Mer­cury aligns with Mars today so watch out for quick thoughts and words.…We might need to slow things down, to pause and reflect, rather than jump to con­clu­sions or to speak too hastily.

Mer­cury rules thoughts and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Mars rules desires and actions. Their com­bi­na­tion encour­ages us to speak about our desires and to act upon our ideas. We are eager to con­tribute to the con­ver­sa­tion, our thoughts come fast and furi­ous. But that means we can more eas­i­ly say too much and/or not lis­ten enough. 

All forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion are sped up. But, we must be care­ful not to be so quick, and seem­ing­ly “intel­li­gent”, that we lose the bal­ance that comes with giv­ing some time for reflection.

Some­times quick­ness wins, but being thor­ough and steady is a truer sign of intel­li­gence. We must also remem­ber that our minds require mutu­al stim­u­la­tion for true growth. There­fore, we must make an even greater effort now to lis­ten to one another.

The Sun trines Uranus today, a pos­i­tive push from the plan­et of inven­tion, inge­nu­ity and inde­pen­dence. Their last aspect was the oppo­si­tion on Sep­tem­ber 2 at which time we felt the ten­sion between our need for Free­dom and Inde­pen­dence (Uranus) ver­sus our need to be Loved and Appre­ci­at­ed (Sun).

Today we will find our­selves in a “sweet spot”, where we can rea­son­ably stretch our expres­sion and show how we are dif­fer­ent or unique, with­out los­ing the respect of those that mat­ter to us. We can reveal a lit­tle more of our true self and be assured that it will be met with applause instead of shock.

Thurs­day should prove to be a sig­nif­i­cant day since not one but two plan­ets change direc­tion, mov­ing from ret­ro­grade to for­ward motion. When­ev­er plan­ets change direc­tion, we feel a shift of ener­gy in our lives. So, hav­ing two shift on the same day should be inter­est­ing… and powerful.

Forty days ago we took a turn inward to reex­am­ine our val­ues when Venus went ret­ro­grade. As I point­ed out in my post on Octo­ber 28, the answer to our search for some new under­stand­ing with regard to our val­ues was released on that date, the mid­point of the Venus ret­ro­grade cycle. Now we need to take up the chal­lenge to renew our quest for beau­ty, grace and love as Venus moves direct. We have repaired and restored our per­son­al aes­thet­ic, now we must act on it.

Four months ago we began a jour­ney with­in to reex­am­ine our beliefs and prin­ci­ples when Jupiter turned ret­ro­grade. About 2 months ago, on Sep­tem­ber 21, we were giv­en an answer to our prayer for guid­ance dur­ing the align­ment of Jupiter with the Sun. Now we have to move for­ward and become the truth we wish to expe­ri­ence. We have ques­tioned and sought under­stand­ing as regards our moti­va­tions, truths and aims. Now we need to expand out­ward with a new­found enthu­si­asm for the next part of our journey.

Mer­cury sex­tiles Sat­urn today. Mer­cury rules our thoughts, intel­li­gence and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Sat­urn rules our real­i­ty, respon­si­bil­i­ties, struc­tures and lim­i­ta­tions. The sex­tile between them pro­motes the work­ing out, or more sub­stan­tial man­i­fes­ta­tion, of our ideas, plans and con­cepts that we have been try­ing to bring to fruition.

What were mere­ly hunch­es, con­cepts or ideas have now tak­en on a real­ized form or con­crete real­i­ty. What­ev­er plans, ideas or inspi­ra­tions that were first devel­oped at their last con­junc­tion, (Octo­ber 8, 2010), have now reached a point of clar­i­ty and objec­tive real­i­ty. Sol­id progress can be seen now. We have not com­plet­ed the project or endeav­or, but real progress is visible.

The shap­ing of our thoughts, ideas, plans or a project at this time requires the appro­pri­ate pre­sen­ta­tion of long-dis­tance com­mu­ni­ca­tion and plan­ning, cul­tur­al aware­ness and beliefs. These sen­si­bil­i­ties are being shaped and lim­it­ed by the real­i­ty of the agree­ments, part­ner­ships or rela­tion­ships involved in the mat­ter. Our men­tal life is stead­ied now, though we are rang­ing far, we are also ground­ed by Saturn.

We must pre­pare for Mer­cury and Sat­urn’s next sig­nif­i­cant align­ment, which is the wax­ing square on Jan­u­ary 26, 2011. At that moment we will face a choice and deci­sion about which path to take in the fur­ther devel­op­ment of the idea, project or issue.

The rea­son the next moment in the cycle is so delayed is because Mer­cury will go ret­ro­grade on Decem­ber 10 until Decem­ber 30. That peri­od will pro­vide us with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reex­am­ine many of our thoughts, plans and ideas before mov­ing for­ward in the New Year. It will, hope­ful­ly, help us to pre­pare for the choic­es we must face at the end of January.

With Sat­urn at 13º of Libra and Mars, (the faster mov­ing plan­et), at 13º of Sagit­tar­ius, we are deal­ing here with what Astrologers call a wax­ing sex­tile of Mars to Sat­urn. This is the moment in the rela­tion­ship between Mars and Sat­urn where what was released or start­ed at their con­junc­tion has reached a point in which we are shown some way in which to bal­ance and inte­grate these two energies.

The orig­i­nat­ing moment for this present cycle, their last con­junc­tion (or “New Moon”), was on July 31, 2010 at 0º of Libra. So the issue of this cycle con­cerns the inte­gra­tion of Mars ener­gies and Sat­urn ener­gies with­in the theme estab­lished by Libra, by relationships.

Mars rules desires, the ener­gies that serve the self as we seek to push out and secure our own self-inter­ests. Sat­urn rules real­i­ty, the respon­si­bil­i­ties and roles that we have com­mit­ted our­selves to in order to be part of any­thing. So, what is the answer or guid­ance offered by their aspect today?

The expe­ri­ence of Mars in Sagit­tar­ius con­cerns the les­son that our desires must be guid­ed, inspired and focused by truth. It speaks to the prin­ci­ple that our self-asser­tion must be cir­cum­scribed and giv­en mean­ing­ful pur­pose by beliefs, philoso­phies and religion.

With Mars in Sagit­tar­ius we are very enthu­si­as­tic about our truths and beliefs as we seek to extend our­selves out­ward. Yet, giv­en that Mars can excite us to over­do, we may become too self-right­eous, to dog­mat­ic about our truth. We may push too hard to be free to do what­ev­er we wish to do. We may harm oth­ers by a too nar­row asser­tion of what is truth for us. The offer­ing of this aspect between Mars and Sat­urn is being brought to bear by the mes­sage of Sat­urn in Libra.

Sat­urn in Libra reminds us that the truth of any rela­tion­ship is that we must move into it by forg­ing or cre­at­ing agree­ments, under­stand­ings, rules or laws. We all must acknowl­edge the truth that when we move into asso­ci­a­tions with one anoth­er, that is, when we enter into rela­tion­ships, we can­not just make it up as we go.

Sat­urn in Libra rep­re­sents the truth that we must make objec­tive our inten­tions with regards to one anoth­er. We must estab­lish guide­lines and rules for how we will relate to one anoth­er as a pro­tec­tion for all con­cerned. We cre­ate a social space, a real­i­ty, through which we can be ful­filled in and through our rela­tion­ship. By forg­ing these agree­ments, we can each pur­sue our self-inter­ests, while agree­ing to con­duct our­selves in a man­ner that is social­ly accept­able, sus­tain­able and mutu­al­ly beneficial.

The mes­sage and promise of the sex­tile aspect of Mars and Sat­urn is that we can all make some sig­nif­i­cant progress in our rela­tion­ship life at this time. The issue will have some­thing to do with how we inte­grate our self-inter­ests with our oblig­a­tions. This means we need to hold our­selves and oth­ers to account for how to bal­ance our desires with our duties.

We often hear the cry for “my rights”. But the asser­tion of any and all rights must and always will be tied to the ful­fill­ment of our respon­si­bil­i­ties. This is the mes­sage of Mars and Sat­urn, that you must and should pur­sue your truth, but you must always act in a way that is respon­si­ble too.