Her­mes meets Hades… and it’s time to “turn a cor­ner” in your thinking.

Mer­cury is speed­ing through Aries now, enjoy­ing the delights of dis­cov­ery, the rush of ide­al­is­tic enthu­si­asms, and the joy of new begin­nings. Thoughts are rac­ing, words come tum­bling forth and there is elec­tric­i­ty in the air. But what is “that”? What’s ahead? There seems to be a shad­ow on the path.

Mer­cury in Aries is now fac­ing a chal­lenge thrown down by Plu­to in Capri­corn. New ideas are excit­ing, but Plu­to asks will it work? Say­ing what­ev­er comes to mind feels so “truth­ful”, but Plu­to asks are you being responsible?

Mer­cury in Aries fus­es think­ing with act­ing, there is no delay. But Plu­to reminds you that your thoughts have con­se­quences, you must exer­cise self-con­trol. If mis­un­der­stood, Plu­to on Mer­cury can make you up the ante in any debate: there is only one solu­tion, com­mu­ni­cat­ing is a zero-sum game, win­ning is every­thing. Well that is just wrong, wrong… wrong.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is not about “win­ning”, it is about under­stand­ing. If you feel some­one is push­ing their thoughts upon you, you must tell them to stop. And, just because you think you are “right”, gives you no right to force your idea upon another.

Instead, use the will of Plu­to to help you to exer­cise greater self-con­trol over your mind and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Men­tal self-con­trol and the dis­cern­ment it bestows is the key. Turn your mind inward and probe and prove or dis­prove the assump­tions that under­lie your perceptions.

Then move out again hav­ing achieved that greater cen­ter­ing and self-con­trol. True under­stand­ing will devel­op as you share, blend and trans­form your well-found­ed ideas with one anoth­er in the spir­it of coop­er­a­tion rather than compulsion.

In truth, you alone can only know so much. But when two or more gath­er togeth­er, under­stand­ing will come through the coop­er­a­tive blend­ing of per­cep­tions, ideas and mind.

So, turn a cor­ner in your mind and let go of your need to be “right”. Now you are walk­ing the path of Wis­dom. “Know Thy­self… Con­trol Thyself”.

I wrote the fol­low­ing about this event in the overview for 2011 on Jan­u­ary 17 :

Just as with Jupiter, we have already had a taste of Uranus in Aries in 2010. Now the plan­et of inde­pen­dence, orig­i­nal­i­ty and inven­tive­ness moves into the first sign to stay for 7 years. The pre­vi­ous swing through Aries occurred from 1928 to 1934. Now that may look a lit­tle omi­nous to some, but there were many oth­er fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the social and eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions that took place then. 

Uranus in Aries brings about sig­nif­i­cant advances in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. There is an urgency and eager­ness to make new begin­nings in many aspects of life. The pace of life quick­ens, but impa­tience will also be stoked. The rise of pro­gres­sive lead­ers and move­ments advo­cat­ing change will go head to head with the old order as Uranus and Plu­to line up with one anoth­er from 2012–2015.

What I would like to add is:

Aries is about begin­nings, ini­ti­a­tion and what I call the art of “pres­ence” in your life. You have devel­oped masks (per­sonas) to inter­act with the var­i­ous realms of your life. You are always who you are, but you cer­tain­ly call upon and express dif­fer­ent qual­i­ties and tem­pera­ments depend­ing upon whom you are inter­act­ing with at any one time.

Uranus in Aries is the her­ald of a new world era. It calls upon you to re-exam­ine, revise and renew your personas/masks. You can no longer rely upon, or rest upon the old way of being in the world. You are at the thresh­old of a new world and you must meet it with eager­ness, alert­ness and renewed pur­pose­ful­ness. This is the gift of Uranus in Aries, the gift of new beginnings.

An age is end­ing.… An age is begin­ning.… Spir­it moves to pro­vide a way, remind­ing you of your pow­er to re-imag­ine your­self and your world.

Now remem­ber.… Beat­en Paths are for Beat­en Souls. Now is the Time for Trailblazers!

“Walk in Beau­ty… beau­ty before you, beau­ty behind you, sur­round­ed by beau­ty, it is done in beau­ty”. Guid­ed by the bal­ance of per­son­al val­ues (Venus) and social prin­ci­ples (Jupiter), you are poised and graceful.

The inte­gral syn­the­sis of per­son­al worth and love for anoth­er cre­ates true under­stand­ing, both with­in one­self and between one anoth­er. You val­ue your­self tru­ly; you appre­ci­ate anoth­er sincerely.

Enjoy time spent with those whose dreams are your dreams; love of self and love of anoth­er meet in per­fect harmony. 

Epiphany… Elec­tric­i­ty is the air… and in your mind. It is as if some­thing has turned up the “juice” in your ner­vous sys­tem; flash­es of insight, break­throughs and those “ah hah!” moments come upon you so you bet­ter have your notepad (or Ipad) ready to record your brilliance.

The con­junc­tion of Mer­cury and Uranus cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty to think “out­side the box”. Intel­li­gence is typ­i­cal­ly defined as a mea­sure of how much you have mas­tered the accept­ed solu­tion to what­ev­er chal­lenge you face. But that is what I would call “encod­ed intel­li­gence”, also known as “knowl­edge”.

Liv­ing, breath­ing Intel­li­gence involves the capac­i­ty to devel­op under­stand­ings and solu­tions to prob­lems that no longer seem to be resolved by the old way of doing things. Sure, try to apply the old solu­tion, but it does not work. Okay, try again, (maybe you for­got some­thing), but it still does not work.

Now your true Intel­li­gence should kick in, either the world has changed, or you have changed, (or both), and you need to look at the chal­lenge from anoth­er per­spec­tive. You need to go from being on “auto­mat­ic” to being engaged with the world around you; you need to look at the world from the per­spec­tive of “won­der”, “imag­i­na­tion” and “free­dom” again… you need Uranus.

Nor­mal vision, and the per­spec­tive of “encod­ed intel­li­gence”, is like shin­ing a focused beam of light upon an object (prob­lem); you see it bright­ly illu­mi­nat­ed, but you also cre­ate and cast a very deep shad­ow. You don’t know what you do not know (or see). You need to elim­i­nate the shad­ow; you need to see what is hid­den, but how?

By engag­ing Uranus you shift your per­spec­tive. You shine “mind-light” from anoth­er per­spec­tive and begin to reduce the shad­ow; you gain insight that cre­ates the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing a bet­ter solu­tion to your prob­lem that was not even con­ceiv­able from the for­mer point of view. You break out of the accept­ed, nor­mal and knowl­edge-based worldview…you begin to devel­op Wisdom.

Enjoy the won­der… Let the Light of Uranus Shine through your Mind…

Cel­e­brate your Epiphany!

Mer­cury moves into Aries till May 15; that’s a long time to be in a “fast” sign. The rea­son for such a long sojourn is that Mer­cury will turn ret­ro­grade at the end of March and so loop back and forth in Aries.

But what does Mer­cury in Aries mean? Fast thoughts, quick speech.…and as a result mis­takes will mount up unless you main­tain an aware­ness of what is happening. 

Aries brings an ener­gy of enthu­si­asm, dar­ing and Ide­al­ism to your mind now. You are per­sua­sive; you daz­zle your oppo­nents and you are “right” too.

What’s the prob­lem? Well, maybe all of it if you are not care­ful. Don’t let your enthu­si­asm lead you to impa­tience; don’t let your dar­ing lead you to reck­less­ness; and, don’t let your ide­al­ism lead you into egotism.

Let the spir­i­tu­al fire of Aries remind you that the true source of greater aware­ness comes through more mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions, with­in and with­out. Be quick, yet poised. Be dar­ing, and grace­ful. Be ide­al­is­tic, and reasonable. 

As it was in the begin­ning, so it is at the end…You began your jour­ney as a spark of the divine mov­ing out into uncon­scious yet inde­pen­dent exis­tence; you com­plete this cir­cuit of life, end­ing now as a ful­ly con­scious being seek­ing to tran­scend your inde­pen­dent state and so become one with the One. And, in the next turn­ing of the wheel, you will go forth again to seek, learn and under­stand your­self and your world once more, but at a new, high­er lev­el of participation.

Your jour­ney is not a line, nor is it a circle…it is a spi­ral of life-con­scious­ness-spir­it, and you have many turns around the wheel to mas­ter your human form. Each time you begin in Aries you draw from the well of your past (kar­ma) of already devel­oped fac­ul­ties as a base to sup­port you. You then devel­op and add to these gifts dur­ing your jour­ney around the wheel of life till you reach the final moment of Pisces.…before you begin again.

Just as in life after life, we also grow from year to year. Now at the last New Moon of the year you must reap what you have sowed. You must col­lect and har­vest the trea­sure of your expe­ri­ences and dis­till them into the essence that is your spir­i­tu­al under­stand­ing. This is the har­vest of your soul’s jour­ney; it is the gift you pass onto to your­self as you pre­pare to begin the jour­ney again.

So, at this New Moon remem­ber where you have come from, hon­or what you have learned, and now face your future with imag­i­na­tion, faith and joy that is your birthright as one of sparks of the Divine. Shine on!