If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping and especially if you haven’t mailed packages yet, don’t read this post.

Stop reading right now, get out of your chair and get busy. Or, if you like ordering online, just do it! Same goes for handmade gifts. If you don’t have all of your supplies, don’t waste another minute. Stock up, and then you can relax and finish reading about what’s happening this week. Even if you’re giving homemade goodies, get everything now, or you may find an empty spot on the supermarket shelf where you expected your key ingredient to be.

You probably know already why I’m writing this. That’s right, Mercury turns retrograde this week, and he already has started creating a little mischief. I’ve had several miscommunications, a Facebook snafu, and a billing error. Important e-mail is ending up in my spam folder. These are small problems and easily rectified. But it’s going to get a lot worse in the next few weeks – right up until New Year’s Eve.

Now, I know that holiday shopping may be the last thing on your mind as the week begins. We’re all hellaciously busy and preoccupied. The New Moon on Sunday is still unfolding, and Uranus is now direct. Although he’s not moving much yet, he’s no longer holding up the show. What’s more, all the planets will be direct until Mercury turns retrograde on Friday. These are very short windows when we can sail with a strong tailwind, so make the most of it!

As I mentioned in last week’s forecast, we’re feeling rumblings of the cardinal T-square again this week, thanks to activation of the early degrees of Capricorn by Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and the lunar North Node.

The Moon is in Cap on Tuesday and Wednesday. Her first order of business is a sextile to Venus in Scorpio, followed shortly by an intense conjunction with Pluto. On Wednesday, Venus and Pluto make direct contact. Hidden things continue to come to the surface, whether we’re talking about explosive revelations by WikiLeaks or implosive revelations from the individual subconscious. There’s an old song from the Broadway musical, The King and I, called “Getting to Know You.” Sing it to your shadow side.

Also on Tuesday, the Sun sextiles Saturn, and Mars enters Capricorn, sign of his exaltation. I wrote about the Sun-Saturn contact in my post on the New Moon. It’s very positive and provides good energy for manifesting your thoughts into reality – provided that what you’re trying to manifest conforms to your highest truth.

Mars, meanwhile, is very powerful in Capricorn, and as he crosses the T-square degrees over the next couple of weeks, springs will be sproinging all over. Mercury retrograde actually may help in this regard, as we’re going to be revisiting issues that came up in July and August but that didn’t seem to have a resolution back then. In other words, we may have another chance to go back and do things right. Or, we simply may have a chance this time, when before we couldn’t get a break to save our lives.

There’s no doubt, though, that things are going to get very messy, and all of the pieces likely won’t fall into place until next spring and summer, when Jupiter and Uranus re-enter Aries. For many of us, the seed we planted during the cardinal T-square is sprouting one tiny little shoot at a time, and the new growth has yet to poke its head above ground. Just have faith that once it does, it will grow like a veritable weed!

On Wednesday, the Moon makes aspects with Ceres, Jupiter, and Uranus, all of which were major players at the height of the T-square. Ceres seems to have made her presence felt mostly through environmental issues. I just read that BP is in the news again as it tries to downplay the amount of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. The difference could translate to billions of dollars in fines.

Mercury turns retrograde on Friday at 4:04 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Aside from the usual Mercury retrograde shenanigans, we’ll almost certainly be going back over old ground. Chances are, you already know what it’s going to involve, although the outcome could be a big surprise.

The Moon will be in Pisces on Saturday and Sunday. I recommend that you spend the weekend inside, sleeping or watching your favorite film on Blu-ray (my all-time favorite film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, just came out on Blu-ray; I’ll have a review soon). Hopefully, you’ll get your DVD player to work without any problem.

Wishing you all much love and joy in this holiday season,
Pat