emblematic of what you can do. The metaphor developing on the zodiac since last Friday is one that implicitly empowers you. It has to do with the so-called ‘personal planets’. That would include the luminaries (Sun and Moon), along with Mercury, Venus and (probably) Mars.
But it is not the personal planets alone. It is their relationship with the rest of the zodiac’s components in a holistic picture. That picture started to develop late on Sunday night.
As Sunday segued into yesterday, Mercury left Taurus behind and entered Gemini. A few hours later, the Moon left Virgo behind and entered Libra.
Gemini is one of two signs (along with Virgo) where Mercury is said to rule. Mercury is now more at home than it was during its long retrograde tenure in Taurus (nearly two months). Implied by Mercury’s transition into Gemini is a greater potential to quicken and refresh the largely (but not exclusively) mental qualities of Mercury as they manifest in your life.
What Mercury is to the intellect, the Moon is to emotions. Having the Moon move away from a weekend in Virgo to spend a few days in Libra implies a more suitable environment for a flow of compassion to prevail.
Then, yesterday, Neptune commenced a long retrograde of its own, nearly in the middle of Pisces. The relationship between Neptune and Pisces is much the same as Mercury’s relationship with Gemini. It’s home. It is the planet’s domain. Neptune, however, moves a lot more slowly than Mercury does.
Neptune is also a lot more impersonal (albeit deceptively so) than Mercury is. Hence, it will take a while, but eventually we will probably be able to look back at yesterday and note that a turn-around commenced. More specifically, before the end of this year, we will very possibly be able to look back to yesterday and note how a period of collective deception culminated, yielding to a time of communal reflection.
Speaking of culminations and beginnings, next Monday (June 20) will bring the second Sagittarius Full Moon in a row. That is followed hours later by the Sun leaving its present place in Gemini, and entering Cancer to initiate a solstice and a new season. The most personal and familiar of the sky’s objects (Sun and Moon) will have the symbolic last word as regards to what transpired over the weekend just past. The implication in your life is that the actual last word will be yours to speak and act on.
If there is anything to astrology, it is you — and people like you — who will make the difference. If there is a difference to be made in the wake of the fear and grief felt by so many since last week, it will not be made by nations. Nor will corporations, or even cultural institutions be the ones to lead the way. Rather, it will be you.
In your hands is the power to begin a new season for humanity and the world. You can begin simply. Give others no reason to fear you. Act so as to give others no reason to grieve. It will mean being vulnerable, and transparently so. It will also entail being tolerant, especially when you are strongly tempted to be critical. Perhaps most of all, you should consider publicly gathering with others of like mind to demonstrate that you are not afraid to affirm and support the sustenance of life and the support of love, whatever form they take.
Whatever their form, life is preferable to the alternative, and love is answer. And right now the answer needs you. Come out from behind locked doors. Divest yourself of violent means. Be the safe and compassionate quality the world needs to have. Let a new season of peace on Earth begin with you.
Offered In Service
Curious about what the epic Uranus-Eris conjunction means for you? Intrigued by the dance of Neptune and Chiron in Pisces? In our exciting new class with Eric Francis, The Astrology of Now, your questions will receive thoughtful and insightful answers — and you’ll have lots of fun in the process. You may sign up here.
Len, your words always have a gentle, nurturing rhythm to the mind’s ear, especially in times of crisis. God bless you for that. Astrology in a time of crisis or even a planned event is never just a matter of one or two planets in a particular spot or aspect is it? The more advanced we become in our knowledge of this language, and the more we share our understanding of it with each other, the more the Universe shares with us the “whys” of events and its timing. Like everyone who cares about astrology’s guidance , the 1st thing we seek out is where the planets were at the time of the event.
Usually that will reveal enough to get us started in the search for meaning. Many of us will seek out related charts like recent full or new moon charts, and then an examination of eclipses during the past year or so. I’ve found that solstice or equinox charts for the period are also helpful for finding trends such as hostility or confusion coloring the period they represent.
In the last few years the cycles between slow and even some fast moving planets have, for me, remarkably explained the prevailing framework and mood of the time represented. Through the transits of present-day planets to those cycles’ initiation charts (the conjunction of two planets), connections appear between then and now providing a measure of big-picture understanding.
You mentioned yesterday’s Neptune station retrograde and even that has a chart that reveals a purpose if you will, or an intent for the period of time it is in effect. At 4:42 PM EDT yesterday, transiting Neptune technically (or at least from our perspective on Earth) came to a standstill while in Pisces, in an exact T-square with Saturn in Sagittarius and retrograde, and with Vesta in Gemini. Neptune was also opposite Jupiter in Virgo, 3 degrees from exact. This is in-your-face astrology, and would fill a book regarding what it suggests by its positions and symbolism.
It was the Moon at 10+ Libra however, that lured me to look to other charts for any links that might suggest a greater purpose in the recent tragedy. I found the first linkage to be with the Neptune-Uranus cycle (in its 3rd and final pass) of 1993 which had Venus also at 10+ Libra. She was conjunct Juno at 5+ Libra. I had written on that chart that 5+ Libra was where the North Node was in 1965 on the day when the marriage equality law was passed and the nodes were square the Sun (consciousness) at that time who was at 5+ Cancer. That’s where the U.S. Sibly chart’s Jupiter (understanding) is. Once again, this is the Neptune (unclear) – Uranus (unusual) cycle with a connection to yesterday’s Neptune station retrograde which was in a mutable grand cross with 3 other planet at the time. Two of those other planets symbolize society and the 3rd one symbolizes an inner fire.
There are other connections with Neptune’s retrograde chart but for now this points out the fact that events are layering pieces of a greater whole, not isolated as they sometimes appear. While tragedies like this are senseless to most of us, they make perfect sense to others under an influence that drives them to fall outside the normal behavior of the majority of human beings.
All in all, those humans that enact unspeakable crimes against others ultimately serve a purpose, just as those who sacrifice their lives or their health or their material well being in the name of mankind. From our vantage point, at least for the time, such pain and suffering serves no purpose save vengeance. I hold out hope that someday we will understand the greater scope of meaning that these acts trigger.
be
ooops that should read 2015 not 1965 when the North Node was at 5+ Libra on the day when the Supreme Court ruled that marriage between same-sex partners was legal.
be
When I learned of the 2 year old child snatched by an alligator in Orlando’s Disney World park I had to find this city’s birth chart. Why was the Cosmos saying Look At Orlando? Where transiting Neptune stationed retrograde, 12+ Pisces, is where the Orlando chart’s conjunction of Crantor and Ceto are. Crantor (sez Phil Sedgwick) can symbolize a “cathartic ceremony, Wailing Wall -like rituals”, and my favorite, “ceremonies of emotional renewal.”
Ceto the sea monster would be a symbol of what lurks in the water waiting to strike when we least expect her and I suppose an alligator could be described this way too. Psychology of course would consider Ceto as that monster that lays hidden in our unconscious waiting for just the right time to strike.
So, like I said, I was looking for that kind of info when I found the chart for Orlando. What I wasn’t expecting to find, but did, was natal Requium at 10+ Libra, just where the Moon was in the Neptune station retro chart on Monday, and just where Venus was in the Neptune-Uranus chart in 1993. Following the breadcrumbs might just lead us out of the wilderness.
be
I never miss one of your articles,
and look incredibly forward to the responses