We’re still floating along in a Neptunian fog, but this week has a couple of positive shifts that should make life more bearable overall, maybe even fun.

Oh, dear. Did I just use the “F” word? Must be all the sleep I got over the past week. Apparently it has made me feisty. If I could put that in a bottle, I would be a millionaire, and all those Lunesta moths would be out of work. (Did you know that luna moths belong to a family called saturniids?)

There’s going to be a lot of feistiness in the air this week, for better or for worse, with the New Moon in Gemini conjunct Mars. The Sun and Mars are past exact conjunction, which occurred Sunday morning. However, Mars transits tend to be felt a week on either side, and the Moon conjoins Mars just an hour before the New Moon on Tuesday. That’s almost like a second Sun-Mars conjunction.

The Sun and Mars have a natural affinity, as both rule fire signs; the Sun rules Leo, and Mars rules Aries. Further, the Sun is said to be “exalted” in Aries. Leo and Aries are the two signs of the zodiac with the greatest tendency toward “self-orientation,” to put it politely. That said, there is a difference between selfishness and self-interest. The latter is concerned with self-discovery and giving its best self to the world. In doing so, it inspires and lifts up everyone in its sphere. The former is about being the best, the most, and the only, at the expense of everyone else.

Gemini is the sign of communications, business negotiations, knowledge, and the thought process. It also rules the flow of traffic, be it on the road or the information superhighway. It is speedy and often barely brushes the surface of an issue before moving on to the next. With the Sun and Mars both in Gemini, speed may indeed be a problem, particularly in traffic. You might need to make an effort to slow down. Take a deep breath and count to ten five. Likewise, firing off a letter or e-mail could result in errors that are embarrassing or worse. Speedy responses may be necessary, but it takes only seconds for a quick proofread. Talking too fast and providing too many details creates more confusion than comprehension, and it could be irritating, too. However, if you are called upon to provide fast facts and relevant details, this is just the ticket.

This New Moon is ruled by Mercury, who is in his own sign of Gemini and gaining speed after coming out of retrograde last week. Still, he’s moving relatively slowly for Mercury, and that could be the factor that keeps the pace somewhat manageable. Speaking of Mercury retrograde, I wrote last week that traffic and communications can come to a standstill as Mercury is going into or coming out of retrograde. Right on cue, my car wouldn’t start last week. Dead battery. And something weird was going on with WordPress. When I tried to log in, it told me I had the wrong name, which of course I didn’t. Then it kept telling me my password field was empty, which of course it wasn’t. Miraculously, the problem disappeared without a trace on Friday.

This week, Mercury is approaching a square with Neptune – the third and final pass of a three-part aspect that began on May 9. Among other things, you might have had unusually vivid or strange dreams. That certainly was the case for me. Difficult Mercury-Neptune aspects also can bring confused thinking and unclear or deceptive communications. Think about what might have been going on in that regard in mid-May and whether there was a crisis point around the second pass on May 29. The final pass isn’t until next week (June 23), but it’s close enough this week to start feeling it, especially with the Gemini New Moon and Neptune at a standstill (technically a “station,” from our perspective on Earth).

Mercury and Saturn are in a wide opposition, which can help compensate somewhat for confused thinking and fuzzy logic. More importantly, seeds are being planted for changing erroneous beliefs. More and more people are seeing through the lies and propaganda in the mainstream media. It has been a pleasant surprise to see Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders doing so well in the polls, although perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised, given the approaching Saturn-Neptune square. I’ve written before about its potential for a major reality check. The square reaches its first exact alignment on Thanksgiving Day, and then repeats in June and September 2016. That should make for a very interesting presidential campaign.

The New Moon often is a time of new beginnings, and that’s all the more likely with the energy of Mars behind it. Better still, Jupiter is approaching a positive trine with Uranus, signaling new opportunities, possibly sudden, out of left field, and big. This is an exuberant pair, and with Jupiter in Leo and Uranus in Aries, the fire of the Sun and Mars is reinforced. The trine isn’t exact until next Monday, but it’s close enough this week to make a strong mark on the nature of this New Moon.

Speaking of the elections and new beginnings, Hillary Clinton officially kicked off her campaign on Saturday, June 13. Some of you may be asking, “Didn’t she already officially announce her campaign?” Some of you would be correct. That would have been on April 12. I began writing some thoughts about the astrology of this confusion, but rather than bogging down the forecast, I put my observations in a separate article. Then it occurred to me that perhaps The Mountain Astrologer blog might be interested, so I shipped it off and got a positive response. The article is supposed to run tomorrow. I’ll post an update here with a link when it comes out, but you can check out the TMA blog, too. If you are seriously into astrology and don’t already have this site on your must-read list, be sure to bookmark it. UPDATE Tuesday, June 16: Here’s the link. You also can find it on TMA’s Facebook page.

Next Sunday (June 21), the Sun enters Cancer, marking the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the “official” start of summer. I prefer to think of the seasons according to an older model, though, where summer starts on the cross quarter day of Beltane near the beginning of May, and the solstice is literally “midsummer.” As I’m getting ready to post this forecast, it’s 9 p.m. and the sun is just going down. It has been lovely, but soon the days will start getting shorter.

Although the 2015 Aries ingress chart for Washington is active until the fall equinox, I’ll take a look at the Cancer ingress and write more in next week’s forecast.

In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who left comments on last week’s forecast and also on Facebook. I didn’t respond individually, mostly because I was catching up on desperately needed sleep, but as always, I appreciate the well wishes and concern. Jinn does, too (he’s also sleeping a lot this week).

Wishing much love and courage to all,
Pat

© Pat Paquette, RealAstrologers.com, 2015.