Tag Archives: Uranus-Pluto square

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.

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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 August 13: Mars Conjunct Saturn, New Moon in Leo

Summer on the coast. © Pat Paquette, 2012.

With Mercury direct and gathering speed, life is returning to some semblance of normalcy – whatever normal is. Insofar as the “new normal” is fast, unpredictable, and crazy, we’re now back in the groove.

My astrology software is working again, after the fourth reinstall. According to the conventional interpretation of Mercury retrograde, anything you have to re-do is supposed to go faster and better while the communications planet is moving in reverse (what it looks like from down here).

This most definitely was not the case for re-installing my astrology software – which, you have to admit, is a very fine joke by the Trickster. Too bad I’m not laughing. In fact, I was close to tears when the program kept crashing every time I tried to reinstall my customization files. Maybe the order mattered. Whatever the mystery was, it was solved after Mercury returned direct. Some of my customization work was lost for good, but the most time-consuming modifications have all been restored and I can begin fulfilling the backlog of reports.

As I mentioned in last week’s forecast, I also succeeded in reconstructing my astrology documentary pitch. The work itself actually did move along fairly quickly, but Mercury had to have his due, and he got it in spades through all the accompanying tasks, such as downloading software from Apple. The company advertises that you can get apps with one click of the mouse. It took me three days and hundreds of clicks – not to mention hours on the phone with tech support – to get a 20-minute download. The whole experience was interesting in that it reaffirmed the conventional wisdom that if you absolutely can’t wait and have to do something not advised during Mercury retrograde, you can get it done. It just will take a lot longer and deduct a few years from your life.

We also now have a complete Republican presidential ticket, with the announcement Saturday morning of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s VP. I had to wonder whether they timed the announcement with the help of an astrologer (after all, Ronald Reagan had one). The Romney team created a phone app especially for the announcement. The move obviously was intended to draw in younger voters, but it’s also interesting to note that it was an appropriate way to announce the pick of Ryan, an Aquarius.

The announcement was made at 7:08 a.m. on Saturday, with the Moon at 7°22′ Gemini. They might have been thinking that Saturday is typically a slow news day and the announcement would be sure to make headlines. But if they’d revealed the information the previous Saturday, it could have been disastrous, with Mercury retrograde. The Moon in the sign of communications not only was a good choice for a news announcement, but later in the day, the Moon conjoined Jupiter in Gemini, which currently is in Romney’s first house. Moreover, the Moon makes a grand trine to planets in both politicians’ natal charts. It’s hard to believe this was an accident, unless you view it as a cosmic message. I’ll leave it to you to determine what that might be, as I vowed to leave politics alone after getting flamed for writing that the 2009 Inauguration Day chart suggested McCain and Palin might win.

Incidentally, the birth time being used for Ryan was first reported by The Political Astrology Blog in mid-June. The post says only that the time was found on an uncertified copy of Ryan’s birth certificate, without saying who saw it and under what circumstances. The reporter in me needs to know sources, so I have to issue a word of caution that this birth time is unconfirmed. If anyone has additional information, it would be helpful for the astrology community.

Looking at this week, there are three standouts: the Mars-Saturn conjunction on Wednesday, the cardinal T-square with Venus on Wednesday and Thursday, and the New Moon in Leo on Friday.

Mars and Saturn in ancient times were considered the malefics, and this combination for sure doesn’t inspire images of rainbows and unicorns. But have a look at the New Moon chart, and you’ll see that the Sun and Moon make quite a nice trine with both Saturn and Mars, and it’s nearly exact. Although I don’t advise running with scissors, I do think you can get a lot of work done, be it relocating your office or making headway in a key relationship. Rather than trying to hash out details over the phone or even over a glass of wine, you may have much better success by doing something fun together, like mountain biking or taking the kids on a trip. The challenge here is to resist sitting on repressed anger, which can come out in hurtful ways.

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Another possibility that I see in this configuration is addressing wounded male energy. For the past couple of decades, we’ve focused a lot of attention on the return of the goddess and healing our wounded feminine side. That has applied to men and women both, and it’s clear that the balance must be restored between the sacred masculine and feminine. However, we also need to acknowledge that the divine masculine is wounded and needs healing. With a flowing trine from Mars and Saturn in the sign of balance to the Sun and Moon in the sign of the heart, there’s a unique opportunity here to open our hearts to a deeper truth.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Venus in Cancer forms an opposition with Pluto in Capricorn and a square with Uranus in Aries. In the midst of nothing less than a breakdown of society as we know it, staying in our comfort zone is next to impossible. That’s the bad news and the good news. Breaking through to new ground by definition means stretching beyond what’s familiar and easy. The quincunx from Mercury to Pluto further suggests discomfort when we discover facts and insights that make it impossible to stay in a state of denial.

The “out” in all of this is Mercury in Leo, representing humor and play. It’s hard, when so much seems to be at stake, to not take ourselves so seriously.

As for me, I’ve got a hair appointment scheduled for Friday. Only a miracle could transform my baby fine hair into a Leo mane, but I expect to come out of the salon looking gorgeous.

Wishing you all much love and courage,
Pat

Weekly Forecast August 6: Mercury Direct

Having been pummeled thoroughly by Mercury retrograde over the past week, I am duly humbled and contrite. But I got the work done, by goddess, despite every obstacle that the trickster threw in my path – literally hundreds, if you count every computer bug, output glitch, and customer service issue separately.

My work is now online as a pitch piece to raise funding for a full-length documentary about professional astrologers.

The New Astrologers from Pat Paquette on Vimeo.

This is what I have been working on day and night for the past four months. It began as a second-quarter class project for film and video school. The day before the final cut was due in mid-June, my backup hard drive crashed to the floor and knocked the main drive just enough to cause irreparable damage. I lost all the contents, including all the original source material. Fortunately, my cameraman had all the interview footage backed up on his computer at home. That was the good news. The bad news was that I had to synch the video and sound all over again, and of course the entire piece had to be reconstructed. That seemed like a good Mercury retrograde project – and I suppose it was, given that the pitch piece is now online. But the entire process was definitely a lesson in Mercury retrograde dynamics.

The next step is applying for grants and raising donations, so please help me get the word out! If you’d like to make a donation, please feel free to do so now. However, I’ll be launching an official donation campaign later this month, with a Facebook page and possibly its own website.

I’m relieved I got the work done and uploaded this weekend, because Mercury stations direct on Wednesday. As the station approaches, we’ll likely experience Mercury retrograde gridlock, not just in traffic, but in Internet and telecommunications as well. My computer is slow today, for no apparent reason.

That said, I managed to begin reconstructing my astrology program. I’ve relocated all the custom settings for my chart wheels. The bigger task is to find out where the settings for my forecast graphs live so that I can begin working on the Fall 2012 edition of StarGuide. I’m determined to make it available around the first of September so that you can order it well ahead of the season change.

As for this week, it’s worth mentioning again that the most-recent New Moon and Full Moon both occurred while Mercury was retrograde, so any developments related to those lunations may have been delayed. Once Mercury returns direct, you may experience sudden events that normally you would have expected around the New Moon and Full Moon. For clues about what those developments might be, check the house position in your birth chart and aspects from the Moon to your natal planets. Also check to see where Mercury has been retrograde (12°33′ to 1°26′ Leo).

Mercury stations fairly close to the inconjunct with Neptune that I wrote about last week. I’ve had some odd dreams, but they actually have had a point. One of them revealed yet another detail in “other-life” memories that have been slowly rising to the surface since last summer. But I’ve also had some dreams that were just noise, like static between channels on the radio.

It’s also possible that as we begin to see more and more clearly into other dimensions of reality, we don’t entirely understand what we’re seeing and feeling, and the result is some disorientation or confusion. I’ve been getting some great reports of progress from friends, family, and clients. The influence of the Mercury-Neptune quincunx will last throughout the week, until after Mercury makes a third and final alignment to Neptune on Saturday.

Otherwise, we have only two other major planetary transits this week, both involving Venus. On Tuesday, she enters Cancer. Her sign change is especially significant, because she has been in Gemini since early April due to her own retrograde phase. Normally, Venus spends only about four weeks in a sign. It’s also significant that her movement through the final degrees of Gemini has occurred with Mercury, Gemini’s ruler, retrograde. Revisiting unresolved relationship issues has been important. At the very least, you’ve probably become aware of issues that you didn’t see before, or you may be seeing them in a new light that allows you to take a different approach. It’s possible there’s still some clarification needed.

Once Venus enters Cancer on Tuesday, talking out issues becomes less important than demonstrating affection and caring, and actions will speak louder than words. If you’re one of those people who need to hear the words “I love you” or who insists on open communications, try watching your partner and other loved ones for how they show you they care in other ways. Stopping by the grocery store for you, picking up the kids when it’s your turn so that you can get a much-need break, fixing your car or computer, or just quietly holding your hand are all very loud communications that say “I care about you.” Not everyone is a good verbal communicator, and although ideally we want partners who can be direct and tell us what’s going on with them, sometimes they are better at communicating nonverbally. It can be hard for these quiet souls, because others don’t always recognize and appreciate their language.

Some people are able to communicate with each other telepathically, especially when they are in an intimate relationship. I’m betting that most of you know what I mean, since I have a high proportion of readers who are psychically sensitive. Even if you’re not, you may get a glimpse of this phenomenon this week, when Venus forms a dreamy trine with Neptune in Pisces. Connecting on a soul level can be a powerful experience under this influence.

So, hang in there for a few more days. You’ll feel a noticeable shift in the middle of this week. Overall, it should feel pretty good – keeping in mind that the Uranus-Pluto square is the elephant in the room, and more-sweeping changes are taking place on a collective level.

Wishing you all much love and courage,
Pat

Weekly Forecast July 30: Full Moon in Aquarius

This certainly is turning out to be a classic Mercury retrograde. I’ve lost more than half of the past week addressing corrupted files, lost data, and long waits getting through to tech support – just when I’m under a huge deadline for a film project. Of course.

It’s particularly ironic that my astrology software got corrupted. The good news is that I had my client data backed up, so for anyone who has ordered a report, I still have you in my database. The bad news is that, in reinstalling the program, I lost all of my custom settings, including weeks’ worth of programming charts and the cool graphs that are included in my StarGuide forecasts. In backing up my system, I never thought to back up all of the program files. It’s a painful lesson. It also means that it will be a week or so before I can fulfill new report orders. As I said … classic Mercury retrograde.

Then, I’ve been extremely unhappy with this program, so perhaps this is a “hint” that it’s time to upgrade to Solar Fire, the gold standard in astrology software. I chose another brand on the advice of a consultant and have put hundreds of dollars into add-ons, but I’ve been tearing my hair out over the unfriendly user interface and even unfriendlier customer support. I’ve been putting off switching to a different program, not only because of the expense, but because once I buy new software, I’ll likely have to revise my report offerings – typical excuses for avoiding making changes that ultimately will improve our lives. Mercury retrograde is so good at planting these pies in our faces, with extra whipped cream.

In the meantime, I’m madly pushing to edit a pitch piece to get funding for a documentary about professional astrologers. It’s actually a reconstruction, since I lost the final cut in a hard drive accident in mid-June (Mercury wasn’t even retrograde, go figure). Recreating the work has been the one thing that has gone relatively well during this retrograde cycle, as I expected it would. The challenge is dealing with all of the other problems, which has eaten up precious time that I could have spent in the editing room.

Everywhere I go, I’ve been hearing similar stories, and I’m sure you all have plenty of your own. It seems like no matter how much you try to be prepared, something unexpected goes wrong. It’s living proof that there are “bad” transits. I’m not one of the New Age-y astrologers who believe there’s no such thing as a bad transit, that it’s what you make of it, blahblah. Shit happens, and it tends to happen more during certain planetary configurations. Sure, we can use Mercury retrograde to our advantage (as with my film reconstruction), but we also need to be aware that delays, obstacles, and extremely inconvenient situations are likely to happen more frequently and without warning. The one thing we do have control over is how we communicate. Although we can’t help it if someone misunderstands us, we can give them some leeway and not blame them for the miscommunication.

We’ve got another week and half to go before Mercury returns direct, so just hang in there and do the best you can. In the meantime, Wednesday’s Full Moon in Aquarius promises to throw some good energy into the mix, further building on the positive vibe of the recent sextile from Jupiter to Uranus. At its peak, the Full Moon makes positive connections to both Uranus and Jupiter. Together, these giants make big sparks. This could be literal – as in more giant thunderstorms – or it could be symbolic, bringing sparks of excitement into your life. As surprising as events have been lately, it looks like there’s more in store for us.

I don’t know about you, but my life has been fast and furious with opportunities over the past couple of weeks – so many that I’m overstretched, exhausted, and stressed out by the possibility that passing on an invitation could cost me connections and work down the road. Normally, I’d gauge which opportunities to take based on the potential material returns, but this time I also considered which ones were the most fun and most in line with what I want to do, whether or not it’s financially sound. It seems like more and more people are making decisions based on what’s in their heart and not on what they think they should do or what others think they should do.

The Sun forms an exact trine with Uranus on Tuesday and an exact sextile with Jupiter on Thursday, so the excitement should last for much of the week.

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Of course, the Uranus-Pluto square is also active in this Full Moon chart. It almost feels like old news by now, but with Uranus, surprises happen. As the ruler of Aquarius, Uranus rules this Full Moon, so it’s quite possible that we’ll get a Uranus-Pluto “jolt” out of the blue.

Venus remains in a trine with Saturn. Although it’s waning, it’s still close enough to use its energy for improving communications and commitment in relationships, be they personal or professional. And with Saturn heading into the final degrees of Libra, we’re finally wrapping up the lesson we thought we learned earlier this year. For me, personally, it has been painful, but there have been very noticeable improvements, mostly in my understanding and acceptance.

On Friday, Mercury and Neptune are inconjunct (technically, quincunx, but I hate that word because it’s too hard to say). Dreams could be jarring or totally incomprehensible. If you can’t figure out a particularly bizarre or disturbing dream, don’t worry about it. It’s possible that it has nothing to do with you.

Wishing you all much love and courage,
Pat

Weekly Forecast July 23: Mercury Sextile Jupiter, Trine Uranus

As humanity experiences a shift in consciousness, more people are experiencing an increase in synchronicities in their daily lives. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of thinking about something or someone, and having them appear right before your eyes a short time later – an hour, a day, a week, sometimes a little longer.

This isn’t news for most of you. However, last week did seem to be especially active in this regard. Once experience in particular really caught my attention.

In last week’s column, I posted a link to a mind-bending animated video that contained numerous symbols that are embedded in the collective consciousness. I must have watched that thing two dozen times, hitting the pause and replay buttons frequently to examine symbols that were fleeting or not easy to see – for example, towers with clocks always set at 12 (presumably midnight, as it was dark). If you watched it – and many of you did – you’ll also remember the boat with the head of Anubis on the prow. In Egyptian mythology, Anubis protected and guided the souls of the dead. This is a very ancient idea, one that later became associated with the Greek Hermes and Roman Mercury.

Last Tuesday, I had to go into the city to use an editing room to begin reconstructing a documentary pitch that I lost last month when my hard drive crashed. I figured that recreating a video would be more efficient during Mercury retrograde, and it was. The only problem was actually getting to the editing room. My bus pass failed to read and apparently was damaged, so before I could get to work, I had to take a detour to the Metro customer service office, which is located near the Amtrak station in the old King Street Station building.

As a promotion for the King Tut exhibit in Seattle, the neon sign for King Street Station has been modified, and there’s a 26-foot statue of Anubis in front of clock tower. And don’t you know, when I got there, it was three minutes to noon – just enough time to get out my camera and snap a few photos.

Synchronicities like this are a vehicle for messages from beyond our dimension of reality. Even that is nothing new; Greek mythology is filled with instances of mortals being visited by winged creatures or receiving messages from the gods via another person. We just need to pay attention when it happens and acknowledge these events for what they really are, especially in this time when we need input from higher planes of consciousness.

Do keep your antennae up this week, because the astrological pattern in the sky suggests that more of these messages will come through. Not only is Mercury retrograde, but this week he forms a sextile to Jupiter (Tuesday) and a trine to Uranus (Wednesday). Then on Saturday, he forms an exact conjunction with the Sun in Leo.

The sextile from Mercury to Jupiter also forms the base of a Yod with Pluto at the apex. This is quite interesting and tells me that we’re going to feel some major pressure to transform, as individuals and as a collective. Many of us feel stressed to the breaking point. Something’s got to give. That “something” may or may not be a choice you can make intentionally, but it likely will require expanding your mind so that new solutions can present themselves.

Changing beliefs and behavior may be part of the mix as well – none of which is easy. Indeed, changing beliefs is one of the most difficult things a person can do. Changing beliefs can entail breaking down the entire structure that I call the “mental matrix.” But, breaking down is what Uranus is especially good at, and Pluto in Capricorn is all about transforming structures.

It’s all inordinately stressful, but opportunities are there, too. Do your best to keep your nerve.

Wishing you all much love and courage,

Pat

Weekly Forecast July 16: Mars Square Pluto, New Moon in Cancer

Violent awakening of Christ Consciousness, from the cutting-edge animated film short I, Pet Goat II. See end of article for the link to watch the video.

Thanks to Mercury retrograde, all of my weekend plans fell through. And I do mean thanks! It’s been nearly a year since I had two days in a row to take my time reading e-mail, work at a speed that doesn’t make my hair fly in the air, and spend an afternoon cooking up good things in the kitchen.

I’m also counting on this retrograde to work fast and efficiently to recreate the documentary project that I lost when my hard drive crashed the day before the final cut was due in class. I still haven’t fully recovered from the shock, so maybe we can add “recover” as another fun activity for those oh-so-annoying retrogrades.

Unfortunately, the break isn’t likely to last, as this week could contain a fast and furious game-changer. Maybe more than one. Not only do we have a New Moon in cardinal Cancer, but Mars makes an exact T-square with Uranus and Pluto, all in cardinal signs. That suggests a major shift, and Uranus and Pluto generally are about breakdowns. The good news is that there are clear signs that the breakdowns contain breakthroughs, and those could come swiftly.

Mars squares Pluto on Tuesday and opposes Uranus on Wednesday, but the planet of action was within “striking distance” of Uranus and Pluto last week, so we’re already feeling the shift. I talked to several people who were having total breakdowns, thinking it was Mercury retrograde. I won’t say that wasn’t a factor, but crises and nasty circumstances that had nothing to do with computers or electronics were likely an expression of the Mars-Uranus-Pluto aspect, especially since Uranus was stationed retrograde on Friday. Difficult aspects between Mars and Uranus are explosive, and Mars-Pluto contacts can express themselves as violence. But, birth is a violent process, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that the only result of this powerful astrological configuration will be destruction. Although there’s a strong likelihood that something in your life will fall apart this week (if it hasn’t already), there’s an equally strong possibility that something new will sprout up before the ashes are cold.

The wild card this week is Jupiter. The planet of big currently is in the sign of small, so I wouldn’t count on Steven Spielberg snapping up your screenplay, but who knows? Stranger things have happened. You shouldn’t have to wait long for a hint of how the week is going to play out, as Mars forms an easy trine to Jupiter on Tuesday – before his exact contact with Pluto. That’s why I think it’s entirely possible that something new will form before the old structure is totally blown apart, whatever it may be. “Structure” can apply to your career, finances, relationships, or your life in general. If you know how to read a chart, you can look at where these planets fall in your natal houses for a better idea of how you’re responding to these volatile energies.

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Thursday’s New Moon in Cancer is perfectly timed to bring new forms into existence. The only downside is that the Sun and Moon form a fairly close square with Saturn in Libra, suggesting a challenge of some kind. My take is that you’ve probably butted up against this obstacle already and know what it is. The challenge may be in finding a workable solution. For that, you (and any others involved) have to be committed, willing to do the heavy lifting, and ready to take on the responsibility.

The biggest day for opportunities is Saturday, when Jupiter sextiles Uranus. With Jupiter in Gemini, it’s possible that more than one door will open to you. How do you know which one is the right one? On Sunday, the Sun enters Leo, his home sign, symbol of the heart center and courage. Part of the shift we’re going through is finding ways to be more authentic and live what’s in our hearts. It definitely takes courage.

The T-square begins winding down at the end of the week, but retrograde Mercury makes aspects to Mars on Sunday and then Jupiter and Uranus next week. Don’t worry if you missed anything. There will be opportunities to go back, take a second look, make corrections, and patch up misunderstandings. My only caution is that if you have new opportunities that involve making deals and signing contracts, be sure you read all the fine print and know what’s involved. If you can wait to ink the deal until the second week in August, better still. But that’s not always practical, so if you’re compelled to move forward, at least take precautions like getting a second opinion or doing additional research.

Before I go, I want to tell you about an exciting new animated short film that has created a buzz on the Internet. It’s called I, Pet Goat II and is largely the work of Montreal animation artist Louis LaFebvre. As a work of art, it’s cutting edge and mesmerizing. But it also has a message, one that’s very similar to what I’ve written about since starting my first blog in late 2005. You’ll have fun trying to identify all the hidden symbolism, which has many conspiracy theorists foaming at the mouth about the Illuminati and the NWO. Just the sort of thing I love, and I think you will, too.

Wishing much love and courage to all,
Pat

Weekly Forecast July 9: Uranus and Mercury Retrograde

Illustration of a decaying Higgs-Boson. Can you spot the muons? Photo courtesy CERN.

After all the astrological tumult of the past two months, a “simple” Mercury retrograde seems like rather ho-hum news.

Mercury goes retrograde this Saturday at 12°33′ Leo, and he’ll return to 1°26′ before returning direct on August 8. Among other things, Leo is the sign of entertainment and fun. Mercury in Leo loves a practical joke, but when he’s retrograde, the intended effect could backfire. Standup comedians take note.

For the rest of us, all the usual caveats apply. You know the drill by now. Back up your computer, get big purchases out of the way, sign the contract to sell your house now (actually, it’s a bit late for that already), and wrap up as much as you can on projects under way. On the positive side – and this definitely applies to me – this Mercury retrograde period will be beneficial for editing, rewriting, revising, repair, and revisiting old issues in general. If you’d like to know more about how Mercury retrograde could play out in your life, check out the StarGuide Summer 2012 forecast. Although we’re already well into the season, there’s a ton of useful information in this report, and for anyone who orders now, I’ll extend the transit section until the end of September.

Nonetheless, there are a couple of unique and interesting things happening with this retrograde period. First, at the moment Mercury stations – when he appears to stop moving in the sky from one day to the next – he is in a near-exact sextile with Venus in Gemini. Venus herself recently went retrograde, and on her reverse path crossed the face of the Sun. The astrological implications of the Venus transit aren’t entirely known yet, but intuitively, I think it has something to do with reconnecting opposites on all levels. For many people, communications and connections with a person or situation had to be severed in order to reboot relationships, including our relationship with the various aspects of ourselves. Outwardly, you may have re-established contact with someone, perhaps a romantic partner, but not necessarily. At the highest level, we have been able reconnect with our energetic bodies, what some call the “higher self.” Although you can’t see or measure this connection, it is a very big deal.

With Mercury stationing at a close, positive angle with Venus in the sign he rules, there is another wide open door for meaningful communications to take place within relationships, especially those renewed after a period of distance. Communications are fundamental to strong relationships. I once read a book written for men about how to have better sex, and the first half was all about communicating. Amen to that.

The second interesting factor about this Mercury retrograde, and by far the more volatile one, lies in the simultaneous retrograde of Uranus on Friday. On a collective scale, this reverse is more significant than Mercury’s phase shift, especially since Uranus and Pluto are still within a degree of an exact square. Unless transiting Uranus is sitting on a personal planet or sensitive point in your chart, you’re not likely to feel this one personally. But combined with Mercury’s retrograde on the following day, the reversal of Uranus could manifest as major mischief … as though there hasn’t been plenty already.

We know about the fires, power outages (Uranus rules electricity), and other Uranus-related trends, including financial surprises. In his column this week, Ray Merriman writes about Uranus-Pluto and the Barclay’s Bank scandal. But there was another big event in the news last week that I believe could be the sleeper hit of the Uranus-Pluto cycle.

Last Wednesday, while fireworks were going off in most of the United States, scientists from around the world gathered at CERN in Geneva for a big announcement that they’d found the Higgs-Boson – the so-called “God particle.” Well, at least, they found something like it. It’s unclear at this point exactly what they discovered, but scientists were all jubilant and teary eyed over the possibility that after decades of searching and billions of public money spent, they’d finally found a critical piece of the Standard Model of Physics – the current theory about how the material universe forms.

Astrologers are plenty interested in this development, because part of our job is predicting possible ways that energy patterns in a horoscope might manifest into material reality. Long before I was aware of the Higgs-Boson or any scientific evidence of energy manifesting as physical matter, I knew intuitively that it does, and that astrology is a tool for predicting how and when material results might show up, either in an individual’s life or as global trends.

There were so many ironies in last week’s announcement, starting with the fact that researchers aren’t claiming to have found the Higgs-Boson, but may have accidentally stumbled on something else. That “something else” may be key to understanding the 96 percent of the universe that currently is invisible. That alone boggles the mind. Take a good look around you, and then try to wrap your head around the idea that you’re seeing only 4 percent of what’s actually there (if you’re exceptionally psychic, you may see more).

Another irony is that the announcement and the media attention it generated, including trending on the social media, was very similar to the “news” in January 2011 about the alleged 13th sign of the zodiac. The media got a lot of details wrong, and the public got all excited about something that didn’t happen. Still, scientists were surprised to have something as geeky as the Higgs-Boson trending on the Internet – just as astrologers were shocked that a bizarrely named and little-known constellation got so much attention amid the latest rock videos, celebrity breakups, and political scandals.

The biggest irony, though, lies in the public perception of what this announcement could mean. Faster computers? Smarter cell phones? Zero-gravity trains? In other words, all most people can see in a discovery of this magnitude is that it will somehow translate into new inventions – something material, like, say, space-based weapons or Cheez-It. Because so few people grasp the concept of energy manifesting into matter, the implications are beyond the imagination of most people – scientists included.

Just as scientific discoveries of the past took years to translate to applications in the mainstream, and just as the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the sixties continued to manifest for many years afterward, this new discovery of how matter is formed likely will take years to produce any noticeable effects. One thing is sure, though: how we see ourselves in the universe and how we interact with the world and each other is going to go through a massive overhaul. Meanwhile, if you need any further convincing that the Higgs-Boson is related to the Uranus-Pluto square, check out the CERN article titled, “The Higgs-Boson: Evolution or Revolution? ” Anyone familiar with astrology knows that “evolution” and “revolution” are keywords for Pluto and Uranus.

There is one other aspect this week worth mentioning, and that’s the Sun’s square to Saturn on Sunday (late Saturday in Western time zones). Difficult Sun-Saturn aspects typically manifest as power struggles, especially those involving ego and social structures. The structures could be within your family, ethnic group, company, or government. Fortunately, it’s a short influence that doesn’t last more than a few days, but it could have longer-range implications for you if the Sun and Saturn are transiting a sensitive point in your natal chart.

Wishing you all unlimited energy, love and courage,
Pat

Weekly Forecast July 2: Full Moon in Capricorn, Mars Enters Libra

Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s gloomy and cold, but we’re not complaining much, given that the rest of the world is either burning or under water, with high winds thrown in for good measure.

It’s always tricky pinning weather phenomenon to astrological configurations, but there seem to be strong correlations here. Jupiter, symbol of “big,” is in Gemini, an air sign … and we get high winds. Neptune is in his (some say “her”) own sign of Pisces, and we get floods. The Sun is in Cancer, another water sign. Last week, they were all dancing together in a close dance, and it manifested as weather that perfectly expressed the character of the cosmic dancers.

The fires are something else. Whenever you see the word “wild,” Uranus is an immediate suspect. Uranus is in Aries, the first and most impulsive of the three fire signs. It’s hard not to correlate the wild fires in the Western United States with the Uranus-Pluto square. There are other possible correlations to this signature, too. Ray Merriman discusses the other potential manifestations in his weekly column, and he’s much better than I at explaining financial developments.

The Uranus-Pluto square is with us for the next three years – and, if the 1960s are any indication, the manifestations of it will continue to unfold for a few years after that. As I’ve mentioned before, the most explosive year in that decade was 1968, even though the Uranus-Pluto conjunction officially ended more than a year before. It’s safe to say that the biggest events are yet to come.

This past week has been wild and crazy for a lot of us. We’re exhausted, freaking out over lack of jobs and money, working too hard for what we do have, and finding less and less time to relax and have fun. I’ve been asked several times whether I think it has anything to do with the Uranus-Pluto square. Yes and no. Outer planetary cycles such as these tend to manifest socially, culturally, and globally. But that doesn’t mean that each of us isn’t affected. When everyone is stressed out, it stresses us out even more – especially those who are the least bit psychic or pick up on the emotions of those around them. The water signs and those with Moon in water signs are particularly susceptible to picking up on this collective stress.

To be clear, the planets aren’t “causing” the stress. However, I do believe that the Uranus-Pluto square represents a push for totally overhauling how we live. We can’t keep going to our jobs every day, working harder and getting paid less, paying more and more taxes for fewer services (and paying more for those services in addition), feeling more exhausted and less personally rewarded, and not reach a breaking point. It’s not a question of “if” but “when.”

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“When” may get a little closer this week with Tuesday’s Full Moon in Capricorn conjunct Pluto and square Uranus. The conjunction is a bit wide – more than four degrees – but it’s close enough for government work, as they say. Pluto, meanwhile, is at the apex of a Yod with Venus and Mercury. No matter how you dissect it, it looks like Pluto is the breaking point in this configuration. Pluto in Capricorn is about big government, authoritarian rule, and the impenetrable power of multinational corporations. On a personal level, there’s a higher-than-normal risk of explosive emotions and quiet implosions. You know yourself better than anyone, so I won’t tell you what you should do if you feel an outburst coming on.

A few hours before the Full Moon, Mars enters Libra, which is also big news. Mars, the planet of action and aggression, has been in diligent but nitpicky Virgo for nearly eight months. Normally, Mars stays in a sign for about six weeks, but due to his retrograde cycle, he has had an extended stay in Virgo. Mars and Venus both went retrograde this year, and in signs ruled by Mercury, who also was retrograde in April. Getting anything done in the first half of this year has been fraught with setbacks, delays, and less-than-stellar feedback. Mars leaving Virgo should help ease up on the obstacles, although Mercury is about to go retrograde toward the end of next week. Still, I don’t think it will be as frustrating as the past six months.

If you’d like to know where Mercury is going to be retrograde in your chart – as well as a lot of other essential information for surviving the summer – I highly recommend my StarGuide Summer forecast. If you order now, I’ll add a few extra weeks of transits to the end of the report, since the season is already well under way. I do have to tell you, though, that my schedule is still very tight, even with classes over the summer, and so my normal turnaround time of two days for reports has stretched to 3-5 days. My consulting hours are reduced, too, so if you’d like a reading, I suggest setting it up as soon as possible. I currently have a wait period of about two weeks.

Getting back to Mars in Libra, my take on this particular passage is that it’s going to somehow activate the entire cycle of Saturn in Libra. Saturn, you may recall, entered Libra in 2010, right as a powerful T-square in the early degrees of the cardinal signs was forming. It peaked in July and August of that year, which many of us remember as a time that was volatile, frustrating, and enervating, even while new doors were opening to us and new directions beckoning. Over the next week or so, as Mars passes through the early degrees of Libra, watch for events or circumstances that somehow link back to the summer of 2010, especially in terms of your closest relationships or important partnerships. Mars will conjoin Saturn in mid-August, an important passage, about which I’ll write more as the date gets closer.

On Wednesday, Mercury, Venus, and Uranus form a lovely sextile-trine arrangement. This is an overall positive configuration that will express itself as surprises in love, money, and communications. Sudden meetings, unexpected phone calls, a text message that makes you sit up and take notice – these are the kinds of events we might expect on a personal level.

There are some other minor aspects this week, but I’m going to stop there so that I can get this forecast posted and hopefully get a few hours of sleep for another grueling week.

Wishing you all unlimited love and courage,
Pat

Weekly Forecast June 25: Venus and Saturn Direct, Sun Opposite Pluto

We’ve passed the first Uranus-Pluto square, which was exact early Sunday morning in the United States. I’ve been paying special attention to the news headlines, but as I noted last week, this outer planetary cycle has long-term effects and tends not to manifest as a discrete event.

One thing I did notice last week, though, was blood on the sidewalks. I have a rolling backpack on wheels, and twice last Wednesday had to swerve to avoid going through blood. As I was pondering this weird coincidence, a man came limping up the hill toward me with one pant leg soaked in blood from the knee down. Seattle isn’t an especially violent place, as cities go, and I was walking in relatively safe areas. The real kicker was on Friday, when I ducked into Macy’s downtown to use the lady’s room. The first open stall had a blood-soaked tissue and red smears on the counter. It definitely wasn’t lipstick. By then, I was totally freaked out. Whether this is a peculiar manifestation of the Uranus-Pluto square or some other broad trend, I don’t know.

If I had to pick one event this past week that I feel confident correlating to the Uranus-Pluto cycle, it would be the elections in Egypt. What came to be known as “Arab Spring” began in December 2010, a few months after the peak of a cardinal T-square. Uranus and Pluto were within three degrees of a square at that time. They came within a degree of one another in August 2011. So this cycle is already well underway, and we’re already seeing it manifesting in world political, social, and financial trends. Again, I call your attention to events that rocked the world in the mid-1960s to get an idea of what we can expect over the next few years.

This summer could be especially turbulent, with exact alignments of Uranus and Pluto on June 24 and again on September 19. The second one occurs just as Pluto is coming out of a retrograde cycle – a very powerful moment. We may get more hints of things to come this Friday, when the Sun opposes Pluto and squares Uranus, forming a cardinal T-square. Remember, cardinal T-squares are all about change, and with Uranus involved, the changes could come rapidly and out of left field.

It’s interesting to note that when this T-square is closest to exact, Venus makes a close sextile to Uranus. Venus in Gemini and Saturn in Venus-ruled Libra both come out of retrograde this week, making it an especially powerful time for relationships and finances, with communications being key to success. Unless Uranus and Pluto are hitting personal planets or key points in your natal chart, you’re probably not feeling this square too much in your individual life, except perhaps as part of a broader trend. Not so for Venus and Saturn. If you want to know where these two are in your chart and how they’re manifesting, I recommend ordering the StarGuide Summer Forecast. (Keep in mind that it could take 3-4 days to get your report, depending on when you order.) July reports are available, as well.

Looking at other particulars this week, Jupiter squares Neptune on Monday, with Neptune and the Sun in a water trine. This aspect could correlate to Tropical Storm Debby. I just read that national hurricane forecasters are somewhat perplexed, as the meteorological programs they use to track storms show conflicting results. “We must be ready to make a change of the forecast track at any time,” this morning’s 10 a.m. report out of Miami said. That pretty much sums up this week’s astrological forecast and, indeed, the outlook for the rest of the summer.

Also on Monday, Mercury enters Leo and then will begin to slow down (relative to Earth’s orbit) in preparation for turning retrograde on July 14. We’ll be in the pre-retrograde shadow as of this Thursday, so start thinking about wrapping up your business, backing up your computer data, and getting major purchases out of the way.

The Messenger’s first order of business is a sextile with Ceres, who just entered Gemini. Perhaps this will provide us with a bit more information about the functions of Ceres in individual and mundane charts. The jury’s still out for me regarding her significance, although we can get some clues from her mythology. There does seem to be a correlation between Ceres and the environment, particularly the food chain. Watch for headlines to that effect and let me know if you find anything unusual.

On Friday, the day of the T-square activity, Mercury forms a sextile with Jupiter. Normally, this is a fun aspect, and it is Friday. Still, with the Sun and Pluto in opposition, take care who you party with, and definitely make sure you have a ride home if you’ve had too much to drink. A night in the clink doesn’t sound very fun to me, and there likely would be blood involved.

Wishing you all much love and courage,
Pat

Weekly Forecast June 18: New Moon in Gemini, Uranus Square Pluto

It would be tempting to predict that all hell is going to break loose this week, but outer planetary aspects don’t work that way.

I’m referring, of course, to the Uranus-Pluto square, which is exact on Sunday, June 24 – the first of seven exact alignments between now and 2015. You may recall that we came very close to an exact square in July 2011. The fact is, we’ve been feeling this alignment for more than a year now, and we’ll be feeling it for the next few years. It is the defining aspect of our time.

To get an idea of what this aspect signifies, we need only look back to the beginning of the cycle, the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the mid-1960s. The aspect peaked in 1965 and 1966, and yet the year we remember as the most volatile from that decade was 1968. If you were too young to remember that year or weren’t born yet, I highly recommend a documentary film called 1968 with Tom Brokaw. You can find it in segments on YouTube. The first part alone will give you the general idea.

Two words you often hear to describe that era – “revolution” and “transformation” – are spoken by people with no interest in or knowledge of astrology, and yet these are the keywords for Uranus and Pluto. Funny how that works. According to astrological theory, the crises and conflicts we’re experiencing now have their roots in the sweeping changes that occurred back then. Much has been written about how the 60s drug culture contributed to the awakening of the collecting consciousness. And we can bet that law enforcement authorities, faced with the Occupy Movement and other mass protests, learned a lot from the riots in the 1960s. With Pluto in Capricorn, expect crackdowns against unrest to be faster, heavier, and more brutal. Governments learned from experiences in the 1960s that media control is vital. If you watch 1968, you may be startled by the raw footage that came out of the Vietnam War. Those shocking images motivated large numbers of people to protest in the streets. We don’t have anything like that coming from Iraq or Afghanistan. You need only look at what happened to Julian Assange to foresee what will happen to anyone who tries to expose the truth independently.

In any case, major events that marked the 1960s – the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the growing civil rights and women’s movements – occurred over time and not on or near an exact date that Uranus and Pluto aligned. Incidentally, pardon me for taking an American view of things. There were sweeping changes around the world in the 60s. France had its own version of 1968. I don’t mean to suggest that the changes here were any more important than elsewhere or that the United States is the world center of revolution and transformation. If anything, the world is a much smaller place than ever, thanks to instant communications over the Internet.

So, with that long introduction, let’s have a look at this week. There are several other planetary aspects to suggest that changes will come fast and furious in the short term.

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On Tuesday, we have another New Moon in Gemini. This is the second in a row. The first one occurred with a solar eclipse on May 20. At first glance, the Uranus-Pluto square dominates the New Moon chart. However, what draws my eye is the sextile from Uranus to Venus, exact by degree (technically called “partile” in astro-speak). Venus still has another week in retrograde phase before turning direct on June 27. Saturn, meanwhile, turns direct in Libra on June 24. In the final degrees of Gemini, the New Moon has a “looking back” flavor to it, not unlike a retrograde. We’re still in critique mode, especially regarding our closest relationships, as we review what we didn’t do so well and what we might do better in the future to get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want. As I’ve mentioned before, the review may include experiences in other dimensions of time or space – more commonly called “past lives.” Awareness of these parallel relationships is helping us clean up some difficult karma so that we can move on, either by entering a new phase in a current relationship or getting closure in some other way.

The Venus-Uranus sextile typically brings a surprise element into the picture. It may not be pleasant, given that Venus is retrograde and inconjunct Pluto. However, if you can keep your nerve through the discomfort, you may come out in a pleasantly surprising place in another week or two. For some of you, the discomfort may simply be the waiting and uncertainty. It’s hard not knowing how things ultimately will shake out. The Venus-Uranus sextile is exact on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, Mercury squares Saturn and the Sun enters Cancer. Saturn is moving very slowly right now (what it looks like from down here anyway) as he gets close to changing direction. The square from Mercury likely will bring all the worst flaws into sharp focus, be they personal weaknesses, relationship issues, the need for improvement in your work, or other problems. It will be hard to see the bright side, so try as best you can to balance out all the negatives with something positive. Make a list if you have to, even if it seems like an exercise in futility. Mercury’s waxing sextile with Mars (exact on Thursday) will help. Overall, Wednesday could be quite an emotional day.

The Sun’s entry into Cancer marks the summer solstice and longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Normally, this would be the highlight of the week, but there are too many other major aspects happening that overshadow the seasonal landmark. For me, it’s an outward sign that the academic year is over after a hair-raising final quarter in which I lost not one but two (and almost three) hard drives with all my work on them. That means no rest this summer. I start an internship next week, and will have to spend the next several weeks reconstructing my final project, which, ironically, is about astrology.

Incidentally, I’m working on the StarGuide Summer Forecast this week and will have it up soon. The July monthlies also will be available, for those of you who have pre-ordered. I’ll post an announcement when they’re ready. And, while my consultation hours will continue to be limited, I will have greater availability in the next few months.

Last but not least, the Sun and Neptune form a dreamy water trine on Saturday. It’s a great day for a picnic at the beach or poolside. If you don’t have access to a beach or pool, set up the sprinkler in your backyard. Keep your dream journal handy, as intuition is high and open for major downloads.

Wishing you all infinite love and courage,
Pat