Mercury is direct, thank goddess. It wasn’t the worst Mercury retrograde ever, but it had (for me, at least) some ugly exchanges and creepy irritations. Sounds like Pisces.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Pisces. My Moon is in Pisces, and sometimes I forget that I’m not a Pisces. Last week someone told me I looked like one. Looks like a fish, swims like a fish, must be a fish?

The thing is, Pisces has two distinct sides. One is creative and imaginative. The other is deluded and paranoid. I don’t know anyone with strong Pisces energy in their chart who has all the “good” Pisces and none of the “bad.” In short, Pisces energy is complex and difficult to manage, as these past few weeks have shown. Ironically, last week seemed to be the worst, even though Mars moved out of Pisces and into his own sign of Aries – or perhaps because of it. To me – and I know this doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it came to me – it was as if all the pent-up anger and frustration of Mars in Pisces suddenly was released after Mars changed signs on Monday. On the road, in the supermarket, even in line for coffee, the energy was aggressive and agitated.

Mercury’s return direct today (March 17), will help, but we’ll feel a more significant shift on Wednesday, when the Sun enters Aries. Venus leaves Pisces on Thursday, and then we’ll be back to two planets in Pisces – three, if you count Chiron as a planet, which I don’t. And there will be four planets in Aries.

Aries is known for being selfish, brash and impulsive, but it’s also dynamic, direct, and pioneering. My favorite metaphor for Aries energy is the seed bursting out of its shell beneath the ground in spring and pushing its way upward toward the sun. Think of having all that weight on top of you, and you’re tiny and yet so determined that you can push through it all. It’s a difficult task requiring single-minded purpose and total disregard for anyone else in a struggle for survival. Who couldn’t use some of that strength? I know I could!

That said, the Aries ingress chart suggests that the weirdness of the past week may be with us for a while longer and might color the entire year in world affairs. I say this, because Pisces is still strong in the chart, especially for Washington, where Pisces is rising and Venus is near the Ascendant. In the ingress chart cast for London, Pisces is on the Midheaven, with Cancer Rising and the Moon approaching the Ascendant. In the Washington chart, the Sun, Mars, and Uranus are in the first house. In the London chart, the three planets are in the tenth house.

The optimist in me would like to interpret this split personality as a sign that we can pioneer new territory, with advanced technology and the will to use it to find solutions to the world’s problems, while placing a priority on helping the poor and dispossessed and acknowledging that scientific advancement without a simultaneous awakening in human consciousness will get us nowhere and perhaps even destroy us entirely. Of course, “human consciousness” is a squishy, Pisces sort of term. In the 17th century, rationalist thinkers believed that human consciousness was advanced through science and that superstitious beliefs such as astrology and the mystical aspects of religion would be follies of the ignorant and illiterate masses. Isn’t it ironic that this view persists four hundred years later and that science still thinks it has all the answers? I do think there’s hope, but I also think that science and spirituality (for lack of a better word) are going to make combative bedfellows. It’s anyone’s guess if they’ll kill each other before successfully mating.

Terribly sorry if this isn’t practical advice for the coming week, but in the true spirit of Pisces, I believe that our thoughts, behavior, and actions reverberate into the collective, and this seems as good a time as any for a friendly reminder. It’s time for a collective reboot as the Sun moves through the final degrees of the zodiac and begins a new solar year at the spring equinox.

The other big aspect this week is the conjunction of Mars and Uranus on Friday. It’s a tad scary, as this is an explosive planetary combination, and in a fire sign, too. Unfortunately, astrology isn’t much good as a predictive tool here, because we can only talk about potentials and probabilities, and events normally don’t occur at the moment of an exact alignment. When Mars is involved in an aspect, the period of influence can be a week or more. Then, I do recall one instance in which an explosion was nearly exact. Back in 2007, with Mars and Uranus conjunct to the exact degree in Pisces, a tanker truck carrying gasoline exploded near the Bay Bridge in Oakland and caused a portion of the freeway to melt. Astrologers consider Neptune, ruling plant of Pisces, as ruler of oil and gas. Jupiter, the traditional ruler of Pisces, was in conflicting aspect with Mars and Uranus by less than two degrees. Without the benefit of a chart for every tanker explosion that ever occurred, it’s hard to say whether this was just a coincidence, but you can guess my opinion on the matter.

Back to this week, we’ll just have to wait and see. I certainly would caution you against blurting out your thoughts without stopping to think first. The resulting explosion might not melt a freeway, but it could ruin your whole day.

For those of you interested in a forecast for spring, I finally completed the formatting for the StarGuide Spring 2013 forecast. Several people have ordered in advance, so if you want your report this week, don’t wait! this forecast includes interpretations for all three eclipses in April and May. I do look at each individual chart and make notations if I see any unusual aspects in your chart – for example, if an eclipse is conjunct your Sun or Moon.

Much love and courage to all,
Pat