Green Light — Red Light… okay Uni­verse which is it? Why both, of course!

Mars Con­junct Uranus (like a New Moon) cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty to align your actions (Mars) with your true indi­vid­u­al­i­ty (Uranus). Over any peri­od of time you set­tle into “pat­terns of action” that you have man­aged to estab­lish in order to accom­plish the many tasks in your life.

These pat­terns of action/reaction can be more or less func­tion­al, but they are always lim­it­ed by the under­stand­ing you had when you cre­at­ed them. The gift of this align­ment is that Uranus (The Awak­en­er) brings in a “dif­fer­ent” or alter­na­tive point of view.

Nor­mal­ly, you would view any task or prob­lem as if you were shin­ing a light upon an object. You see that side, that approach, bright­ly lit and the only answer/path/action is the one which is appar­ent to you. But with Uranus on Mars it is as if mul­ti­ple lights are shin­ing from var­i­ous points of view, you can see that there is more than one way to approach the issue; there is more than one action you can (or should) take.

With Uranus on Mars you can see that both in the way that you approach the prob­lem, and the result­ing solu­tion, that both of these can change giv­en the insight pro­vid­ed by Uranus. You have had your blind­ers tak­en off; you have lift­ed your con­scious­ness. You can choose anoth­er, more enlight­ened way of being.

Uranus bestows this bless­ing; the free­dom to choose a truer path to ful­fill­ment.… go for it.

The Sun Oppo­site Sat­urn (like a Full Moon), is a moment of revelation/reckoning. The Sun con­tains all that you can ever be, pure poten­tial as yet unre­al­ized. To be any­thing, the ener­gy, the vision, the plan must incar­nate (on this plane) into some “thing”. And yet, by so doing, it becomes lim­it­ed by your man­i­fest­ed form (Sat­urn).

Now with the Sun oppo­site to Sat­urn you see ful­ly revealed the dif­fer­ence between the orig­i­nal impulse, idea or plan and what has come of it mate­ri­al­ly. The jux­ta­po­si­tion this time is between Saturn/Libra and Sun/Aries.

The seed-idea that was released 6 months ago was for a new devel­op­ment in your rela­tion­ship to self and oth­ers. Now you are shown the out­come of that effort. The rev­e­la­tion you now have shows you how it is that your rela­tion­ship to your­self (Sun) becomes the very foun­da­tion yet, giv­en its devel­op­ment at any one time, the very lim­it for your rela­tion­ship to the world, (and for your rela­tion­ships in the world). 

In the light of this aware­ness, re-eval­u­ate your rela­tion­ship to your­self, and to oth­ers. Under­stand you are at a turn­ing point. A cycle has end­ed, so you must stop and under­stand. A cycle has end­ed, so that means a new one has begun. You are har­vest­ing the expe­ri­ence of your self­’s jour­ney to ful­fill­ment, and there is no end to this spi­ral of energy-form.

Now take your har­vest of mean­ing and use it to cre­ate an even bet­ter rela­tion­ship to your­self and to the world.…so be it.

The first New Moon of the Astro­log­i­cal cal­en­dar! 6 out of 10 plan­ets in Fire! It does­n’t get more ener­getic than that. You should be streak­ing ahead, blaz­ing new trails, leap­ing tall…but no, wait, that’s not how it feels at all…

So, why do you feel as if things are not real­ly mov­ing for­ward? Oh, you remem­ber, maybe it’s because Mer­cury is ret­ro­grade. That’s right, you can’t go for­ward with­out turn­ing back; you have to fin­ish or fix some­thing before you leap ahead. Tie up those loose ends, dig into the fruits of your life just lived, take those seeds of yes­ter­year, and plant them in the warm­ing rays of the wax­ing sun…

Okay, well that’s it, right? Actu­al­ly, that is part of it, tru­ly, but there is a mes­sage in this New Moon itself that should make you stop, con­sid­er your path ahead care­ful­ly, before you can con­tin­ue towards your des­tiny. (And that’s a good turn of phrase, “to con­sid­er your path ahead” since that very word, “con­sid­er”, lit­er­al­ly means to be amongst (con) the stars (sider). Isn’t it mar­velous how our lan­guage speaks to us with the wis­dom of the ages, the wis­dom of the stars?)

For it so hap­pens that the pat­tern of this New Moon has the Sun and Moon oppo­site to Sat­urn. This is no sim­ple begin­ning, no sim­ple release of pure ener­gy. This begin­ning reminds you that that the uni­verse is found­ed upon a fun­da­men­tal rela­tion­ship between ener­gy and form, of ide­al and real.

The Sun and Moon have come togeth­er to release a new mes­sage that cel­e­brates the Aries truth of being “I”. It is the way of Aries to be one­self with­out restraint; you must raise your ban­ner and pro­claim “I AM!”, and so begin again as pure energy.

But Sat­urn replies; it speaks from the truth of Libra. The Lord of Time, Saturn/reality, says you are nev­er alone and your life has no mean­ing with­out con­text, with­out “the oth­er”. You are filled with poten­tial, and yet what you have so far real­ized in your present self is the prod­uct of the lives of all that have come before you. You stand upon the social-spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tion of that greater life that gave birth, sup­ports and gives mean­ing to your very exis­tence. You are, in fact, part of a great com­pa­ny of souls who have helped one anoth­er since the begin­ning of time.

So as the New Moon in Aries pro­claims a new release of self, Sat­urn reminds you to tem­per this release of pure self through the con­text of your social con­scious­ness. Cel­e­brate the release of your truer self that is the Aries Way; and hon­or The Bal­ance that is Sat­urn in Libra, by mak­ing your life mean­ing­ful through right­eous relationships. 

Things are bound to “heat up” now as Mars moves into the sign of Aries till May 11^th. The next 40 days are going to be…“exciting”. Mars rules your desires, your actions… it is the “thrust” in your life. Mars is back in its own sign, the first sign, and so begins a new cycle of action and activity.

Mars in Aries brings enthu­si­asm, ide­al­ism, and dri­ve; it cre­ates a “can-do” spir­it in your life now. You want to begin some­thing, or forge ahead in what you have already start­ed, and you will, (you must). It’s out with the old and in with the new and Mars is lead­ing the charge. But, as always, you have to know how to work with this surge of energy.

Your enthu­si­asm will feel great, but watch out for impul­sive­ness. Don’t leap with­out look­ing or you are like­ly to bang your head, lit­er­al­ly. Mars in Aries bestows this resur­gence of ener­gy, but it tends to reduce (elim­i­nate) your capac­i­ty for patience. As a result, frus­tra­tions arise because every­one is act­ing up, act­ing out, tem­pers flare, and acci­dents hap­pen. So, after the new idea pops into your head, before you plunge ahead, stop, take a moment and con­sid­er the sit­u­a­tion from a more reflec­tive, calm and encom­pass­ing perspective.

Your ide­al­ism is charm­ing, but be aware of your naiveté. Great ide­al­ism is at the root of real­i­ty, but does your plan of action make sense, in this world, at this time? Don’t get too caught up in what “ought to be”. Remem­ber, you and the world have been evolv­ing for a very long time and you are not yet what you can be, just yet. Tem­per your ide­al­ism with the under­stand­ing that your jour­ney requires many steps, each pro­vid­ing a nec­es­sary les­son, and so you must accept what is pos­si­ble now. 

Your dri­ve seems impres­sive, but you will not suc­ceed if you are self-cen­tered. Your dream, your ide­al, may seem like the “only” or “true” way to be. But there are many paths that lead to ful­fill­ment, and yours is but one of many songs in the life of spir­it. Play your part, con­tribute to the greater life, but you have no right to claim your way to be the way. 

Mars is the ser­vant of the Spir­i­tu­al War­rior. Now it is time to draw again on your capac­i­ty to renew your life and raise the ban­ner of right­eous action. But, always remem­ber, the true strug­gle of Life-Love-Spir­it lies with­in the spir­i­tu­al war­rior seek­ing their destiny. 

Be Patient, Be Mind­ful, Be Hum­ble. So be it.

You’ve been sens­ing a change of ener­gy, a shift of direc­tion… and you are right. Her­mes has (seem­ing­ly) stopped mov­ing for­ward and is retrac­ing his steps. That’s right, it is Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade Time, again. From now till April 23 it is going to be “inter­est­ing”.

Three times a year, and for about three weeks each time, Mer­cury appears to slow down, stop and then move back­wards. It is real­ly catch­ing up to Earth (being between us and the Sun), pass­ing us by and then con­tin­u­ing on its jour­ney around the Solar system.

Ide­al­ly, if you could accom­mo­date your life to the rhythm of the plan­ets, then all would be just fine. You would take this time and use it for intro­spec­tion, self-reex­am­i­na­tion and con­tem­pla­tion. You could focus on review­ing old thought pat­terns, ideas and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. You would forge a bet­ter under­stand­ing of your men­tal pat­terns and work to remove your blind spots. Real­ly, it is the per­fect time for a spir­i­tu­al retreat, self-study or rest.

But, life goes on (usu­al­ly), and you have to con­tin­ue in your life pat­terns at home and work as if every­thing was the same.…but it is not. So, watch out for pit­falls and look for the oppor­tu­ni­ties that come with Mer­cury in reverse.

Because every­one is sim­i­lar­ly affect­ed, be more care­ful with the com­mu­ni­ca­tions you receive as well as in those you send. Fol­low up the receipt of any mes­sage by con­firm­ing with the sender what you under­stood the mes­sage to mean. When you send a mes­sage, con­firm its receipt and then make sure it was under­stood as well. The rule of thumb with Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is nev­er assume… any­thing! By just being more care­ful you can avoid the annoy­ances that seem to come with Mer­cury danc­ing back­wards, and you can instead focus on its very real benefits.

This is a time to bend the mind back on itself. After all, one of your great­est gifts is your “self-reflec­tiv­i­ty”, your capac­i­ty to look at your­self as if from a van­tage point out­side of your­self. Mer­cury ret­ro­grade helps you to use this pow­er of your observ­ing-ana­lyz­ing intel­lect so that you might bet­ter under­stand yourself.

This time, the ret­ro­grade is in Aries, so the lessons will be about your aware­ness of your “Pres­ence” in the world. Re-exam­ine how you appear to oth­ers. Are you com­ing across too strong, so that your pres­ence is over­whelm­ing? Or do you move so soft­ly that no one notices and so you underwhelm?

The moment you turn a cor­ner, the moment you enter a “space”, it changes. Was it the change that was need­ed, was it the change you intend­ed to bring? You are always you, but you should bring to bear what is required giv­en what you sense is need­ed. Remem­ber, of all those ele­ments of your pres­ence the most impor­tant is… your attitude.

By work­ing with Mer­cury now you can exam­ine these “Masks of Per­son­al­i­ty” and make sure that you are pre­sent­ing the best of you to the world. When you prac­tice this “Art of Pres­ence”, you per­form through the best of your­self, because you have cen­tered your atti­tude by align­ing your­self with your true self.

So, let Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger, take you with­in your­self so that you may come out again with that greater clar­i­ty of pur­pose, inten­tion and atti­tude. Right think­ing leads to Right Atti­tude which allows for Right Action, these are the gifts of Mer­cury in ret­ro­grade. Thank you Hermes! 

Okay, this is one of the “big ones”, and I wrote this about it in my Overview for 2011:

The oth­er “car­ry-over” align­ment from 2010 is the oppo­si­tion (Full Moon) of Jupiter and Sat­urn. Their cycle, from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion, (or as in this case, Oppo­si­tion to Oppo­si­tion), is 20 years. In 2010 they came to an oppo­si­tion in late May and mid-August, and their final con­tact will be on March 28, 2011. 

With Jupiter rul­ing prin­ci­ples, truths and beliefs, and Sat­urn rul­ing struc­tures, insti­tu­tions and real­i­ty, their oppo­si­tion pro­vides a sharp con­trast for us to see how much what we believe to be true is being lived out in fact. In oth­er words, it is a time for a reck­on­ing between the belief or mean­ing behind the form and the form or real­i­ty itself. More often than not, (and this depends upon what else is hap­pen­ing down here and “up there”), this oppo­si­tion can cre­ate a cri­sis of faith in our belief sys­tems or a loss of trust in our insti­tu­tions… or both. Cer­tain­ly, here and around the world, this was a year of reck­on­ing, and more than we might at first realize.

The Great Muta­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn
For this dance of Jupiter and Sat­urn has a sto­ried his­to­ry for astrologers. We have used their ser­i­al align­ments as they progress through the ele­ments to under­stand some of the larg­er forces at play in our uni­verse. What we have dis­cov­ered is that Jupiter and Sat­urn will come togeth­er in their con­junc­tion in the same ele­ment, (Fire, Earth, Air and Water), for about 180 to 200 years, before they move onto the next ele­ment. This move­ment from ele­ment to ele­ment is called the “Great Mutation”. 

Since 1842 their con­junc­tions have been occur­ring in Earth and their last such align­ment was in the spring of 2000. While in an ele­men­tal phase, those con­di­tions estab­lished by that ele­ment per­me­ate and pro­mote the devel­op­ments in cul­ture and soci­ety. So, the last 169+ years have wit­nessed an explo­sion in the har­ness­ing of ener­gies and mate­ri­als of the earth, lit­er­al­ly. It has been an “age” of mate­ri­al­ism, of the rise of our car­bon fueled soci­ety and the cre­ation of a very spe­cif­ic kind of real­i­ty. But there is change in the air already, and our real­i­ty is about to be transformed… 

For what we have also found is that there is often a sign of things to come right before the next Great Muta­tion. Often, it seems, the sec­ond to last con­junc­tion occurs in that next ele­ment in the series. So in 1802 there was a pre­cur­sor align­ment in Earth. And most recent­ly, it was the 1980–81 Air con­junc­tion in Libra, before we reached the final align­ment in Earth via the Tau­rus con­junc­tion of May 2000. 

What these seem to pro­vide is a “seed­ing” of what is to come, a taste of the new world that will be inau­gu­rat­ed at the next Great Muta­tion, which for us is just ahead in 2020. As the 1802 con­junc­tion jump-start­ed the “Age of Mate­ri­al­ism”, so too has the 1980–81 align­ment ini­ti­at­ed what we might call the “Age of Virtue”. 

Though some aspects of this Vir­tu­ous­ness or “Vir­tu­os­i­ty” have man­i­fest­ed  in rather phys­i­cal forms, such as in the devel­op­ments in the 1980’s and 90’s which wit­nessed the pro­lif­er­a­tion of com­put­ers, cel­lu­lar phones and the inter­net, (our inter­con­nect­ed­ness was accel­er­at­ing), and which has now lead to the evo­lu­tion of vir­tu­al worlds and com­mu­ni­ties, (such as expe­ri­enced in phe­nom­e­na like Face­book), I know that the 2020’s and beyond will wit­ness the con­tin­u­ing unfold­ment of forms of con­nec­tiv­i­ty that will tran­scend these phys­i­cal forms and their lim­its. But we, I, are get­ting ahead of ourselves.

Jupiter and Sat­urn Now
At the present moment, the final oppo­si­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn with­in the Earth series pro­vides us with this moment in time to see to what extent we have trans­formed our­selves and our world through our mate­r­i­al “mas­tery”.  And, it equal­ly reminds us what lim­its and chal­lenges have been cre­at­ed by this earthy par­a­digm in our con­scious­ness as well. We may mar­vel at our cre­ations, yet we must mourn what we have sac­ri­ficed of this Earth to bring about our present world reality.