DIY to your heart’s content: new Moon in Virgo

Gogo’s favorite new Moon of the year happens Sunday September 9, 11:01am PDT at 17 degrees Virgo. The light is magical as the season shifts from summer to autumn in the north, winter to spring in the south. Daily rhythms change: we harvest and prepare for winter above the equator; and spring clean and sprout seeds for planting below.

Where ever you are on the planet, Virgo’s new Moon energy takes pleasure in creating order out of chaos. Being purposeful feels good. We take pride in the fruits of our labor. Where does the new Moon fall in your natal chart?  That’s where you’re being invited to clean up your act, pay attention to detail, start a new activity or craft, and be more productive generally.

During this particular new Moon, the planets are constellating in earth signs to help us focus on health-work-and the real value of things. The Sun-Moon-Mercury (our purpose-habits-thoughts) are in improvement-oriented Virgo, Mars-Saturn-Pluto (our actions, responsibilities, and desire for renewal) are on an upward climb through slow, steady Capricorn, and Uranus (our innovator and change agent) is in beauty and material-oriented Taurus. Got a DIY project in mind?  This is your new Moon!

Nine hours beforehand, Venus moves into Scorpio, so part of your DIY experience may involve sharing. Superficiality gets the boot, depth-passion-authenticity define this project. In fact, don’t even bother unless you’re all in! It may cost you, but it’ll be worth it.

Three hours before new Moon, she moves into opposition with mystical-imaginative Neptune. Dream your project into being, then apply your gentle intelligence and clear communication to make it happen, especially if working in partnership.  Moon-Neptune aspects can be mighty sensitive.

If you’re taking on something really big, remember that often the magic is in the little things. Take a nap if you feel cranky or manic. In fact, a together nap is not a bad idea at all. Remember, DIY is about making things, all sorts of things.

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Radical deconstruction of Saturn Rx ends with a thud

Since April 17 at 6:47pm PDT when Saturn stationed retrograde at 9 degrees Capricorn and the Sun-Uranus conjoined at 28 degrees Aries, our lives have been undergoing a radical deconstruction. Think of it as the baby who learns to topple a stack of blocks before she learns to build something with them. What a mess. Sometimes we must take things apart to discover what they are made of, including ourselves!

It should come as no surprise that on the final day of Saturn’s retrograde period an anonymous senior official inside the White House revealed in a NY Times OpEd piece that “many in [Trump’s] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations” to protect the country.  What was formerly unthinkable has happened. Unelected White House staffers are calling the shots from the Oval Office, assuring the citizenry that they have the country’s best interests at heart and everything’s gonna be alright.

It’s been that sort of five months:

• Cuba swore in its first non-Castro president since 1959;
• North Korea’s President crossed the Korean DMZ for the first time since its creation in 1953;
• Britain’s Prince Harry married across the color line to US actress, Meghan Markle;
• Ireland voted to repeal the ban on abortion;
• Canada legalized cannabis for recreational use;
• the Presidents of North Korea and the USA met for the first time;
• China accused the USA of starting the largest economic trade war in history;
• Apple, followed in quick succession by Amazon, became the first public company to reach the $1 Trillion market capitalization level;
• the Mueller investigation of interference with the 2016 presidential election gets closer and closer to the POTUS.

Somewhere in each of our lives a revolution is in process.

April’s Sun-Uranus conjunction in Aries acted as the ignition to Saturn’s retrograde period, upending the status quo, precipitating bizarre health problems and accidents, pulling the proverbial rug out from underneath some lives, opening new pathways, opportunities and relationships for others. Schedules were turned inside out and business as usual became a thing of the past.

Some of us took risks and broke from an old role, lifestyle, home or relationship. After all, Saturn Rx had accomplices in the deconstruction process, the retrograde cycles of Mars and Mercury. If your life looks the same as it was in mid-April, you haven’t been paying attention.

It’s now time to put Humpty together again. When Saturn stations direct in a few hours he will gradually propel us through the first two decans of Capricorn [by the end of April, 2019]. When the planet we associate with form and structure is involved in an earthy grand trine, we’re apt to reap more of whatever we sow over the next seven months. Use its energy as building blocks during the coming cycle. Remember to activate the trine’s magic ingredients: work with patience and maturity with one eye on a long term goal (Saturn in Capricorn); embrace those innovations and new experiences that add value and staying power to your life (Uranus in Taurus); and focus mental energies on improving  sustainability and efficiency (Mercury in Virgo).

Now, what’s going on in the Oval Office?

These two charts have been added after the fact for those who study.

Three words and a browser: For What It’s Worth

On July 24, while watering the garden and daydreaming about the much anticipated Mars at perigee during the total lunar eclipse, a small crouching tiger interrupted my reverie. I imagined the orange fur ball as the embodiment of Mars retrograde, poised for action, exquisitely vigilant, perfectly still.  In the confines of the small garden, he seemed to have things under control, in stark contrast to the big human cats making headlines in our unsettled world. A shiver went up my spine upon remembering a rabbit in a similar pose some years ago, seconds before he’d been ravished by a raptor.

My thoughts shifted to the prey and predator archetypes. Are they not the yin-yang of the same neural currency? A rush of adrenaline happens no matter which side of the coin is experienced. If observing a house cat sitting in wait was enough to trigger an adrenaline response in me, what massive quantities of stress hormones are being generated in our collective experience on an average day in 2018? What is the steady dose of threatening news doing to our nervous systems? A valid question during Mars Rx (fight-flight response) in Aquarius (nervous system), I think.

Continuing to eavesdrop on the cat, I allowed myself to wonder who or what else might be out there watching us, watching me? Then my gateway drug kicked in.

Paranoia strikes deep

Into your life it will creep

It starts when you’re always afraid

You step out of line, the man come and take you away

When music suddenly appears on my thought waves, I’ve learned to surf the line to see where it takes me.

Watering the final corner of the garden, I ruminated on the dark hidey-holes of corruption currently being exposed in the media, and how paranoia has wormed its way into the collective consciousness, no matter where on the political spectrum we sit. Enough!

Meanwhile, halfway across the US, the President was feeding this paranoia at a convention in Kansas City, telling 4000 veterans of foreign wars not to trust the media, and even worse, not to trust themselves:

“Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,”

[Trump pointed at reporters. The crowd boos.]

“Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading

is not what’s happening.”

Indeed, paranoia does strike deep, very deep. I promise to return to this Orwellian wormhole, as it deserves attention. For now there’s research awaiting about a protest song.

Off went the garden faucet and into the house I strode singing that damn protest song from start to finish, determined to learn its significance. Hey Google?!

With three words and a browser I was back in 1966, revisiting the cosmic tension of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo, which brought into excruciatingly sharp focus the uncomfortable realities then facing the planet.

I was 12 that year. My country was bombing the hell out of North Vietnam. FBI agents had come to our kitchen door looking for a neighbor boy who’d gone AWOL. [He was later found dead a few states away.] Kids avoiding the draft were crossing US borders like rats leaving a sinking ship; outrage erupted on college campuses and in cities here and abroad. 1966 was the year civil rights icon, Martin Luther King, Jr. brought his non-violent message to Chicago and was stoned for calling attention to the economic exploitation of African Americans in the North. It was an abysmal summer for black communities in the Midwest, as racial violence plagued Cleveland, Omaha and Chicago. Miniskirts had arrived on the fashion scene and Janis Joplin was making her way to Haight-Ashbury. Across the Bay in Oakland, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale launched the Black Panther Party, while up the road in Sacramento, Cal lawmakers criminalized LSD. It was a volatile and polarized time.

Backlash (Saturn) against (opposed) new visions for social transformation (Uranus-Pluto) arrived with the November 8, mid-term election. Democrats lost three seats in the US Senate and 47 seats in the House. Three future US Presidents, Ronald Reagan, Spiro Agnew and George H.W. Bush, won gubernatorial and congressional seats in California, Maryland and Texas, respectively. [You doubt the importance of mid-term elections?]

A total solar eclipse [19 deg Scorpio 45’] arrived less than four days later, on November 12, at 6:26AM PST. High above Earth, rookie astronaut Buzz Aldrin took the very first space selfie, tethered outside NASA’s Gemini XII space capsule. In Hollywood, CA, 1000 young people gathered to protest the forced closure and demolition of their coffee house and music venue, Pandora’s Box. At 10pm, as the Moon joined retrograde Mercury at 29 deg Scorpio, 155 LAPD officers and 79 sheriff’s deputies arrived at the Sunset Strip nightspot in riot gear, bent on enforcing curfew for all those under 18.

Epimetheus opening fatal jar

The myth surrounding Pandora, depicted in the above 16th century engraving by Guilio Bonasone, is also worth investigating to bring astrological perspective to what was about to happen on the Sunset Strip. For now, let this popular definition of Pandora’s Box and etymology of curfew fill in the blanks.

Even before we consider an event chart, we have sufficient data to suspect that things outside Pandora’s Box would get out of hand that eclipse night. The first of The Sunset Strip Curfew Riots, a.k.a. the Hippie riots, was witnessed by folk singer-songwriter-musician, Stephen Stills, who later said,

Riot is a ridiculous name. It was a funeral for Pandora’s Box, but it looked like a revolution.

Stills went home that night and wrote the song. Yes, THE SONG that found its way into my head while watering the garden a few weeks ago, and into the collective mind of late sixties.

Stephen Stills’ natal chart, birth time 12:15am, with Jupiter on the ASC in earthy Virgo conjunct Chiron-Neptune in Libra, shows a nature and peace-loving artist type, invested in his career and its relationships (square to Saturn in Cancer in 10th). Stills was born ten days before a solar eclipse at 23 deg CAP, coincidentally the degree of my north node. His band may have been another family (Capricorn Sun – 4th house) as Stills moved a lot during childhood (Mercury-Mars in Sagittarius on the IC). The spontaneous, high energy natal Mercury-Mars square Jupiter aspect would override any reservations about performing professionally with his idealistic tribe of outlier friends (Venus in AQ – 5th). The Venus-Jupiter quincunx speaks of the extraordinary physical demands of performing; his Virgo Moon- 12th would need a peaceful environment to regroup away from the public (square Uranus) as well as space to dream up new material for songs (Moon-Saturn).

The Hippie Riot Event Chart set for 10pm has: 1) angles in fixed and cardinal fire and air signs, placing an emphasis on action and communication with a my way or the highway flavor; 2) Jupiter’s big personality on the Ascendant in drama prone Leo, in the 12th house of law enforcement, suggesting an exaggerated police response; 3) a stellium in Scorpio, exuding depth of feeling and pent up emotion, intercepted in the 4th house (home, safe place, and in mundane astrology– the opposition party) representing the youth faced with the loss of their hangout,  4) the opposition between Taurus North Node in the 10th house and the SC stellium, represent the Strip’s business leaders who argued that the kids were noisy, caused traffic jams, and were bad for business; and 5) Mars-Pluto-Uranus opposing Saturn along the 2nd-8th house axis, showing the clash of values and generation gap involved in the forced closure of Pandora’s Box.

The compound chart shows how the first “Hippie Riot” (outer layer) affected Stephen Stills (inner layer). We know Stills wrote the song upon returning home after the riot to the seclusion of Topanga Canyon where he could process the event’s intensity (riot chart’s Mars-Pluto-Uranus activating his 12th house Moon). It was supposed to have been be a funeral, after all. Writing the song was cathartic, giving voice to a message that had been neither heard nor understood (riot chart’s Mars-Pluto-Uranus square Still’s 3rd house Mercury)  (riot chart’s SC stellium activating Still’s 2nd -3rd houses). Stills was Messenger (riot chart’s Moon-Mercury on Still’s 3rd house). The song’s recording led to his rise in popularity (riot chart’s Jupiter in Leo activating his 11th house).

In Mercury retrograde fashion, the song got its name when Stills approached a record company executive saying:

I have this song here, for what it’s worth, if you want it.

For What It’s Worth was recorded as a single in early December. Buffalo Springfield performed it live for the first time on Christmas Day at Pandora’s Box as a funeral tribute. In no time, it reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and quickly morphed into a peace, love, and anti-war anthem, instead of a song about the youth’s right to party and peacefully assemble, as was Stills’ intention. Oh Mercury Retrograde, you are indeed a trickster.

For What It Is Worth

There’s something happening here

What it is ain’t exactly clear

There’s a man with a gun over there

Telling me I got to beware

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

There’s battle lines being drawn

Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong

Young people speaking their minds

Getting so much resistance from behind

It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

What a field-day for the heat

A thousand people in the street

Singing songs and carrying signs

Mostly say, hooray for our side

It’s s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

Paranoia strikes deep

Into your life it will creep

It starts when you’re always afraid

You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

Stop, hey, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

Stop, now, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

Stop, children, what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down

Fast forward to 2018. Mars Rx’s cosmic tour of duty in Aquarius, kissing the south node, has been a powerful reminder that sometimes we must revisit the past before we can move forward into the future. Thanks to the orange fur ball I had the opportunity to return to 1966, and particularly to the night of November 12, 1966, when the contents of Pandora’s Box were symbolically spilled. The same social and political issues linger unresolved 50+ years later. We can’t wait another 50 to address the forces in our hearts and minds that isolate, divide, and throw our lives into chaos.

Let’s lift the curfew from our creative inner fire. Pandora’s myth reminds us that there is still HOPE left in the Box.

[Heartfelt thanks to Pat Liles for venturing into the ghost lands of cyberspace to retrieve my post. True friend!]

Gogo resists tantrums when Mercury Rx strikes

Gogo sitting cross-legged on her cosmic tuffet trying to self-regulate after Mercury’s latest trickster maneuver.

To have worked long and hard on a blogpost only to have it disappear into some nebulous corner of cyberspace is maddening and embarrassing. I know how Mercury Rx works. FFS, I’m an astrologer! How could I have been so sloppy about backing up the final draft?

With the Sun on my natal 3rd house Pluto and Mercury Rx opposite natal Mercury… what was I thinking? My mind was on finishing the post to share with you, certainly not on tech malfunctions.

For supper there’s humble pie, and then early to bed. Tomorrow is another day, after all, and who knows how Mercury’s handiwork will play out?

I hope your retrograde experiences are more interesting than mine.

Thanks for your patience!

Slippin into darkness: Insanity or genius?

Thinking about this new Moon-eclipse, an old song I haven’t heard in decades played in my head all afternoon. The year was 1971. War, a multi-ethnic Longbeach fusion band, was touring in London when Slippin into Darkness was conceived.

Guitarist and band frontman, Howard E. Scott, a Compton CA boy, was trying on a pair of boots that were too small. Employees at the store yanked them off so hard, it threw out his back. At the hospital, as the sedation took effect, Scott found himself slipping into darkness, peeking over the edge of reality into an altered state of consciousness.

This bizarre event inspired Scott to contemplate that borderline place between genius and insanity where creativity is often birthed, and the gifts and dangers that live in close proximity to that uneasy edge.

Slipping into Darkness you Tube

Slippin into Darkness was written for our times, too. It was released in 1971, the year Mars was last retrograde in Aquarius. The name of the band, War, evokes Martian energy; the music’s fusion of genres and the musicians’ multi-ethnicity both have a Mars in Aquarius quality. Finally, world and national news reports are currently inundated with the utterances and exploits of a man who calls himself a stable genius. The song’s warning is clear: pretty soon ya gonna pay.

Eclipse season has officially begun, my friends. The powerful energies of Pluto opposing tonight’s dark Moon prod us to appreciate where we’ve been. By remembering our past downfalls and triumphs we gain clarity about what nourishes and drives our creative impulse so that we can explore that edge with sacred awareness. I’ll see you there!

I was slippin’ into darkness
When they took my friend away
I was slippin’ into darkness
When they took my friend away

You know he loves to drink good whiskey 
While laughing at the moon

Slippin’ into darkness
Take my mind beyond the dreams
I was slippin’ into darkness, 
Take my mind beyond the dreams

Where I talk to my brother 
Who never said their name

Slippin’ into darkness, 
All my trouble so I choose
I was slippin’ into darkness,
All my trouble so I choose

I got a wife and a baby, 
Now my love hath gained its fame

Slippin’ into darkness, 
When I heard my mother say
I was slippin’ into darkness
When I heard my mother say
Hey, what’d she say
You’ve been slippin’ into darkness 

Pretty soon you gonna pay

POTUS on SCOTUS: a new social disease?

The POTUS announced that he would nominate the next justice of SCOTUS Monday night. Here’s the chart for that announcement and a few astro comments. 

 

The chart’s Sun in Cancer indicates the probability that a woman will be nominated or at the very least that issues surrounding motherhood will play a key role in this nomination. The Sun-Pluto opposition along the 6th-12th house axis suggests a nominee proposed by behind-the-scenes conservative forces on behalf of POTUS, in an attempt to insure that old white men have the final say in women’s reproductive health.

 

The 7th-9th house Mercury-Jupiter Rx square suggests that the public’s attitudes towards marriage-partnership-divorce are at odds with religious zealots, who are naturally keen to have their beliefs reflected in the high court. Mercury in Leo’s opposition to Mars Rx in Aquarius along the 1st-7th house axis promises public resistance to the choice of nominee, while Mars Rx’s trine to the Moon in opinionated Gemini assures that opinions shared will be loud and plentiful.

 

Does anyone else interpret the 6th-9th-2nd house Sun-Jupiter-Neptune trine as a nominee who values legal protection for the unborn and traditional concepts of motherhood?

 

Venus, planetary symbol for the younger woman, in the last degree of Leo suggests a female from the upper class. Venus trines to 12th house Saturn in Capricorn and 3rd house Uranus in Taurus promise a nominee with a cozy, if unusual, relationship with the conservative ruling party. The Uranian influence could indicate a new face from conservative ranks. Venus’ square to 4th house Moon in Gemini reflects a nominee who is not at ease, conversant, or familiar with the needs- feelings-opinions of women from the democratic/ opposition party, or for that matter with the opinions of the older sitting female Supreme Court Justices, Ginsburg and Sotomayor.

 

I’m curious to hear what you see in this chart.  

Surviving zodiacal whiplash in 2018

How’s that neck feeling? You know, after that one-two planetary punch delivered May 15-16, when unpredictable Uranus fell into reality bites Taurus and impatient Mars entered experimental Aquarius? The good news: we survived zodiacal whiplash.

A few felt dazed right away, particularly anyone with personal planets or angles at 0-1 degrees of early fixed signs. For others, the impact came a few hours later when Mars-Uranus perfected their first inflammatory square. The rest of us may not fully realize what hit us until Mars leaves Aquarius in mid-November.

Forewarned is forearmed.  Similar to the anatomical variety, zodiacal whiplash symptoms may not appear for a number of months. So protect that precious neck and buckle up for the remainder of Mars’ crazy trek through Aquarius, and get ready for:

• The rarest of retrogrades (June 26- August 26). Not since 1971 has Mars had a retrograde cycle in Aquarius. Those who were alive then can attest to what a wild year it was. Sensitive degrees in 2018 are 28-29 Cardinal and 0-9 Fixed;
• Mars out of bounds (July 8- September 24) encouraging us to explore future possibilities beyond the Sun’s dominion;
• Mars on the Moon’s South Node (June 8, July 20, and September 27) gives us three opportunities to make damn sure we jettison anything we don’t need or have no desire to haul into the brave new world we are creating; and
• Two more Mars-Uranus squares (August 1, September 18) ratcheting up additional whiplash potential.

Like I said, buckle up! It’s unlikely to be a livin’ is easy kind of summer in the north nor a cozy, peaceful winter in the south. Neither will it be boring.

Venus graciously waits her turn before offering her own retrograde two cents (October 6 – November 15) in Scorpio/Libra. That means love and money will be added to the list of change orders that’ll keep us scrambling while we adapt to new circumstances.

Our professed desire for something new may take on a whole different meaning by November 15. Letting go of an old operating system can be like pulling teeth when fixed signs are involved. Fortunately, there will be multiple opportunities to decide what to keep and what to toss, unless of course we refuse to cooperate. Think carefully before handing the reins to someone else.

Finding 0-9 degrees Aquarius and the last two degrees of Capricorn in our natal charts and locating planets or angles in early fixed degrees helps us understand where the action is happening and which areas of our lives we are being asked to change. Let’s work creatively with the whiplash experience to shake off complacency and launch us into an exciting new phase.

REVOLUTION

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be
All right, all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be
All right, all right, all right

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know it’s gonna be
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney

Swimming in the deep end?

Las lágrimas de Narciso (2006), de Guillermo Pérez Villalta.

Surely, you’ve felt it. How could you not?

Tides are already high in this full Moon week, then add a grand trine in the zodiac’s water signs featuring:

• love goddess Venus, out of bounds in Cancer, who wants it all:  romance, family, devotion, protection, kids, the whole ball of wax;

• preserver of justice, Jupiter, retrograde in Scorpio, who’s NOT above using underhanded tactics to maintain his power and position in the realm; and

• sea god Neptune, in mysterious Pisces, ruling the depths of the unconscious, churning up the good, the bad, and the ugly in our collective experience.

Each of the three represents big-ass planetary energy individually. Collectively, they challenge us to either sink or swim in a pool of fluctuating emotions and intense sensitivity that for some may border on extreme. And you thought the grand water trine an easy, creative aspect pattern!

Keep in mind the power of the ocean. We can play and frolic in the shallows, loll on its surface, or drown in its depths.

If you’re going for the frolick or loll option, but sense you’re in danger of sinking, check in with that Mercury- N. Node- Saturn YOD bi-secting the grand water trine. Are you:

• communicating clearly, keeping the big picture in mind;

• leading with humility, mindful that you’re not the only star in the sky;

• being accountable and taking responsibility for your actions?

That’s the way to go with the flow this weekend.  Let me know how your swimming lessons are coming along!

Peace out, Chicago: #UAC2018

On May 23, I had the immense privilege of traveling to Chicago to join 1500 astrologers from around the world in expanding our collective knowledge and understanding of this vast field. One workshop, sixteen lectures, and many conversations later, I left before sunrise on May 29, under the light of the full Moon in expansive Sagittarius, feeling suitably pregnant with all I had experienced during #UAC2018.

Whatever it is that intends to be born out of those memorable seven days will always carry the signature of this rose bush I pruned for a dear friend 11 days earlier in her Denver, CO garden. She sent this photo through on Memorial Day, proof of a fine pruning job. Only then did I learn its name, Chicago Peace. Seriously folks, you can’t make this sh*t up!!!!

I could easily go crazy expounding on the astrological connections my relationship with this rose bush embodies, from the luminaries right on through the solar system. Another time perhaps.

For now, what truly speaks is the blossoming of both the individual and the collective in each magnificent stage of development, from newbie to wise elder, from budding astrologer to teacher-practitioner in full flower. The Chicago Peace reminds me that there is always an opportunity to learn new things and to share our beauty, no matter how long we’ve been planted on this amazing Earth.

I am awed.

Until we meet again, Peace out, Chicago! #ChicagoPeace

Knickers in a twist? It’s only Mars in Aquarius

We may look back on today as an historical turning point in our lives, with three important astrological events occurring within 24 hours.

1. A new Moon in Taurus focuses our attention on practical needs going forward.
2. Change-agent Uranus, winds up an exhausting seven year rampage through Aries, and winds down into slow, earthy Taurus for long-term focus on our planet and the material resources we require for survival.
3. Action planet Mars enters inventive Aquarius, firing us up to create a new operating system for our future.

Not a fan of the unusual syncopated rhythms of jazz? Hopefully by November 14, Mars in Aquarius will have changed all that. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to get our knickers in a twist in the coming months. For now, as this quirky, contrarian Mars up-ends an old way of being, let’s learn to dance with it. Remember we’re going places we never knew existed.

                                      Plan all you want. Make contingencies, too.                                   Do let me know how that works for you.

It’s nigh impossible to operate in concrete-sequential mode during an abstract-random cycle that demands our full engagement. Opportunities appear out of nowhere, new people and ideas arrive like lightning bolts, an old lifestyle suddenly ends, and we must respond.

Change may not be either convenient or comfortable, but it does unblock us for something new, be it a job, home, lifestyle, relationship, or way of thinking. Mars wants ACTION and Aquarius wants that action to be innovative and freeing.

Reticent about moving toward a new frontier?

Thanks to its upcoming retrograde cycle, Mars hangs in Aquarius for the lion’s share of six months, a proverbial boot camp for the uninitiated. For anyone under age 47, this is a true first. The rest of us may be old enough to remember 1971, the last Mars Rx in Aquarius year. I certainly do. It coincided with the end of a major life chapter as I left home for university, and embraced a whole new universe of experiences. I remember like it was yesterday. It was THAT powerful.

Our survival instincts are now being primed for the future, my friends. Through November, we can expect a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing, as well as twists and turns along the path while we become adept at Mars in Aquarius coping strategies. Just when there seems to be a comfortable rhythm, another event will come along to grab our attention or shake us out of complacency. As Mars travels back and forth across the Moon’s South node in the months ahead, we’ll come face to face with stuff that doesn’t belong in our future. Trust that we’ll know when it’s time for the heave-ho.

It won’t be boring.

The experimental-scientific-alchemical edge of Aquarius does NOT abide by either prejudice or ignorance. Combined with the passion and courage of Mars, anything’s possible.

Our new operating systems are officially under construction with this Mars ingress. Exciting times.