What’s that? Is that a “bump” in your think­ing now…or, “Uh oh! Is that a wall”? Bet­ter be pre­pared to stop (and piv­ot) because Her­mes just got tripped up by the “old one”. That’s right, your “mind is meet­ing mat­ter” in the form of Sat­urn the teacher, “the ancient of days”, and you bet­ter have your home­work done.

Mer­cury is swim­ming through Can­cer, let­ting thoughts flow, swirl and dance in the waters of feel­ing-thoughts. Being spon­ta­neous just feels so right; and if it feels good, then you will just say it! But Sat­urn would like a word or two with you.

Sat­urn in Libra is remind­ing Mer­cury that some­times spontaneity…hurts. When you just say what­ev­er, unfil­tered, well…although you may feel fine, the par­ty on the oth­er end may not. Saturn/Libra reminds you that you have to con­sid­er the nature of the rela­tion­ship, the feel­ings of the oth­er, before you “share”.

It’s not as if Sat­urn wants you to stop talking…he just wants you to stop and think before you end up sound­ing as if you lack feeling…which, of course is the oppo­site of what you are try­ing to do!

This square of Mer­cury with Sat­urn is call­ing upon you to adjust your need to be true to your feelings/thoughts with your equal need to be con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers. Now, where is the harm in that?

The wheel turns…and the Fourth Door opens. A New Sea­son of Ener­gies, Expe­ri­ences and Con­scious­ness begins. Walk across the thresh­old into the New World…But as you do you will pause, “this is famil­iar, I have felt this way before”. Indeed, for you have “Squared the Cir­cle”, you are com­ing home; you will enter the waters and remember…this is what I have need­ed, “I want to feel, I need to be whole again”.

Wel­come to Can­cer the first of the Water Signs, the sec­ond of the Car­di­nal Signs. In Aries, Spir­it comes into the mate­r­i­al world to be (in Fire), it is the Incar­na­tion. In Tau­rus, Spir­it stretch­es itself into forms of real­i­ty (in Earth), it is the Sub­stan­ti­a­tion. In Gem­i­ni, Spir­it extends itself by con­nec­tiv­i­ty with­in and with­out (in Air), it is the Dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion.

Now is Can­cer’s time, Spir­it moves through the Waters as you feel your way to the roots of your expe­ri­ence in the world, it is the Cen­ter­ing. You can only go so far in extend­ing your­self before you must “bend back”, to relate what you have expe­ri­enced to that which gives it meaning…you must become famil­iar with it. You must secure your­self and your expe­ri­ence to the roots of your being and so deep­en your real­iza­tion that you are “one with­in the One”.

Your first expe­ri­ence of this long­ing is found in the fam­i­ly, in the home. Every soul needs to feel a con­nec­tion to some core expe­ri­ence. For many souls, this feel­ing will be first (and per­haps only) expe­ri­enced in the imme­di­ate fam­i­ly, in the tribe, or local group. But as your spir­it unfolds you will find sim­i­lar and wider expe­ri­ences in the con­nec­tions found in eth­nic­i­ty, in reli­gion, in cul­ture and beliefs.

To belong, to feel a part of some­thing larg­er than one­self is cru­cial to your sta­bil­i­ty. You need to feel anchored, con­nect­ed to some­thing that places your life and expe­ri­ence into a con­text of mean­ing and con­ti­nu­ity. You feel the need for nur­tur­ing (which you will return by nur­tur­ing oth­ers) and you find it in your first cir­cle of care, your Moth­er and Father.

But as you jour­ney you will extend this sense of care and con­nec­tion to and from many forms of life expe­ri­ence. That is because your true home, your true Mother/Father, is the One Spir­it, with­in which you exist as a spark of that Divine. You are a sojourn­er in these worlds, accom­pa­nied by and part of this glo­ri­ous host of shin­ning ones.

You left your home long ago, and many are the steps in your jour­ney, many homes that you will call home, ’till you come togeth­er at the end of the ages with your Mother/Father again.

So, wel­come back to Can­cer, time to feel your way now…Center your­self, nour­ish your­self and oth­ers. Remem­ber how good this feels… to be home, again!

Wheeeeeeeee.…now we are mov­ing! There is no “faster” sign in the Zodi­ac; and with Mars rul­ing motion, you are skip­ping along as you show your agili­ty, your nim­ble quick­ness, and your way with wit. From now till August 3, it is time to stretch those sinews of body and mind a show that you…can.

Mars likes to move, so he is very hap­py to be som­er­sault­ing through the airy spaces of Gem­i­ni. Air is the ele­ment of the mind; you lead now with your head. Think­ing, com­mu­ni­cat­ing, and net­work­ing will all cre­ate new path­ways with­in and with­out; this is a time to cel­e­brate your ini­tia­tive, ener­getic mind.

There is elec­tric­i­ty in the air now, and every­one is dash­ing off in many direc­tions, chas­ing mul­ti­ple pos­si­bil­i­ties. So remem­ber to pause for a breather before skip­ping off on anoth­er adventure.

Gem­i­ni likes a good debate, and cou­pled with Mars things could get over­heat­ed. So, always remem­ber to tem­per your eager voice with con­sid­er­ate hear­ing. It is per­fect­ly fine to be enthu­si­as­tic about what you believe to be true…but you may not have all the facts, espe­cial­ly if you have not made an effort to listen.

Deep, deep div­ing ahead…You bet­ter get ready to go “beyond the beyond” today because when Her­mes meets Hades, well some­thing is going to emerge, a mat­ter is com­ing to the surface…the vol­cano will erupt, and you bet­ter be pre­pared to open your mind.

This is the cli­max of the Mercury/Pluto cycle and it will come to you in a vis­i­ta­tion (or con­fronta­tion) by anoth­er whose point of view, posi­tion or beliefs are not aligned with yours. There is a real dif­fer­ence here; and with Plu­to it could turn ugly as a strug­gle is pressed towards the zero-sum option, win or lose, or more like­ly MAD (Mutu­al­ly Assured Destruc­tion) of right thinking.

This time the issue will be posed as a con­fronta­tion between Cancer/Capricorn: between home vs. career, between secu­ri­ty vs. respon­si­bil­i­ty, between feel­ing vs. duty. The truth to be revealed will be found by inte­grat­ing these expe­ri­ences; val­i­dat­ing both sides since each is essen­tial to the other.

Your chal­lenge, of course, as always, is real­ly not “out there”; it is not with the oth­er but with­in your­self that you must be con­cerned. If some­one, or some­thing has got­ten a hold on you, become a fix­a­tion (or obsession)…well, yes, then there is a prob­lem, and it is only being revealed out­ward­ly by this confrontation.

So do not raise your voice in anger, do not dig your­self a deep­er whole of com­pul­sion, defen­sive­ness or fear. First, out­ward­ly if you can, (or inward­ly), thank your “oppo­nent” for this gift, this oppor­tu­ni­ty which brought the issue to fullness.

Then turn your mind’s eye around, back upon your­self, by using the gift of Plu­to, the pow­er of your will. Let Hades lead you down into the cat­a­combs of your mind, to your assump­tions, your opin­ions, your bias­es and compulsions…let Plu­to strip you down. There, the watch­er wait­ing, your high­er self, will show you that the only way to truth is through humil­i­ty, open­ness and love. The only strug­gle that you have for con­trol is with your low­er self.

Dive deep pil­grim, down into the dark and ancient depths of your inner sanc­tum. There, in the appar­ent dark­ness, there burns the bright­est light, your guid­ing star.…it is the watch­er who is always wait­ing for you.

You will find your answer, and your spir­it will be renewed in the waters of that greater under­stand­ing. You will cross anoth­er thresh­old, as your jour­ney con­tin­ues by your deep­er ded­i­ca­tion to the one injunc­tion, “Know Thyself”! 

All right, ready? Dive, dive, dive!

Mer­cury rounds a cor­ner and crash­es into Uranus. Look out! Uranus will excite your mind, push you beyond the ordi­nary; you might just think, and then shout out…anything! Yes, it will be excep­tion­al. Yes it will shock. But does it lead to growth and understanding?

Mer­cury is sail­ing through Can­cer now; the mind is focused upon secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty, of find­ing and stay­ing with­in a “com­fort zone”. But Uranus rep­re­sents the “unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry”, the undis­cov­ered that beck­ons the pio­neer with­in you. It calls to you and rais­es the ban­ner of Free­dom, Inde­pen­dence and Originality.

Mer­cury is call­ing you home­ward; Uranus is urg­ing you to break from “famil­iar”. Okay, so now what do you do? Well, you must see the way through of course. Both are speak­ing truth, of a “way to be”…But the “Way of Becom­ing”, the high­er path, the Truth, requires that you not choose one or the oth­er but find the Way of Inte­gra­tion, of hon­or­ing both of course.

You must come from some­where; you must belong and be part of a greater whole. Fam­i­ly, tribe, neighborhood…your belong­ing pro­vides con­text, binds you back to the roots of your exis­tence. Mer­cury in Can­cer now sings this song of your truth.

You are becom­ing some­thing more, unfold­ing from with­in your­self your “self­ness”, your spe­cial song with­in the great song of Spir­it. To do this you must jour­ney forth and become unique, special…find your own voice. You must become indi­vid­u­at­ed, individualized…yet not “sep­a­rat­ed” from your roots. Uranus in Aries now sings this song of your truth.

The One Truth is that each truth here, Root­ed­ness and Free­dom, can­not be with­out the oth­er. The Truth, your truth, must be the dance of life that cel­e­brates bal­ance in your con­duct in this world.

If you cling to the famil­iar over­much, you will not grow or be pre­pared for the chal­lenges and changes which are part of your jour­ney. If you too adamant­ly rebel against any lim­i­ta­tion, your dis­so­nance will bring only way­ward­ness, alien­ation and loss of meaning.

The chal­lenge for you here is to “not choose”, to nei­ther cling or to break, but to take the high­er path of under­stand­ing. The “mid­dle path”, the “Noble Path” is the path of the spir­i­tu­al war­rior. The bat­tle is always with­in one­self as you seek to over­come the illu­sion of “this or that” and so cre­ate your path to a high­er, more illu­mined lev­el of being.

Sing pil­grim, sing your spe­cial song, that is deeply root­ed, yet beau­ti­ful­ly (because indi­vid­u­al­ly) mod­u­lat­ed, in the great cho­rus that is Spirit.

Sing your song!