This is the first of two Solar Eclipses this year. Here is what I wrote in my Gen­er­al Forecast:

Solar Eclipse in Tau­rus (May 9)

The first of two Solar Eclipses this year as the Moon crosses
the face of the Sun, but because of the Moon’s dis­tance from the Earth, it will
not com­plete­ly block the Sun so that there will be a “Ring of Fire”
of the Sun’s light around the Moon’s shad­ow. This type of align­ment is called
an annu­lar eclipse (annu­lus means “bright ring”). This near­ly total
eclipse will be vis­i­ble in North­ern Aus­tralia and the South Pacif­ic and here is
a map of its path. Here
is an ani­ma­tion show­ing how the Eclipse will move across the Earth.

The mes­sage of the Tau­rus Solar Eclipse is cen­tered again upon
the ques­tion of val­ue, but this spe­cial New Moon will release a deeper
under­stand­ing as regards your under­stand­ing about the nature of true
val­ue, how it aris­es, grows and is sustained…The answer, quite sim­ply, is
that it is to be found in your expe­ri­ence of your Self. It is this, your
“trea­sure in heav­en”, that you take with you from life to life, and
all the efforts you put in to bet­ter your­self today will be there as a gift to
your­self in this life and in life after life.  

This
align­ment of Sun, Moon and Earth is a beau­ti­ful demon­stra­tion of how the
Ener­gies and Forms of your Uni­verse are embraced with­in a Greater Whole, and
how each finds Mean­ing and Sup­port in their intri­cate pat­terns that form and
informs their rela­tion­ship with one anoth­er. Of course, you and they are
con­stant­ly engaged in this Song and Dance of Spir­it, but in a Solar Eclipse you
can actu­al­ly wit­ness this won­drous exam­ple of how you on Earth and these Worlds
around you are bound with one anoth­er in a great com­pa­ny of Forces, Forms and Formations
as you jour­ney in these Spaces of Space together.

Every New Moon pro­vides a release
of Spir­i­tu­al Inspi­ra­tion to help you under­stand the next step in your journey
of Self-Becom­ing. But an Eclipsed New Moon car­ries an even deep­er, more
mys­ti­cal mes­sage for you. The Sun is the Bear­er of your Infi­nite Poten­tial, it
is your Pure Being that is Becom­ing by mov­ing into and through these realms of
Self-Real­iza­tion. The Moon is the bear­er of your past which you stand upon and
draw from in life after life. But Luna’s Ancient Offer­ings are often entangled
and enmeshed with unseen, non-inte­grat­ed and uncon­scious ele­ments whose effects
will often man­i­fest as pat­terns (Emo­tion­al Com­plex­es) that inevitably create
obsta­cles and bur­dens for your journey.

The Eclipse of the Sun,
aligned for you so per­fect­ly with the Moon, focus­es the Solar Rays so that they
burn through these Karmic Shad­ows, illu­mi­nat­ing for you what was beyond your
ordi­nary pow­ers of per­cep­tion. This may of course, as indeed it should,
Pre­cip­i­tate or bring into Illu­mined Activ­i­ty that very Karmic Pat­tern. This
will bring about, prob­a­bly as it must, very painful mem­o­ries as well as
chal­leng­ing re-enact­ments of these trou­bled Energy-Forms…But it is also by so
doing the way by which you can ascend to your Greater Understanding…For your
Inte­gra­tion and Redemp­tion of these buried trea­sures, that were caught within
these Ancient and most like­ly Self-Destruc­tive pat­terns, can only be
accom­plished by remov­ing your Self-Cast Shad­ows so that you can re-integrate
these Ener­gies into more devel­oped Forms of Self-Realization.

What then is the core mes­sage of this Eclipse in Tau­rus? The
prin­ci­ple mes­sage that Tau­rus car­ries for you is that your source and measure
of val­ue is with­in you, it lies with­in your heart of hearts, it is your spark
of the Divine Flame you know as your High­er Self or the Beloved…it is your “Trea­sure
in Heav­en”. But between you the Pil­grim seek­ing to be reunit­ed and to
dwell in this Place of Beau­ty and Peace, with the Spark of the Divine abid­ing in Eternal
and Uncon­di­tion­al Love, between you and your Des­tiny there is the Great Work, of
lift­ing your­self up and through these forms that Veil you from your Self. For
you will often find your­self so Enam­ored and Glam­ored by these Mate­r­i­al Forms
you jour­ney through, you for­get who and what you tru­ly are…These Forms permit
you to move in these Realms of Mat­ter, but you become lost as in a World of Mirrors,
catch­ing the Light of the Spir­it in only Refract­ed and Bro­ken Forms…

But if
you would but open your Heart, and Lift your Eyes beyond your Self-Cast Shadows
you would see-through into that clear­er Sacred Space…And to help you in this,
these great Lords of Time and Space Dance and Sing, they bestow their combined
ener­gies like beam­ing bright lights, which dis­pel those refract­ed and Illusional
appear­ances so that you can find your way…So that you may make your way
Illu­mined, Lov­ing and Free…

This
is what a Solar Eclipse is for…

It
is intend­ed to shake you to your core.

To
make you sit up and take notice.

To remind
you from whence you came…

And to
where you must journey.

It
is your Ser­vant and Liberator…

Light­ing the Way…

For you, the Pil­grim, reach­ing for the Stars.

Venus leaves her Earthy and Luxuriant
home realm of Taurus…and your appre­ci­a­tion, enjoy­ment and indul­gences in the
Beau­ty of your phys­i­cal world will now yield to a dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence and expression
of your sensibilities…Venus moves from Earth to Air, and with Gem­i­ni the
delights that mat­ter will reside in and flow from and to your Mind as you share
your expe­ri­ences, thoughts and ideas with one another.

Gem­i­ni delights in com­par­i­son and
con­trast, in curiosi­ties and the delights of Diver­si­ty. Your tastes are going
to reach out, whether in Music or Food, in Friend­ship and in Love, as the
ordi­nary will give way to the extra­or­di­nary, to expand­ing and appre­ci­at­ing the
deli­cious vari­ety that your world has to offer.

For the next three weeks, you will bend
and stretch, com­pare and con­trast and jug­gle the delights of the Rain­bows of
Val­ue, Beau­ty and Love in your world. You will dis­cov­er new sensibilities,
dis­cuss and debate and share with one another…because this is your time to let
a thou­sand flow­ers bloom.

With the Eyes of a Child…

With Won­der and Amazement…

Cel­e­brate you and your world…

Sur­round­ed in Beauty.

Think-Speak-Act…Quick…Now!

There is no delay, there is no
time to pause and reflect, no time to talk it over (and per­haps to
re-consider)…and there­in lies your error, for this is the problem…this is
your les­son now (and always).

When Mer­cury the Messenger
aligns with Mars the Pas­sion­ate, well let’s just say that your mind or mouth
can get ahead of your bet­ter inten­tions. The excite­ment or urgency (or anger
and frus­tra­tion) will bub­ble forth and over­pow­er your mind and dis­rupt your
com­mu­ni­ca­tions and lead to errors in judg­ment and/or the break­down of social
sen­si­bil­i­ties and graces…

So you need to dou­ble-down on
your cir­cum­spec­tion today…Though you will feel some­what over­whelmed by this
insis­tent and urgent ener­gy, push­ing you to let it out, you must instead
restrain those men­tal enthu­si­asms (as well as bite your lip and hold your
tongue), and turn this ener­gy back in on itself. You can instead use this
won­der­ful infu­sion to con­sid­er the nature of your expe­ri­ence of Thought and
Desire, of how you weave your way in that per­son­al dance of Mind and Action.

For that is what this
align­ment is for, and that is what all of these align­ments can bring to you,
for they are tru­ly the Sym­bol­ic Lessons of Life, sweep­ing across the
heavens…and you must encounter and mas­ter them all as part of your Spiritual
Journey…For this very rea­son, there are no “bad” aspects (or planets),
it is real­ly how you learn about, and come to be a Mas­ter of, the ener­gies that
are tru­ly with­in and sur­round you too. 

The ener­gies
of this par­tic­u­lar aspect, if your under­stand­ing and will are lack­ing, may
induce thought­less think­ing, rushed deci­sions and intem­per­ate speech, and that
is not the “fault” of either Mars or Mer­cury. It is that you have not
yet achieved enough self-mas­tery, so the ener­gies over­whelm your more normal
and accept­able behav­ior. Either you heed­less­ly have less regard and
con­sid­er­a­tion than you would for the oth­er before you, or you expe­ri­ence their
over-whelm­ing ener­gies or demands upon you. 

Rather
than forc­ing your point of view upon the oth­er, rec­og­nize that you must always
approach one anoth­er with humil­i­ty and open­ness, for you “do not know what
you do not know”, and it is quite like­ly that by engag­ing with them in a
more con­sid­er­ate dis­cus­sion you will find your own mind and thoughts achieving
a greater nuance and depth. And, if it is the oth­er who is engaged in a rather
insis­tent and one-sided debate, then let them exhaust them­selves of this energy
before you attempt to bring the mat­ter back to a more rea­son­able lev­el of
mutu­al give and take. 

You
need to always strive to become more aware of these ener­gies that flow from and
around you, to learn more about them and so har­ness them to a more
con­struc­tive, mean­ing­ful and self-affirm­ing expe­ri­ence. As always, the lesson
for you, as for all who seek to become tru­ly Wise, Lov­ing and Free, is to walk
the Noble Mid­dle Path, which can only be found by those who abide in, yet ever
strive for, greater and greater Self-Under­stand­ing and Self-Control.

Con­sid­ered
in this way, the align­ment of Mer­cury and Mars her­alds the begin­ning of your
next cycle of Thought and Action, of your Men­tal Body impart­ing new Meanings
and Mes­sages to be car­ried forth and exe­cut­ed by your Desire Body. And it is
equal­ly a Quick­en­ing for your Mind, as you will receive a new infu­sion of
Enthu­si­asm and Ener­gy by which your Thoughts may be inspired to reach to even greater
heights and depths with­in your soul, as well as spark a new Cycle of out­ward sub­stan­ti­a­tion of your Thought-in-Forms too.

The
Mean­ing and Ener­gies of this meet­ing of your Mind and Desire reside in that
most Val­ued, Sen­su­al and Sub­stan­tial realm of Tau­rus. You are offered by their
join­ing a won­der­ful chance to bring into being what you have imag­ined, wished
and longed for…to move that much clos­er to Cre­at­ing, Pre­serv­ing and Abiding
in a world of Beau­ty, Love and Understanding. 

May you
pause at this time and listen…with your Heart.

May you
begin anew to cre­ate a bet­ter world…by your Love.

And May
you come to abide in a state of Grace and Beauty…with one another.

May it be so.

Mind
informs Matter…Matter binds Mind…Mind evolves Matter…The Spi­ral Dance
repeats!

The cycle of your Mind and Real­i­ty have reached their yearly
reckoning…Six months ago you began a new cycle of bring­ing your thoughts into
what you always hope to be bet­ter forms of Self-Realization…In that realm
known as Man­as, your Spir­it through your Mind ever seeks to move, mold and
re-make the Mate­r­i­al World you call Real­i­ty. From the Ancient Wis­dom comes this
know­ing, that on one lev­el of under­stand­ing the Entire­ty of Cre­ation is just
var­i­ous States of Mind or of Con­scious­ness, that the Uni­verse is in fact the
Mind of the One.

Now you will see what you have wrought, how well and wise a Master
of Mind and Forms you have become…Now you will see your Thoughts in Matter,
see how much you have formed your Mind into Mat­ter, see how Well your Matter
reveals your Mind’s Intent…but also feel how Much your Mind is now Bound by
this Mat­ter you made too.

Much like the gen­er­al Invo­lu­tion of Spir­it into the Material
Worlds and the Evo­lu­tion of Spir­it out of Mat­ter (and so the Lift­ing of Matter
up too), your Mind must also descend into these phys­i­cal realms to realize
itself upon this plane. It does this both to grow for itself as well as to
par­tic­i­pate in the Great Work…For there is but One Life, and all Beings of
the One strive con­tin­u­ous­ly to lift them­selves up, and by so doing lift all other
forces and forms of man­i­fes­ta­tion, on and up to high­er and high­er planes of
self-realization.

You exist in an exquis­ite­ly intri­cate Hier­ar­chy of Forces and
Forms, from the Sub-Atom­ic to Galac­tic, and also and more pro­found­ly both
Inward­ly and Out­ward­ly through count­less Dimen­sions as well, and at the core of
each and every instance of these innu­mer­able Forces and Forms there resides a
Con­scious­ness-Cen­ter that is on its own end­less jour­ney of Self-Unfold­ing, of Self-Becoming…and yet at the same time each such cen­ter resides in the
Greater Con­scious­ness of the One, whose Cen­ter is Every­where and whose
Cir­cum­fer­ence is Nowhere.

In your present Human Form you expe­ri­ence this most clear­ly (yet
also most painful­ly) in your expe­ri­ence of Mind or Thought. For, “as you
Think so shall you Become”…At this stage of your Self-Becom­ing, there is
no more crit­i­cal nor dif­fi­cult “diet” for you to be on than a
“Men­tal Diet”. It is quite sim­ple to apply your­self to eat more or
less, to move more or less…but to con­trol your Mind? To nev­er, ever let your
Mind “wan­der” or be “dis­tract­ed”, or most impor­tant­ly to
nev­er let your­self dwell in “neg­a­tive” thoughts…Now that is Hard!
Very Hard Indeed…But it is most essen­tial and it is “The Work” you
must com­plete in order to “grad­u­ate” from this Earth-Bound Plane.

For most, the only option at this point in your jour­ney is to
strive for bal­ance or neu­tral­i­ty. When­ev­er a dis­turb­ing or neg­a­tive thought or
feel­ing is either direct­ed at you, or aris­es from with­in your­self, you need to
imme­di­ate­ly coun­ter­bal­ance it with a pos­i­tive thought-feel­ing so as to
reestab­lish your path towards the goal of a Free Mind…A mind that is
Obser­vant but not Judg­ing, that is Nim­ble but not Dis­tract­ed, that is
Solic­i­tous yet not Controlling…

For your Goal is to Lift your Mind so that it is Free, to raise your
Mid­dle Self and Low­er Mind and become more like Your High­er Self, To Become the
Watch­er who is Ever-Watch­ing, Ever-Learn­ing, Ever-Aspir­ing to be Freer and so
to fol­low the One True path that leads you equal­ly, for in Truth they are One,
to Wis­dom and Humility.

Today you face your Cre­ation, the thoughts you Held and Wielded
(Mer­cury) went from your­self to inform this Mate­r­i­al Realm, they flowed into
Forms and so made your present Real­i­ty (Saturn)…and you must face this
accounting.

To the extent that you were able to think well and so act freely
and lov­ing­ly, then to that same extent will you find delight and satisfaction
in what you have craft­ed. But to the extent that you were held in thrall by doubts
and fear, then to that same extent will you feel your­self weighed down by these
self-forged chains of your negativity…

But there is always hope, always. For
your High­er Self and many oth­ers watch over, guide and inspire you to try yet
again…to draw that much clos­er to them and your des­tiny, to fol­low the path that they
too fol­lowed and make your way to where you will reside with a Mind that is Free,
a Heart that is Pure and a Will that is Centered…and so you will.

For
your future is ever-unfold­ing by your own hands, heart and mind. 

For
all that is around you, you made this…long, long ago. And it is done and you
must accept what you have wrought so far… 

But
what is to be, what is to come will to a very great extent be formed by How and
What you think of today, and tomor­row and for the next mil­len­nia too…

Think
Well, Act Wisely…

and
always, always

Go with Love.

It has only been 18 days while Mer­cury dashed through the
sign of Aries, and although he is mov­ing into that much more stead­ied, focused
and won­der-filled sen­su­al realm of Tau­rus, he is still pick­ing up speed and
will only be here for 14 days before div­ing into that fris­son of fractal,
dis­tract­ing diver­si­ties found in Gemini…So, you bet­ter take advan­tage of this
respite for your body, mind and spirit…you need and deserve this!

The
pas­sage of Mer­cury in Aries was a bap­tism by Fire, of Ide­alisms and Enthusiasms
that inspired your thoughts and added urgency to your communications…But
because you have yet to mas­ter this much ener­gy as well as you will, the result
is often­times con­ducive to, shall we say, more or less errors of excess and/or
reck­less­ness. Thoughts can fly so fast (and the words and actions that then
fol­low) that you cer­tain­ly could have found your­self wish­ing for some way to
take part or all of it back…

But the Law of the Uni­verse is Fair but Final,
once you Cre­ate some­thing, for good or ill, whether they be thoughts, feelings,
words or works, you own it…and it will come back to you, and you must make
your amends…But this is how you learn, to face and under­stand Cause and
Effect…so that over-time you will acquire the Greater Aware­ness and so become
Self-Masterful.

So, take a deep breath, hold
it, and now release and relax…it is time to put your Mind and Spir­it upon a
more sta­ble and tan­gi­ble foot­ing, it is lit­er­al­ly time to get Earthy…Now you
need to take a more gen­tle, easy-going approach to what you think and how you
con­vey it…For this is Mer­cury in Tau­rus and you need to tamp down those
pas­sion­ate ideals and shin­ing visions…you need to take your mind into a more
real, prac­ti­cal and sus­tain­able space.

Fan­cy slo­gans and fiery speech­es are
all well and good, but now you need to reas­sure, pro­tect and pre­serve what is
valu­able, beau­ti­ful and good…

Now you need to fol­low the Code of the Caretakers,
for one anoth­er and for your world…

You must abide in the Way of We are all
Relat­ed, and be guid­ed by the injunc­tion, “First, do no harm”.

And then affirm and repeat the great invocation…

“Now our Minds are One!”