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.

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…