Go out! Look up tonight! Yes, it is big! Tidal forces are push­ing, pulling and churn­ing; your feel­ings are strong and emo­tions run high. Not only is it a Full Moon, but the Moon is close to its Perigee, as close to the Earth as it can be. Yes, this is anoth­er instance of what has been called a “Super Moon”, so Mate­r­i­al forces and their effects, (which may depend upon such phys­i­cal mea­sure­ments), will “weigh in”, literally.

But let us keep our focus upon the Spiritual/Metaphysical mes­sages that are revealed by the dance of our com­pan­ions in the heavens.

Here we have the Sun in Aries while the Moon and Earth are in Libra. This first Full Moon of the Astro­log­i­cal year is a rev­e­la­tion about the pri­ma­ry expe­ri­ence of your spir­i­tu­al real­i­ty, of self and oth­er; it is all about your under­stand­ing of “you”, and how that “you” is reflect­ed in your relationships.

Aries and Libra are the signs of the equinox­es, of equal days and nights. They rep­re­sent a time that speaks to the need to under­stand the bal­anced beau­ty of the plan­e­tary pageant. Your jour­ney is to under­stand and work with and through these ener­gies of the Uni­verse. The first les­son is Aries which her­alds the ascen­sion of the self, of “I”-ness. Libra, its coun­ter­point marks the entrance to the expe­ri­ence of oth­er, of “We”-ness.

You have been mov­ing through Aries now and your focus has had to be on you, your­self, on “I”. But, if Aries becomes too strong, becomes unbal­anced, then you will begin to cre­ate a life that is sep­a­rate and devoid of mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship. So, the Uni­verse pro­vides the rem­e­dy, the reminder, and the Libra Moon shines upon you now.

Libra beck­ons with the gen­tle smile that says you are nev­er alone nor can you act as if you are. You came from the One, as did All of Cre­ation. Your whole jour­ney is about growth, it is about mean­ing. And with­out rela­tion­ship, well with­out “that” there can be no growth or meaning.

So remem­ber at this Full Moon, rejoice that you are an “I”. Then turn and look into the eyes of anoth­er and smile and be thank­ful that you are not alone and say I AM THAT, I AM.

This is one of the sig­na­ture align­ments I exam­ined in the overview for 2011 that is occur­ring in Oba­ma’s chart and in the chart for the Unit­ed States. This is what I wrote then:

Uranus Square Venus (Apr. 12, Oct. 16, Jan. 31, 2012)
Oba­ma has his Venus in Can­cer at just under 2° of Can­cer; the Unit­ed States has its Venus at just over 3° of Can­cer. Just as in 2010, when Sat­urn passed over Venus for both, so too this year Uranus will tran­sit their Venus’ togeth­er. The Sat­urn tran­sit was dif­fi­cult since it cre­at­ed a feel­ing of a lack of self-worth, a lack of val­ue which results in all sorts of prob­lems for rela­tion­ships. But in the end it serves to clar­i­fy what is more valu­able with­in and around us. Uranus is a very dif­fer­ent ener­gy; cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent kind of chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for the US and Obama.

Just as the Uranus tran­sit to the US Venus calls for a new under­stand­ing and expres­sion of Amer­i­can val­ues, so too does this mean that this tran­sit to Oba­ma’s Venus calls upon him to ful­fill his role as a leader whose pur­pose is to artic­u­late those chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties we face now.

Uranus Shocks
Uranus is not gen­tle, espe­cial­ly when it is form­ing, as it is here, a “hard” aspect; it opens up new path­ways and pos­si­bil­i­ties through shocks, sur­pris­es and upsets. Often­times its ini­tial effect can appear as a loss, it requires a sac­ri­fice, but its true pur­pose is to break up the old forms of val­ue, (to release the spir­it of val­ue from a more lim­it­ed form of being), so that spirit/life may cre­ate new forms of val­ue which are to be expe­ri­enced, (in this case, most impor­tant­ly, in our rela­tion­ships to one anoth­er and to oth­er nations, the 7th House).

The chal­lenge of Uranus is met by being open and wel­com­ing of change; Uranus serves to break up old pat­terns that have sti­fled the flow of spir­it and there­by cre­ate con­di­tions for a new order. The dan­ger is that the upset or chal­lenge will be expe­ri­enced as some­thing to fear; reac­tion sets in that actu­al­ly brings about more painful shocks and adjust­ments that could have been more man­age­able had the ener­gy been allowed to do its work. The oppor­tu­ni­ty of work­ing with Uranus is that by being open to new forms and expres­sions of val­ue, the per­son or enti­ty can keep unfold­ing their spir­i­tu­al potential.

Spir­i­tu­al Law
Spir­it must take on form; it must lim­it itself and become some “thing” in order to be any­thing on the earth plane. But that form is lim­it­ed and will even­tu­al­ly lose its mean­ing, its relevance.…its beau­ty. So, the form must be tran­scend­ed so that Spir­it can rein­car­nate into a new form of expres­sion. This process is one of the most fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al laws that gov­ern our universe.

We do and must try to pro­tect, pre­serve and pass down these forms of val­ue as long as we can. How­ev­er, whether in great forms of art, or beau­ti­ful forms of human inter­re­la­tion­ship, even in our per­son­al val­ues, prin­ci­ples and laws, at some point the par­tic­u­lar form must be tran­scend­ed; spir­it must be free to form anew. One of the prin­ci­ple agents of such release and ref­or­ma­tion is Uranus.

Uranus and our Chal­lenge
The chal­lenge of Uranus in Aries to Venus in Can­cer is to re-define how we find or cre­ate secu­ri­ty in our lives, all the while our world is in the midst of great changes, (Even greater than we might at first imag­ine. I will come back again to this theme of the epic changes ahead, but just know that we have not faced changes as great as this for over 200 years).

If we stay attached to the exist­ing forms because we are afraid, we will suf­fer. If we re-affirm the spir­it that cre­at­ed those forms, we can find a way to renew our sense val­ue at the cen­ter of our lives, and so forge a new base of secu­ri­ty to stand upon. When the form is break­ing apart, we must get back to the spir­it behind the form; we need to go back to root ener­gies and so restore and re-affirm our spir­i­tu­al truth in renewed forms.  

Venus
Uranus is chal­leng­ing and break­ing up the old forms of Venus in Can­cer. Venus is the plan­et that binds us to one anoth­er through our shared val­ues, whose purest and truest expres­sion is found in our love for one anoth­er. In any soci­ety and cul­ture, what binds us to one anoth­er as a peo­ple is what we cre­ate with one anoth­er and share with one anoth­er. In any sys­tem, there are ener­gies hold­ing it togeth­er and forces pulling it apart. What holds us togeth­er is our love for what we share in as a people.

Venus and Amer­i­ca
With Venus in Can­cer, Amer­i­cans come togeth­er in our love of the indi­vid­ual, and the sacred­ness and dig­ni­ty that forms our dri­ving spir­it of self-deter­mi­na­tion. Our myth is the sto­ry of the jour­ney of the indi­vid­ual to dis­cov­er and con­nect to their root ener­gies, to be cen­tered upon one’s true self, and so be empow­ered to go forth and ful­fill his or her des­tiny. The spir­it of rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism has been giv­en form in our idyl­lic imagery of “the pio­neer”, of “the inven­tor”, of the “per­son of con­science”, which is ground­ed in our fun­da­men­tal belief that one per­son can (and does) make a dif­fer­ence. These and many oth­er images are at the core of every Amer­i­can’s belief in the essen­tial worth of the individual.

Yet, at the same time, with our Moon in Aquar­ius (and so the ruler of our Venus), we have had to acknowl­edge that an indi­vid­ual can­not find them­selves, they can­not be ful­filled, they can­not be “free” to do what­ev­er they wish, because an indi­vid­ual can­not have a life of mean­ing and pur­pose with­out sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tions with oth­er indi­vid­u­als. Here, in Amer­i­ca, we came togeth­er, as our founders stat­ed in the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, and freely chose to cre­ate a new soci­ety and in order to do so “… we mutu­al­ly pledge to each oth­er our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor.”

Venus, Rela­tion­ship and Our Sac­ri­fice
We are formed in and find our mean­ings through what we share with one anoth­er. We are not so dif­fer­ent from one anoth­er, real­ly. Our needs and wants find expres­sion in cer­tain forms because of the cul­ture and sub-cul­tures we find our­selves in. The devel­op­ment of our “unique” self is only pos­si­ble because of our well-matched capac­i­ty to sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. This is the core of the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence of val­ue: that to be one­self and be free is found­ed upon a love of one anoth­er, that we pledge our alle­giance to one anoth­er, and so we are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for one another.

The word sac­ri­fice means lit­er­al­ly “to make sacred”. Sac­ri­fice is the key to love and self-ful­fill­ment. We make an offer­ing; we give up some­thing in order to achieve some­thing. We seek to become bet­ter than we were before. To sup­port one anoth­er in our own indi­vid­ual strug­gle to become what we wish to become, we must come togeth­er and sac­ri­fice to one anoth­er. We affirm our indi­vid­ual worth in our union which is based upon our shared val­ues. We affirm, strength­en and expand these core val­ues as we give up our attach­ment to less­er things.

Uranus and Our Sac­ri­fice Now
This has always been the chal­lenge of a cre­at­ing a “free” soci­ety. To ful­fill our­selves we must sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. Uranus Squar­ing our Venus (and Oba­ma’s) is remind­ing us that we must face our chal­lenges now in a spir­it of mutu­al under­stand­ing; and that requires the sac­ri­fice of our less­er alle­giances and our less­er val­ues. We need to be remind­ed, reaf­firm and make a real sac­ri­fice for our core val­ues that have bound us, formed us and guid­ed us. We need to restate our under­stand­ing of these core val­ues so that we are clear as to what it is that we stand upon with one another.

We need lead­ers who artic­u­late the truth that every one of us must sac­ri­fice if we are to meet the chal­lenges that lie ahead. For Oba­ma, for the lead­ers in Con­gress, for the lead­ers in the many agen­cies and insti­tu­tions of our gov­ern­ment, for busi­ness and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and for each and every one of us who seek to under­stand, inspire and guide us through this time, we all must free our­selves from our old reac­tive val­u­a­tions and refresh our expe­ri­ence of what is of most val­ue between us.

Oba­ma’s Sac­ri­fice
Oba­ma’s chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty is to be the leader who sets the exam­ple of what we need to become now. He will have to show his will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice some of his val­ues in order to dis­play courage and lead­er­ship. He must call each of us to those sac­ri­fices that will lead to a “new world”.

As it has been said before, “Beat­en paths are for beat­en men”. We need pathfind­ers now, we need lead­ers who have courage and chal­lenge us to rise above our dif­fer­ences and sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er… because we are one anoth­er. Uranus to Venus says renew your love for one anoth­er, because you will need one anoth­er if you are to meet the chal­lenge of your destiny.

The forces that are lin­ing up in the next sev­er­al years rival those at our found­ing over 200 years ago. We are at the end of age (which also means we are at the dawn of a new age). We must allow our­selves to be filled with the spir­it of under­stand­ing, to be inspired now to choose to turn to one anoth­er, again, and pledge “our lives, our for­tunes and our sacred honor”.

Turn, turn, turn… Mer­cury comes back to Jupiter for the sec­ond of 3 encoun­ters. This cycle start­ed on March 15 when Mer­cury first passed over Jupiter. Now it pass­es over while mov­ing in ret­ro­grade. The final pass will be May 11. The com­plete cycle offers anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-align your low­er mind with your high­er mind, your intel­li­gence and your intuition.

Think of this dance as if watch­ing a three act play. The first act in March announced the major theme of Intel­li­gence-Wis­dom, of “facts” vs.“truth” that would play out over the next 2 months. The issues and ques­tions were revealed so as to be considered.

Now, in Act II the dra­ma is clear; the dichoto­my and polar­iza­tion are laid before you now. The low­er mind cleaves to the “facts” which are true giv­en the prism through which the issue is viewed. The argu­ment is unas­sail­able; the rea­son­ing is sound…ipso facto.

But the Intu­itive Mind replies, “Facts are not things in them­selves, they are cre­at­ed by your point of view”. To tru­ly under­stand you must go to the roots of your under­stand­ing and exam­ine your assump­tions, your prin­ci­ples. Your aware­ness is a jour­ney of pierc­ing through many veils, many lev­els of under­stand­ing. At each lev­el, you believe you see it all now, but there are many, many veils to pass through to get to the One, to the heart of truth. 

Your low­er mind retorts, “facts are true”. The Intu­itive Mind replies that the word “fact” comes from the Latin “Facere” to make and “Fac­tum” as in a thing done. It is where the words arti­fice (and arti­fi­cial), fac­to­ry and man­u­fac­ture come from. The Intu­ition knows that facts are made. How­ev­er, what is true is that facts are like a series of steps you must lit­er­al­ly make in order to move from knowl­edge to wisdom.

The Lower/Rational mind resists; “this is truth, it is the world as it is”. The Intu­itive Mind replies, “It is the world as it appears to you, it is ‘true’ for you” for now.” But you will grow; you will under­stand and so real­ize that the mea­sure of wis­dom is found in the devel­op­ment and depth of your humility.

As you come to seek the guid­ance of those who have walked the Path of Truth, you imag­ine the Wis­dom Teach­ers as per­fect­ed beings endowed with the full­ness of Truth. They watch over you, look upon you, and smile gen­tly and say, “No, we have not nor will we find an end to this search for Truth till the end of days, and even then, who can say”.

Look with­in your­self to The Teacher, to the Watch­er, who reminds you that there is but one injunc­tion that all must fol­low, “Walk on”.

Warn­ing! Warn­ing! … This is not an easy one to handle!

Mars rules Desire/Action; Plu­to rules Will/Control. When plan­ets are in a square to one anoth­er the ener­gies are not com­bin­ing effort­less­ly; there is stress, strain and some­thing’s going to hap­pen. And when it hap­pens with these two, well let’s just say we humans are still work­ing on get­ting these ener­gies right. It is not that there is “bad” ener­gy (or bad plan­ets); it is just that it takes time to acquire that “greater under­stand­ing” to work with the cre­ative pow­ers of Desire and Will.

When­ev­er there is a square you are faced with a choice. Some­times you don’t under­stand or want to face the chal­lenge. Or, if it con­cerns anoth­er, maybe they can­not, or will not, work with you. The sit­u­a­tion may not lead to a greater under­stand­ing, but instead stum­bles into pain, suf­fer­ing and loss.

What is the choice/challenge here? Mars is in Aries, its “own” sign. Mars is dri­ving for­ward with an ide­al­is­tic, insis­tent ener­gy of being pure­ly one­self; it is that pure Life-Force-Song that bursts forth to exclaim “I am” as you dance the dance of life incarnate.

Plu­to is in Capri­corn, the sign of order, tra­di­tion and real­i­ty. It is the force of will and con­trol now focused through the neces­si­ty of Author­i­ty and Tra­di­tion. Plu­to is here the Avatar of the man­i­fest­ed real­i­ty; the will that holds togeth­er the Life-Force-Song that has found self-real­iza­tion in matter.

The chal­lenge is to be true to your­self, to your ideals and dreams, but how to do this with­in the con­text of a real­i­ty that seems to be thwart­ing your progress? Do you just dri­ve ahead any­way and maybe crash and burn? Or should you just give way to the sta­tus quo, for­go your quest, and be untrue to your­self? What to do? If you push ahead you risk caus­ing injury to your­self or oth­ers. If you hold back, you fail to ful­fill your pur­pose which is to grow. It seems either way you will lose. But there is always a “third way”, it is the Way of Under­stand­ing.

You must pay homage to both ener­gies, for they are both true. You must not, you can­not, choose between them. Instead, you must find the Noble Path, the one true road; that is the “mid­dle way” of inte­gra­tion. You can and must inte­grate both ener­gies because each in fact depends upon the oth­er for its very exis­tence. The very reality/structure that Plu­to is uphold­ing was cre­at­ed by the insis­tent, ide­al­is­tic ener­gies of Mars long ago. And, the Root-Source for those dreams of Mars springs from the Seed-Forms embod­ied in that which was passed down by your ances­tors. They and now you made this “real­i­ty”. You must accept the respon­si­bil­i­ty to hon­or their sac­ri­fice and now add to the song of  Life-Spirit.

Take the Mid­dle Path. Move with your Aries ener­gies through the forms of real­i­ty and bring into them a new and greater under­stand­ing. Do this cre­ative­ly, with love and com­pas­sion and know that this has always been the way. You are Spir­it. You are Mat­ter. The illu­sion is your expe­ri­ence of sep­a­ra­tion. The Truth is the Move­ment, the Dance of Life, of Spirit/Matter. Dance the dance of Cre­ation which knows that Free­dom is to be found in the Now.

To walk the Noble Path, to take the path of under­stand­ing, the first step is accep­tance. What is before you, what seems to be in your way, is of your cre­ation. You made it, you can (and will) change it. The only ques­tion is, will you change it con­scious­ly, and so tru­ly embrace the Song of Spir­it which sings “I am THAT, I AM.”

Wait for it… yes, your answer is here. You’ve been try­ing to under­stand some­thing impor­tant since Mer­cury turned ret­ro­grade on March 30th. Now there is an offer­ing from the stars.

Actu­al­ly, you could say that ever since Mer­cury aligned with the Sun on Feb­ru­ary 25 (like a Full Moon), you’ve been mov­ing towards this new begin­ning. This is the mid­point of the Mer­cury ret­ro­grade cycle. This align­ment with the Sun is like a New Moon, so there is a new release of ener­gy and understanding.

Since this align­ment is in Aries, it is an answer to the ques­tion about your “pres­ence” in the world. You’ve been reflect­ing, review­ing and reex­am­in­ing how you appear to oth­ers. The way in which you hold your­self and project your­self into the world has been the main top­ic or point behind many oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges that you face now.

Maybe it is just the real­iza­tion that your hair/makeup/clothing style needs a makeover. Or, more impor­tant­ly, maybe it is an adjust­ment in your atti­tude. This is the moment to get your answer. If it seems as if your old look or old ways don’t seem to be get­ting you to where you want to go, well, it’s time to re-boot your presence.

Lis­ten for the mes­sage from Her­mes. Turn and look into your mir­ror of life. Then, take a step beyond appear­ances and cre­ate a per­sona that reflects the real you. Work on it till April 23, when Mer­cury turns direct. Then move outward/forward through your re-imag­ined presence.

What you see is what they get. Make it right.