Tag Archives: North Node

Weekly Forecast August 27: Full Moon in Pisces, North Node Enters Scorpio

Crossing the drylands. © Osk Ingad Alden, 2012.

Where did August go? I’m reminded of the bumper sticker I saw long ago (or maybe it wasn’t): Time flies, whether you’re having fun or not.

I find myself wondering how children are experiencing time right now. I have a feeling it may be different than the adult concept of time. For us, opening up to an expanded view of time and space is harder. Not only have we been conditioned to view time a certain way, but we have to grow new neural pathways in our brains.

There are lots of theories out there on how to do this. Personally, my experience is that certain activities promote the growth of new neural pathways, including learning a musical instrument and studying the Tarot. During my interview with Laura Nalbandian for The New Astrologers, she told me that she believes learning astrology is another way to do it. I have to agree. Maybe that’s why readers of RealAstrologers are such a smart bunch.

Speaking of The New Astrologers, I worked with three different templates this week to create a new website. The first was a free WordPress theme, just to get something online. But you really have to have the bells and whistles these days to make an impression, so I bought a theme I thought would work, only to discover that basic functions were supposed to have been built in required additional programming. Maybe if I’d waited until Mercury goes into Virgo this week, I wouldn’t have blinked. But he’s been in Leo, so I was a little more demanding and bought a lovely new theme with a flashy full-screen video homepage. The site is still a work in progress, but let me know what you think and whether you like it better than last week’s version.

In other news this week, I finally got time to see my doctor, who says I’m suffering from adrenal fatigue – hardly a surprise, she said, given that I’ve been doing the work of three people with almost no rest. Moreover, she told me that everyone who comes to see her right now is completely stressed out. It’s not an easy time for the human species, and the stress isn’t going to be alleviated anytime soon, not with Uranus and Pluto in a conflicting square through 2015. The doctor’s advice was to prop myself up the best I can and get through this period, keeping in mind that the more I try to do in a depleted state, the longer it’s going to take to recover. I mention this not for sympathy, but because I suspect many of you are in a similar state.

Click on image to enlarge

Looking at this week, Friday is the Full Moon in Pisces, with the Sun and Moon in close positive aspect with Pluto. This also means the Sun and Uranus are inconjunct. This is a classic “breakdown to breakthrough” configuration. If you’re frustrated with a particular situation, person, or relationship, rather than trying to force your own will on everyone and make things go the way you think they should, step back and see how a change might actually be to your advantage. With a better grasp of the underlying source of the issue, you will have more power to advance your own cause – although with the usual caveat that when Pluto is involved in an aspect, attempts at power and control for selfish reasons will backfire big-time. Before you can take full advantage of Pluto’s power, you need to know the difference between selfishness and enlightened self-interest, and you need to be honest about your motivation.

The Sun and Moon also are in positive aspect to Mars in Scorpio. Before Pluto was discovered in 1930, Mars was considered the ruler of Scorpio, so there is reinforcement here not only for a breakdown and breakthrough, but the means for you to take action. The trick with Mars, of course, is that he’s the ego planet. When you put ego and power together, you have to be quite careful to make sure you’re acting for the “highest good” and not just to further your own selfish goals. I would add (as I often do) that you may need to stretch beyond your current beliefs, including your political and religious beliefs. This is going to be an increasing theme over the next three years.

The Moon also conjoins Chiron, which recently completed a conjunction of several years with Neptune. It’s becoming more evident to me that for some people, healing requires delving into what I call “other lives.” That’s why it’s so important that we learn to see into other dimensions. Many of the wounds we carry in our energy fields extend beyond this incarnation, and before we can heal, we need to understand what’s going on outside what we deem to be “reality.” This is the watery realm of Neptune and Pisces, along with the shadow world of Pluto and Scorpio. It can be scary territory, to be sure; it’s also what the age-old story of the journey to the underworld is all about.

Adding to the intensity and the theme of transformation, the lunar North Node leaves Sagittarius on Thursday and sits at 29 degrees Scorpio as of the Full Moon. The North Node will be in Scorpio until early 2014, covering much of the period of the Uranus-Pluto square. There’s a scientific theory that stress can cause genetic mutations almost immediately, as opposed to the long-term evolutionary process. When we think of Pluto and Scorpio, we usually think of a lengthy transformation process. But Uranus is all about sudden change. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that the pressure we’re under now could indeed create genetic mutations. Of course, you never know what you’re going to get.

As of the Full Moon, Mercury is in late Leo, about to enter Virgo. If, like me, you’re working on a project involving programming or detail-oriented computer work of any kind, this is your chance to speed through lines of code. However, Mercury opposes Neptune on Saturday, which according to conventional interpretations is supposed to be a day of confusion and aversion to detailed work. This could go either way. On one hand, you might find that you get into a zone and can write until the wee hours without realizing you’ve been sitting in the chair all that time. On the other, it might be better to go to bed early on Saturday and keep your dream journal handy to see what comes up. For some people, dreams are the way to access those other dimensions I’ve been writing so much about. The trick – and there’s often one when Mercury is involved – to separate the bits of divine inspiration from the space junk. When we’re in unfamiliar territory, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s the product of an overly active imagination.

Wishing you all much love and courage – and some rest, too, if you can get it,
Pat

Weekly Forecast April 8: Pluto Retrograde, Mars Direct

I wrote this post yesterday. Then, early this morning, my website went offline due to an accounting error by my hosting service. How’s that for astrological correlation? Apologies to everyone who tried to access the site, and especially if you got a security alert. As of 15:45 PDT, everything appears to be back to normal, although now I’m behind in my reports.

The MV Klahowya, newly returned from retrograde repairs. © Pat Paquette, 2012.

Last week’s Full Moon with Mercury stationed direct marked a turning point, but this week is when the shift hits the fan, so to speak.

Mars, retrograde since January 23, finally returns direct this week, unleashing the new growth and furious activity that should have come along with the New Moon in Aries on March 22. Some of you may have experienced those fresh starts, but from what I hear, that New Moon was a non-starter for most people. As I mentioned early on, the combined energies of Mars retrograde in Virgo and Mercury retrograde in Aries was great for revisions and repairs.

The Washington State Ferries perfectly illustrates my point. The agency is a Gemini and typically experiences more glitches than usual while Mercury is retrograde. However, WSF also has Aries Rising and so was particularly attuned to this combined Mercury-Mars retrograde. To cite just one example, one of the three boats dedicated to Vashon went to the yard for scheduled maintenance in January and spent more than an extra month there while engineers tore out worn drive-motors. It just came back into service as Mercury returned direct. However, the crew has been instructed to run the boat at a reduced speed from now on to prevent further damage. The order extends to other boats in the same class. Engines are ruled by Mars, and mechanical engineering falls within the purview of Virgo. I just love it when astrology works this neatly!

If you intentionally used this retrograde period to repair, revise, retrofit, restore, or any other “re” verb, you should fare pretty well this week. It might take you a little time to get back up to speed, but it will happen, especially once Mercury re-enters Aries next week. I also should mention that you may find yourself at a near standstill late this week and into the weekend, as Mars stations on Friday. With Mercury in dreamy Pisces, it might be difficult just to haul your sorry ass out of bed in the morning. If you absolutely must be somewhere by a certain time, you might want to set two alarms. It wouldn’t hurt to set them a little early.

In the meantime, Pluto turns retrograde on Tuesday. Part of me can’t get too excited about this. Pluto spends almost half of every year retrograde, so in some ways it’s not a big deal. However, around the dates when he shifts motion, you may notice some strange correlations, depending on where he’s currently transiting your chart.

The conventional interpretation is that retrograde Pluto is about turning inward and confronting the shadow. Feelings of jealousy, obsession, and the desire to overpower another may surface. Needless to say, these emotions can make us squirm, as we’d rather not admit we’re capable of such uncivil behavior. Well, we all are. It’s much better to acknowledge it and make peace to the extent possible – much easier for some people than for others. If your job or social position requires you to use power, then this is a good opportunity to examine your attitude toward power and to be more aware of how you use it – or, as the case may be, how you fail to use it.

Speaking of power, you may want to maintain your vigilance over the weekend, when the Sun opposes Saturn. The aspect is exact on Sunday, but you could feel it a day on either side. With Saturn retrograde in Libra, we’re going back over old relationship territory to learn lessons that we haven’t quite assimilated. The Sun in Aries, meanwhile, suggests confidence in who we are, what we’re here to do, and what we need. At his best, Aries is a strong leader and knows the difference between selfishness and enlightened self-interest. You can’t carry out your life’s work if you’re stuck in a relationship that is sucking the life out of you. Pluto retrograde in Saturn’s sign suggests an underlying power struggle that you may need to get to the bottom of in order to be on more equal footing with your partner. The back-and-forth could get mighty uncomfortable, but if you can go into those places fearlessly, you’ll come out with incomparable rewards.

Rather than taking this week chronologically, I’ve covered the dominant transits first. So now let’s go back to the beginning of the week and look at a couple of interesting aspects with Venus on Monday. First, she forms a sextile with Uranus. I touched on this briefly in my Full Moon post and added that past-life connections could play a significant role in any romantic surprises you encounter. As I mentioned in that post, Venus in nearing the lunar South Node, while Juno, an asteroid often associated with marriage and commitment, is on the North Node. On Monday, the Moon conjoins the North Node and Juno, amplifying this energy and possibly correlating to developments in your love life.

My story on this theme is a bizarre series of synchronicities over the past week that called my attention to the mythology of the Egyptian gods Nut and Geb. What’s curious about this pair is that the god symbolizes the earth, while the goddess is the sky. This is backwards from convention, where the sky is “male” and the earth “female.” I’ve given a lot of thought to what it means, why this image was so in my face, and why now. I still don’t have the answers and perhaps won’t find them anytime soon, but it appears to have something to do with the relationship between matter and energy (remember that Higgs boson from last week?).

Nut represents the unmanifest and the energetic universe, while Geb represents the manifest and material universe. In the myth, they are twin brother and sister and want to have sex constantly. Their father, Shu, decides to separate them by holding Nut up high over his head. He explains that this is necessary to create the space for the Sun and Moon to exist, and that if he allowed the lovers to merge into union, the world would be engulfed in chaos.

As much as we might like to know about “past lives” and to delve into the unconscious realms, most of us wouldn’t be able to function if we had total access. There’s a good reason that our brains have a protective mechanism to keep the conscious and unconscious apart. Nevertheless, we have a nagging sense that there’s something behind the veil. Many of us have seen glimpses of it, and more and more people are meeting others they recognize from other lifetimes. When that happens, we may feel a sense of separation.

Keep your antennae up this week, but try to stay grounded. It’s easy to become destabilized when you’re stepping into unfamiliar psychic territory. If you drink or use drugs, be very careful and monitor your response. A little goes a long way right now.

Wishing you all eternal love and courage,
Pat

P.S. I haven’t forgotten Part II of Ruth’s post. It will be up soon…

The Lunar North Node and Your Spiritual Journey

Following Ruth’s previous article on Living Soul Astrology, I asked her what would happen if the North Node was conjunct the Ascendant. Her reply was the gift of this wonderful article. I learned a lot from it and hope you do, too. ~Pat

Stars on the Move. Image courtesy NASA/ESA.

In a recent post, I explained how your Lunar North Node is like a prescription for changing your past-life conditioning. Your Ascendant is your Soul Vibration, while your North Node indicates a possible pathway that supports your Soul’s development by breaking the patterns of past-life conditioning (your South Node). Your North Node is not your Soul’s essence, but rather a spiritual path of choice.

Remember the Moon doesn’t actually possess any “nodes!” Meaning they aren’t actually physical things. They are points in space, on the ecliptic, where the Moon intersects the path of the Sun. This tells me two things: first, they can be regarded as “trailmarkers” pointing to a well-worn path, and second, they intersect the path of the Sun, meaning they want our attention. They are a “heads up” for our spiritual journey, because they are showing us where we have recurring patterns that limit us at the personality level.

So what happens when the North Node and Ascendant are in the same sign?

In this case, there is increased potential for the individual concerned to transcend the personality vibration of the sign and shift into alignment, spiritual awakening and fusion of the Soul and personality. For this to happen, the individual still has to choose the path that is presented to them, shift their attention inwards, and be open to developing their senses and perceptual capacity. Again, just like a prescription, in this case it might have a faster effect, but only if you take all the medicine!

Once you choose a spiritual path or practice, as indicated by your North Node, this maximizes the potential for you to not only hear your Soul’s calling, but to transcend the personality attachments of the sign and give full expression to the Soul vibration of the sign. The North node in this position indicates that of all the possible spiritual paths and teachers available, one that invites the individual to develop these qualities would be most effective. However, our focus must always be one of going within, if we are to make spiritual progress.

For example, let’s say the North Node and Ascendant are both in Gemini. The personality ruler of Gemini is Mercury, but the Soul ruler is Venus*. Both planets are said to have a lower and higher vibration. Well, to be more accurate, it’s the same energy but is perceived differently, depending upon the individual’s level of consciousness and perception. Depending upon your own degree of spiritual progress, you would be more influenced by the personality ruler or the Soul ruler of that sign.

So through undertaking typical Gemini activities of writing, speaking, and communicating, the spiritually (inwardly) inclined individual could gradually experience a spiritual opening. There is the potential to experience a shift in their perception from the purely rational mind, with its lower Mercurial qualities of merely “passing along information,” to a place where they integrate their higher, intuitive mind and the higher purpose of Mercury: opening themselves more fully to intuition and creating a bridge to higher mind**. As a result they will develop an ability to perceive, receive and convey the higher Venusian vibrations of transpersonal, unconditional, Love and right relations.

Our spiritual journey is one of exploring our inner world, opening our heart and mind to higher possibilities and recognizing Divinity, within ourselves. The very word “esoteric” derives from the Greek root “eso,” which means “within” (as compared with exoteric Astrology, derived from the Greek root “exo,” which means “inclined outwards”).

Soul Astrology and Esoteric Astrology are the Astrology of our inner world, our spiritual journey. Given that our personality is a mask we wear to interact with the outside world, when we begin to move deeply inwards on our Soul Journey, it stands to reason that our Natal Chart takes on a deeper significance.

[quote cite=”Lama Thubten Yeshe”]I hope that you understand what the word “spiritual” really means. It means to search for, to investigate, the true nature of the mind. There’s nothing spiritual outside. My rosary isn’t spiritual; my robes aren’t spiritual. Spiritual means the mind, and spiritual people are those who seek its nature.[/quote]

In Esoteric Astrology,* it is said that, in terms of our spiritual development, each of us is either on the “Mutable Cross,” the “Fixed Cross” or the “Cardinal Cross.” The Mutable Cross means we are wholly personality-driven, with no experience of our Soul. The Fixed Cross means we are awakening, and although we are still largely personality-driven, we’re beginning to awaken and have some Soul Awareness. Those on the Cardinal Cross are fully awakened, in the fact that they have completed the process of Soul Integration; the fusion of Soul and personality is complete, and they are Soul-Centred Beings.

Few people on the planet are on the Cardinal Cross, and those that are, are highly enlightened spiritual teachers. However, many of us are beginning the journey from the Mutable Cross to the Fixed Cross as we go deeper into our spiritual journey and seek to experience for ourselves the truth of our Soul.

There is no way for an Astrologer to tell just by looking at a chart whether a Soul is on the Mutable, Fixed or Cardinal Cross. This can only be deduced by learning about the character of the person and through the use of intuition. For example we might deduce that someone like the Dalai Lama would be on the Cardinal Cross, because of his highly developed spiritual realizations, but in reality only he would know.

The purpose of our spiritual journey is to progress from the externally-focused Mutable Cross, with its emphasis solely on personality, to the internally-focused Cardinal Cross, in which we have full fusion of personality and Soul. It is a very gradual, inner journey, and the lunar North Node is acting as a pointer to steer us away from repeating habits that could keep us attached to personality and stuck on the Mutable Cross for longer than we need to be.

It is time to wake up and evolve. It is a challenge, and there are no guarantees. We can still get it wrong if we undertake North Node activity in a very externally-focused and personality driven way, with our attention “inclined outwards!” Your North Node is pointing the way to avoid repeating past habits, and this will be most effective if you also shift your focus and “incline inwards.” To benefit fully, you need to keep turning your attention inwards and familiarise yourself with your inner world.

Ruth

* Esoteric Astrology (1951) by Alice Bailey. Lucis Press, London. The work of The Tibetan (Master DK) as channeled through Alice Bailey.

** In Esoteric Astrology, Mercury is said to play an important part in the development of the inner “antahkarana” or Rainbow Bridge, which (once fully developed) will connect us to our own higher consciousness or Higher Self.

[hr]

Ruth Hadikin – Soul Astrologer

To get your personal Soul Sign/Life Purpose Report (FREE with a consultation), contact Ruth via her website. You can also request a FREE mp3 download, “The Energetics of Soul Astrology.”

Follow Ruth:

Living Soul Astrology, Part II: Your Personality Signs

In this fascinating article, Ruth explains how your Sun, Moon and Rising signs fit together and how the lunar North Node supports your Soul’s development. ~Pat

Stars on the Move. Image courtesy NASA/ESA.

In Part One, we looked at your Soul Sign and what that could tell you in terms of the current stage of your Soul’s Development. However, your Soul’s development is not something you usually have conscious awareness of in your everyday experience.

Your everyday experience is shaped, received and perceived through the filters of your personality. The simplest definition of “ego-personality” is when your mind is thinking about itself. It is how we experience ourselves and who we believe ourselves to be: our tendencies, pre-dispositions, habits, gifts, talents, urges, reactions, beliefs and opinions. It is our overall feeling of “there’s a ME in here” (usually swiftly followed up by an ongoing story of what that ME is all about!).

It is the sum of all our learned behaviour, from this and past lives, our self-image and our self-concept. It is both the mask we show to the world and the window through which we see and experience the world. All of this might feel very real to us now, yet it has all been picked up along the way and added to our underlying true nature.

Our Soul is our underlying true nature, our Divine “pure” essence (in the sense that it cannot be tainted by anything we have collected). To understand this, let’s use water as an example. It is, by nature, wet. We can add things to it: it can be cold water, hot water, coloured water, salty water, etc. However, nothing we add to it will ever change its essential wetness.

Similarly, our Soul is, by nature, goodness and love. Everything else we believe ourselves to be (our ego-personality) has been added to it and, although we experience it as ourselves, it is not our true Self. Our Soul vibration is our purest nature, and this is indicated by our Ascendant.

[headline h=”5″]The Personality Signs: Your Sun and Your Moon[/headline]

In Soul Astrology this collection of habits and reactions is symbolised by your Sun and Moon signs. They represent your habitual (learned) ways of thinking and acting. The Sun is that aspect of our personality which we are aware of, conscious of; it is in the light. The Moon is that which we are unaware of. It is in the dark, our shadow personality.

Our Moon Sign is at least of equal importance to our Sun Sign, if not more so. Because it is our shadow, it is more difficult for us to see, and therefore has a quality of sneaking up on us and sabotaging our efforts. When we have reacted to somebody unconsciously and then later regretted it, we have probably been overwhelmed by an emotional reaction that is in alignment with the qualities of our Moon Sign.

The learned behaviour of our Sun and Moon signs is so powerful that we identify with it. We feel as though it is “who we are.” Our spiritual path involves dis-identifying from these personality traits and reactions by changing our behaviour patterns and by recognizing that while we might have those tendencies and abilities, we are so much more than that. In the case of our Sun Sign, while it is never easy to challenge habits – especially ones reinforced by strong ego-identification – it is made somewhat easier by the fact that these qualities are “out in the open.” It makes it easy to see what we are working with.

The Moon Sign indicates our innate emotional state and who we become in relating with others. It is often others who recognise our Moon-Sign traits, before we do, because it is when others push our buttons that we get to see our shadow-nature. It is revealed to us in our reactions to them. We then have the opportunity to heal these patterns, which is why relationships are such good “Soul-training” grounds!

[headline h=”5″]The Moon’s Nodes[/headline]

I read an excellent article recently on the Moon’s nodes – however the author kept referring to me as a Virgo Soul, because I have a Virgo North Node. I am a Cancer Ascendant, so the reality is, I am a Cancer Soul, but with a Virgo option. Being more Virgo-like and developing Virgoan qualities will support my development as a Cancer Soul.

Your North Node is like a prescription for changing your past-life conditioning. Your Ascendant is your Soul Vibration, while your North Node indicates a possible pathway that supports your Soul’s development by breaking the patterns of past-life conditioning (your South Node). Your North Node is not your Soul’s essence, but rather a spiritual path of choice.

In describing and defining yourself I invite you to consider using your Ascendant first, so it sounds something like this: “I’m a Cancer Soul with a Gemini/Leo personality” (Cancer Ascendant, Gemini Sun, Leo Moon.) This description sums up our individual spiritual path: the challenge to release identification with our personality traits, and lead with our Soul qualities.

Living Soul Astrology means using our horoscope as a living tool to support our spiritual journey. By thoroughly understanding all the energies at play in our natal chart, understanding what stage of development our Soul is at, and the challenges that our personality signs create, our Astrological profile becomes a valuable tool that supports our process of integrating personality and Soul.

Once we are fully conscious of our Sun and Moon sign behaviours, and are no longer identified with them, our Soul begins to use the qualities of those signs, in the expression of its purpose in this lifetime.

Ruth

[hr]

Ruth Hadikin – Soul Astrologer

To get your personal Soul Sign/Life Purpose Report (FREE with a consultation), contact Ruth via her website. You can also request a FREE mp3 download, “The Energetics of Soul Astrology.”

Follow Ruth:

Weekly Forecast November 8: Mercury Enters Sagittarius, North Node Conjunct Pluto

The cardinal T-square is over, right? So why does it feel like the gift that keeps on giving?

There are a few different ways to answer that.

First, it’s not officially over yet. It has dissipated for a time, but it will be back in the spring, after Jupiter and Uranus are back in Aries, and then it will be activated on and off throughout 2011.

Second, a configuration like this doesn’t just happen and then “go away.” When the planets were aligned in a similar fashion in the early 1930s, a decade of economic depression followed, even though the planets were no longer aligned in a cardinal T-square. Something was initiated, which is what happens when planets are in cardinal signs. As they progress through the zodiac, the seed that was planted takes root and grows.

We are in that phase now. It’s interesting to note that economic writers who don’t follow astrology are talking about similarities between conditions in the early 1930s and current global economics.

Third – and here’s where I segue into this week’s forecast – the lunar North Node gradually has been moving toward the early degrees of Capricorn and conjunction with Pluto, who was the focus of the T-square in 2010.

As I noted in a post last week, there’s a dramatic conjunction on Tuesday of Pluto and the North Node, which at that hour (1:12 p.m. EST) is still retrograde. It turns direct two hours later, just two minutes before the Moon conjoins Pluto. The node remains direct for four days, until 11:31 a.m. EST on November 13. During these four days, the North Node will remain within three arc minutes of Pluto. For all practical purposes, that’s an exact conjunction.

As far as I know, there is no astrological record of what happens when the North Node goes direct in conjunction with the Moon and Pluto, so I am speculating here. What I think may happen is that many of us will have a fleeting glimpse of the true nature of time, and that could mean a lot of premonitions, as well as past-life recognition or feelings of being in another time and place. It may happen in your dreams or while you’re awake. If it’s the latter, you could feel disoriented. I strongly recommend keeping a notebook with you this week.

I’d like to compare notes with others to see whether we can identify a pattern. Perhaps there’s something in the collective waiting to be discovered, and we’ll all get a glimpse of it together.

Otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot going on this week, astrologically speaking. On Monday, Mercury enters Sagittarius. It’s the sign of his detriment, and yet our mental processes tend to speed up. So does traffic, commerce, and other Mercury-ruled activities – to the extent that circuits can get overloaded and break down. At the very least, our sense of humor should improve, and we should feel a bit more optimistic.

Before I conclude, I want to share with you an e-mail I received from a client last week. He described his experience over the past several months like this:

[callout][It’s] like I am at the plate, bat in hand, and God is a stud pitcher throwing all his best stuff at me – curve balls (Uranus), sliders, breaking balls, fast balls … I keep swinging, it’s what I am supposed to do. If I crowd the plate or get too aggressive or expect too much (Mars), I get creamed with an inside pitch to the side of the head (Saturn). I guess I have to accept and wait for my pitch. They say that when the big league players are on their game, the ball coming at them is huge (like Jupiter). They see it almost in slow motion, swing, and wham, it’s outa there.

I keep thinking of Kirk Gibson. In the 1988 World Series he had a stomach virus and could barely walk because of knee injuries sustained in the series before (he was literally beat to shit). He could not play his regular position. The coach put him in to pinch hit and after battling through six pitches, he connects and the ball is out of the park. I will never forget that.

Here’s to seeing the pitches.[/callout]

Sports metaphors aren’t my forte, but I know a home run when I see it.

Wishing you all much love and courage,
Pat

Mercury Enters Shadow Phase (But You Knew That)

The antidote to Mercury Rx Mars in Leo definitely didn’t come in with a roar. Just about everyone I encountered over the weekend was exhausted and irritable.

I did get a boost Sunday from the Sun-Uranus sextile, and my bathroom is now free of hairballs. Thank goddess for small blessings. It’s Monday already in the Eastern Hemisphere, so you all get to start the week out on a positive note (at last count, Real Astrologers had readers in 37 countries on six continents!). The Sun trines Jupiter a few hours later, but the Big Guy just went retrograde, and the trine peaks while the Moon is void of course, so we probably won’t get much more from this aspect than a few hours of good feelings.

Then, that would be a blessing, too, given the way things have been going lately.

Mercury entered the retrograde shadow period at 1:42 p.m. Sunday on the West Coast of the United States, but many of you reported seeing the effects as much as a week earlier. Another blog author I know has been in communications hell. The pre-retrograde shadow phase, which lasts about two weeks, starts at the moment Mercury crosses the degree at which he’ll return direct and lasts until he turns retrograde. There’s also a post-retrograde shadow period. We’ll keep you posted in our Mercury Retrograde Watch feature, a Real Astrologers exclusive!

I’ve also had several reports of bureaucratic delays similar to my own. This no doubt was a reflection of Mercury’s square with Saturn last week, but with the Messenger now in shadow, it hardly matters what “caused” it. Delays are going to be the rule rather than the exception from now until the end of June.

I definitely have been seeing some powerful effects of creeping Mercury retrograde. I’ve had trouble getting through to the right people and missed the delivery of an important piece of mail. On Friday, I found out that I’ll be starting a new job on May 26 – the day Mercury turns retrograde! I tried to talk my way into starting a few days earlier, but no luck. The last job I started on the day Mercury turned retrograde was a total fiasco and ended disastrously.

On Wednesday, the Sun squares Neptune. This is another low-energy aspect and, depending on which houses in your chart these bodies are transiting, you could feel discouraged about a particular area of your life. It’s worth mentioning that the North Node recently crossed over Neptune and Chiron, and the three are still relatively close together. This is not a comfortable configuration, and it may be creating a certain amount of existential angst for many of you. I’ve been more focused on the subject of spiritual enlightenment than usual, and I’ve been questioning myself heavily about how I measure up.

The Libra Moon on Thursday and Friday should help us regain some balance. But then we get thrown off again on Saturday, when Venus squares Chiron. The angst may extend to your sexuality and body image.

She’ll more than make up for it on Sunday, though, with a sextile to Uranus and then a trine to Jupiter. Don’t be surprised if you react to unexpected good news by diving into a vat of caramel turtle ice cream. Some people eat when they’re unhappy, but many of us are just as likely to overindulge in a moment of pure joy. I haven’t quite figured that one out. Maybe it’s because we’re afraid the good feelings will go away, and we want to prolong the pleasure as long as possible. Entirely understandable these days.

So if you go for that triple hot fudge sundae, promise me you’ll enjoy the hell out of it, with no regrets on Monday morning!

Love and blessings with a cherry on top,
Pat