Get ready…you are real­ly mov­ing for­ward now. When Mars sex­tiles Uranus, we have a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to act in a more cre­ative, free and self-affirm­ing man­ner. Enjoy the ease with which you can take a new approach; you can achieve your goals, and you do it with orig­i­nal­i­ty and style.

When last they met in ear­ly Decem­ber, Mars was Squar­ing Uranus and we had to exer­cise cau­tion so as not act impa­tient­ly. We need­ed to make a choice (square) to inte­grate our per­son­al dri­ves and desires with con­sid­er­a­tion for one another.

Now we reap the ben­e­fits of what we learned then. We find it easy to take a new approach. This new and bet­ter way of being comes from the blend­ing of respon­si­ble action (Mars in Capri­corn) guid­ed by com­pas­sion­ate under­stand­ing (Uranus in Pisces).

Enjoy! Be inven­tive; show your cre­ativ­i­ty and try some­thing new.…you are mak­ing progress now and it real­ly feels good.

This, too, is the third of three align­ments of Mer­cury with a plan­et, this time it is Jove, Jupiter, the greater benef­ic, throw­ing down the chal­lenge to our think­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing functions.

Though we call Jupiter the greater benef­ic, (because it rules growth and expan­sion, and who is not for more of many aspects of life, like friend­ship, love, peace…?), not all expan­sion, not all growth is good, (like in the human body when we go beyond a safe weight, or when we suf­fer from a dis­ease of unre­strict­ed growth like cancer).

With this in mind, you need to approach your think­ing and speech with care now, so that you don’t go too far, so you don’t go to excess, and cause harm to your cause or to one anoth­er. You are more like­ly to be over­ly enthu­si­as­tic about your posi­tion or belief, or encounter some­one else who is being dog­mat­ic now. So be care­ful, refrain from boast­ing, or push­ing an idea upon another.

Remem­ber a square is not real­ly there to push or pull you into some bad act or behav­ior, (though, unfor­tu­nate­ly this is a more com­mon result and aris­es from igno­rance, fear and a lack of spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment). Real­ly the square is there to present you with a choice. You can either react, retreat and so stay at an old lev­el of self-unre­al­iza­tion. Or, you can choose to under­stand and rise to a high­er lev­el of self-actualization.

To make the bet­ter choice requires lis­ten­ing to your inner voice, which leads to a quick­en­ing of self-aware­ness. Through that greater self-aware­ness you move into right thought, right action and a high­er degree of self-fulfillment.

So at this square lis­ten to what Jupiter is say­ing to Mer­cury. It is say­ing (through Pisces), that your ideas, opin­ions, beliefs and atti­tudes (Mer­cury in Sagit­tar­ius), though seem­ing­ly right and true for you, and which are an impor­tant part of the whole song of cre­ation, are still lim­it­ed because they come from just one part of, one aspect of, the greater reality.

Jupiter in Pisces says you must grow into that greater under­stand­ing that flows from the truth that Real­i­ty is real­ly made up by a host of mul­ti­ple real­i­ties; that you real­ly exist in what should be seen as a mul­ti­verse. Our chal­lenge, real­ly, is how are we to under­stand and live in the one real­i­ty while we appear to exist in these sep­a­rate realities?

Jupiter in Pisces says you can do this because the greater Truth is that you orig­i­nate from, live through and will always be one in Spir­it. Thus, you can and will under­stand one anoth­er by liv­ing your life with and through compassion.

When we do, when we tru­ly see the oth­er as our self, then we can accept and cel­e­brate our dif­fer­ences, while hon­or­ing our com­mon ori­gin and des­tiny that is found in the stars.

Here we go again! This is the third and final sex­tile of Mer­cury to Nep­tune in a lit­tle over 40 days. This “three­fold” align­ment came about from Mer­cury pass­ing over Nep­tune in Novem­ber, then turn­ing ret­ro­grade and align­ing again in Decem­ber, and then turn­ing direct so as to align to make the same aspect now. In oth­er words, the ret­ro­grade of Mer­cury gave us three dis­tinct chances to work on how we com­bine Mer­cury with Neptune.

Mer­cury rules our con­nect­ed­ness; it is the net­work with­in, (our ner­vous sys­tem, mind, con­scious­ness, thoughts), and the net­work with­out, (radio, tele­vi­sion, phone sys­tems, inter­net). The myth­ic sym­bol of Mer­cury is Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger of the gods. With Nep­tune, the plan­et of dreams, inspi­ra­tion and imag­i­na­tion shap­ing Mer­cury through this man­i­fest­ing sex­tile aspect, we can beau­ti­ful­ly appre­ci­ate and express our intu­itive mind now.

It is our imag­i­na­tion that is the true foun­tain source of our future; but we must lis­ten to it, and speak from it, if we wish to make it so. The gifts of spir­it are often sub­tle yet pro­found. So take some time today to appre­ci­ate the beau­ty with­in and with­out; remem­ber to lis­ten with your heart and speak through your dreams.

And here we go again, again. This too is the third and final square of Mer­cury with Uranus in this rough­ly 40 day peri­od. Just as with Nep­tune, this align­ment took place near the end of Novem­ber and again in Decem­ber. But here we are deal­ing with the chal­lenge thrown down by a square; we need to face some­thing and use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to change. Here spir­it is call­ing again, but it is not sub­tle whatsoever.

Uranus rules the forces of indi­vid­u­a­tion, inven­tive­ness, ingenuity…of think­ing “out­side the box”, instead of fol­low­ing the easy path of what­ev­er is con­ven­tion­al or accept­ed. The square presents us with a chal­lenge. Mer­cury wish­es to speak now from the “voice” of Sagit­tar­ius through which it is mov­ing. But Uranus is chal­leng­ing that from the per­spec­tive of Pisces. Mer­cury in Sag. is con­vinced that there is one truth, one law, one true way to see the sit­u­a­tion. Uranus reminds us, often through some shock, and here from the Pisces per­spec­tive, that there are many real­i­ties in this world and that we should there­fore accept, with humil­i­ty and grace, the fact that our point of view is always lim­it­ed by our emo­tion­al, intel­lec­tu­al, and spir­i­tu­al development.

When you receive the shock from Uranus do not retreat in fear, nor lash out in anger; rather, always see it as anoth­er chance, anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty, to take the path of under­stand­ing, the path of spir­it, which frees you from a more lim­it­ed point of view and expe­ri­ence of life.

Shocks occur, stuff hap­pens, con­stant­ly. The mea­sure of your soul is tak­en then, right after the event, in the man­ner of your response to it. Be cre­ative, show intel­li­gence and move through the shock by ques­tion­ing your own assump­tions. Share with oth­ers your insight so that they may move more freely too. Then thank Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger, for bring­ing you into the light of a greater understanding.

We’ve reached the wax­ing square of the Sun and Sat­urn; and, oh boy, do we have a prob­lem with author­i­ty! We began a new phase in some task, job or project at the end of Sep­tem­ber; but now we find our­selves at a crossroads.

We have to make a choice; what do we keep, and what do we cut? It seems as if an author­i­ty fig­ure is chal­leng­ing us now. Or, maybe the very thing we have been build­ing up is block­ing us. Or, is it our own self-doubt about our author­i­ty that is get­ting in the way? No mat­ter how life seems to present us with this choice, the true chal­lenge of this or any sit­u­a­tion is always to be found in the spir­i­tu­al strug­gle with­in each of us.

With the Sun rep­re­sent­ing pure poten­tial, (it is undif­fer­en­ti­at­ed and so unlim­it­ed but it is not real, yet); and Sat­urn rep­re­sent­ing real­i­ty, (it is lim­it­ed because it is what we had to put some part of our poten­tial into in order to make it real), what we will find is that what­ev­er we have so far poured our self into may be the very thing in the way of our fur­ther growth now.

Yet not every­thing in our real­i­ty is in the way, we need to keep some or most of what we have built up, but we have to let some­thing or some­one else go. We need to face the sit­u­a­tion square­ly and with courage. The chal­lenge of a cri­sis is to see through it to the oppor­tu­ni­ty that is there wait­ing for us. We can­not be attached to the tem­po­rary form of the real­i­ty; instead, we must hon­or the essence, the spir­it behind it.

So ques­tion author­i­ty, but ques­tion your own espe­cial­ly. Hon­or what you have become, but do not be impris­oned by your present form. When the ground drops away from beneath your feet.…it is time to spread those wings.

Yes­ter­day’s post was an exam­ple of what astrologers call “Mun­dane” or “World­ly” Astrol­o­gy. That is the astrol­o­gy of cul­ture and soci­ety, of nations, cor­po­ra­tions and oth­er insti­tu­tions. I plan on mak­ing more obser­va­tions like this in the com­ing weeks as I speak to the major astro­log­i­cal themes for 2011. I will com­ment on the con­di­tions affect­ing par­tic­u­lar nations, world lead­ers, oth­er insti­tu­tions, the econ­o­my as well as oth­er top­ics. And, as events unfold, I will from time to time make com­ments that reflect this more world­ly per­spec­tive dur­ing the year ahead.

But, I will most often be mak­ing posts that focus upon per­son­al mat­ters; to help us under­stand the forces at work that guide each of us on our indi­vid­ual path of spir­i­tu­al growth. That is because I pre­fer this more inti­mate focus upon our lives; and, it is also because my per­son­al belief is that the real hope for our future is found with­in the spir­i­tu­al strug­gle for greater under­stand­ing with­in each of us.

To bal­ance the scales of inter­pre­ta­tion regard­ing yes­ter­day’s post on the Jupiter/Uranus con­junc­tion, I wish to add the fol­low­ing more indi­vid­ual or per­son-cen­tered point of view:

With Jupiter rul­ing the prin­ci­ples by which we relate to the world around us, and Uranus rul­ing the forces of indi­vid­u­a­tion, inde­pen­dence and trans­for­ma­tion, 2010 was to be a year that “shocked” us into new forms of rela­tion­ship, both to our­selves and with one another.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty of their con­junc­tion was in the cre­ation of new forms of relat­ing by “shock­ing” or break­ing up old ones. So, look back on the year, espe­cial­ly when they aligned in ear­ly June, mid-Sep­tem­ber, and right now, and see if you were sur­prised or shocked in some rela­tion­ship. Chances are you were and what you were being offered was a chance to re-set your­self and that rela­tion­ship; and, to re-set your assump­tions about how and to whom you should relate to.

We are here to grow through under­stand­ing. Some­times this pro­ceeds more gen­tly because we are in touch with the changes with­in and around us. But some­times we are sur­prised, shocked and stunned, not in order to stop us, but to make us stop, think and move into the oppor­tu­ni­ty to relate to our world with a freer, more expan­sive and inclu­sive under­stand­ing. Make it so.