Weekly Astrology Forecast for Creatives | May 17th - May 23, 2020 - backing up, changing directions, new ideas, new conversations, a light shines on our power and those gold nuggets we missed

I don't want to say another big week, but this is another BIG week!

MONDAY - Saturn stations retrograde (late Sunday night EDT) until the end of September, Mercury squares Mars, Mercury into Gemini TUESDAY - Mercury trines Saturn, Mars trines the North Node
WEDNESDAY - Venus stations retrograde until end of June, Mars into Pisces
THURSDAY - Jupiter stations retrograde until mid-September
FRIDAY - Sun trines Pluto, Mercury sextiles Chiron
SUNDAY - Sun trines Jupiter

This is the week of three retrogrades and two planets changing signs!

With so much of life upside down right now, is all this "backing up" going to turn everything right side up? Yes, we can certainly expect some of that!

Let's unpack the week and we'll color it in with some dailies.

MONDAY - Mercury, at the very end of Taurus squares Mars at the very end of Aquarius - the potential is here for tension/disagreements around our resources, money, values. We could also be pushed (Mars) to make a decision (Mercury).

Then Mercury (communication, ideas, local life and travel, transportation, sibling issues) flies into Gemini, for a very fast visit home.

Increased choices, conversations and ideas will start to flow.

We won't put everything to use, Gemini can be all-over-the-place until he gets settled in, so some stuff will just move in and out, but the change in momentum will be noticeable. Of course, we have three planets starting to move backward this week, too, so there will probably be some back and forth.

Keep in mind with Gemini there are more questions than answers and the information might be somewhat unreliable. But easy, adaptable conversations, suitable for the moment, can pull everything forward now. Fresh information and conversations will come in and expand whatever we are dealing with. Gemini (the twins) is the sign of duality - of black and white, of feminine and masculine, of truth and lies. Nothing will be totally one way or the other or quite what is seems now. This can be stimulating if we've grown weary of Taurus's scrutiny and demand for truth.

Saturn stations retrograde until the end of September. We talked about this the other day:

"What happens for us personally depends on our natal chart and our relationship with Saturn. If we have planets/points between 22 degrees Capricorn and 1 degree Aquarius (and maybe we can add a couple degrees on either side of this) we will feel his retrograde strongest. This can also apply to planets/points in the other fixed to cardinal signs as he squares and opposes them. If we were born with Saturn retrograde, and so the need to face up to certain responsibilities in this lifetime we have previously avoided, we will feel his retrogrades more intensely, too.

For everyone else and for all of us collectively Saturn's station will either:

1. ease restrictions/limits/traditions (daddy on vacation) 

or 2. create delays/pull back support (again, daddy's on vacation). It just depends on which kind of "daddy" we have via our natal chart! 

Saturn retrogrades give us a second chance to get it right. 
  
He will station direct at the end of September and it's report card time."

Saturn retrograde in Aquarius also likely indicates authority changing the way information is delivered to the people.

TUESDAY - Mercury trines Saturn (retrograde in Aquarius). His/her trine to Saturn could provide stabilizing information or information about authority/limits/rules. Conversations around how to provide greater stability to the group/for our future.

We want to be careful (and purposeful) with our language now. Deliberate, thoughtful and sober words create the most impact.

When Mercury aspects Saturn our spoken/written words, and maybe most especially the things we tell ourselves about what is possible, create iron-clad contracts. Only make promises you know you can keep now because you will be held accountable. If you say you are going to do something, you are actually going to have to do it or it is going to come back and bite you in the ass.

Avoid gossip. With Saturn being the king of karma and all that, it has a way of coming back around. Communications and conversations with authority figures are helpful now. ANSWERS COME IN. Pay attention to what you are hearing. Be sure you are understanding what is being said and that you are being understood. This is great energy to work toward developing mastery of a subject. Just the right words/ideas/information could drop into our lap. Trines can't be forced. This stuff will just happen.  

This is also the day Mars (at the end of Aquarius) trines the North Node (in Gemini).

Our future focused actions (maybe involving groups or tech) will just naturally move things forward. Maybe we are taking action on the information Mercury's move into Gemini has brought us! Again this doesn't have to be forced - our actions will just naturally move things in the best/right direction.

WEDNESDAY - Venus stations retrograde through June 25th.

We will be re-evaluating what and who we love. Old loves from the past can come back for some cosmic clean-up. Circumstances transpire to change our values/self-esteem. We are reconnecting with the spring of 2012, are we ready for that?

We talked about this in detail HERE

On the same day, Mars leaves Aquarius for watery Pisces.

This is excellent for creative/imaginative work, healing, spirituality, meditation, music, art. What we do to get what we want becomes less direct. We go over here and then start to drift over there or the ramifications of our actions are harder to control. We can't force stuff to happen with Mars in Pisces - it will be like directing water.

We need to be strategic (and we can because we have Pallas still in Aquarius) think of the way irrigation systems work or dams.

THURSDAY - Jupiter stations retrograde through September 13th.

Take a breath. Stuff that just keeps growing and growing is NOT sustainable. With Jupiter in Capricorn this year - there aren't the kind of endless opportunities we had last year (although some were kind of delusional), but Jupiter always delivers something. His placement in Cappy has brought us luck - things could have been much worse without him. Retrograde, our growth gets focused on one particular area. We go deep instead of wide.

Even though he is locked down in Scrooge's house, Jupiter is still intent on giving EVERYONE an open door/lucky break - this is where (over the next few weeks) an opportunity can come back around. Clearly something has been taken as far as it can go collectively in our Cappy houses and we need to go back over it. So, let's go back to this scorched territory and see what we missed the first time through. We will be going deep instead of wide with this. There is some gold here somewhere!

FRIDAY - the Sun (in stable Taurus) trines Pluto (retrograde in Capricorn).

This energy is dynamic and powerful. We could reap the rewards of our past hard work now or our attention could be brought to a Plutonian theme with a connection to the past - a life/death issue, sex, loans, taxes, merged resources, intimacy, third party situations, inheritances, reproduction, power dynamics, transformation. This is good energy to stabilize what needs stabilizing and to use our power wisely and opportunistically to empower what we value now.

Mercury sextiles Chiron - news/information/local community or sibling situations create opportunities for healing very old, very deep wounds. Decisions. Choices. Maybe putting something into words makes us feel less vulnerable. 

SUNDAY - the Sun trines Jupiter (retrograde in Capricorn).

This is considered one of the luckiest days of the year. This is enthusiasm/confidence/luck. Financial gain. Business opportunities.

Back with the dailies and the final part of the Venus retro series!


xo all

photo by the talented vlue

The Astrology of 2020 | the Nodes shift to Gemini and Sagittarius Part II - re-learning the art of conversation as if our life depends on it because maybe it does, a potential collective split

See Part I HERE

Part II is going to be quite a bit heavier (so odd for Gemini!), so please put this post off until another time if you are having a fun Saturday night, and I hope you are!

We talked about the nuts and bolts of this transit back in early January and now that we have a clearer vision of what we are dealing with right now we can flesh this out a little more.

*****

The Nodes of the Moon are not planetary bodies, they are the points where the Moon's orbit around the Earth intersects with the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The North Node is the ascending node - where we are going. The South Node is the descending node - where we are now/where we have been. They move counter-clock wise (sort of like being retrograde all the time) and are exactly 180 degrees apart - opposing each other.

When we work with them in our natal charts we will be astounded at their accuracy - the same can be said of the collective transits.

On May 5th, 2020, (after 18 months working the Cancer/Capricorn axis) the North Node moved into Gemini, the South Node into Sagittarius.

Keep in mind the North Node is our best path forward, our fate, a psychological shift that needs to happen AND also indicates what will not come easy because it is NEW and untested and we are genetically wired, likely in order to stay safe and alive for thousands of years, to crave what is familiar.

The South Node is where we are now and is the space of the energies ripe for release because they have outgrown their usefulness. Now, not ALL Sag energies have outgrown their usefulness - the good stuff, the stuff that is still valid and needed is going to be avialable to us in greater and more beneficial ways. As we move into the North Node and embrace the Gemini, we get the reward of the best of Sagittarius!

One of our challenges we will be facing with the North Node in the dualistic sign of the twins, Gemini, will be to understand we live in a society with a freedom of choice.

Not everyone is going to agree. Not everyone is going to be moving in the same direction at the same time or maybe not ever at all. Not everyone is going to be playing by the same rules. These differences are not going to make any of us any less safe - these differences are what is needed.

We will be releasing any certainty we have with "this is the absolute truth" which is different from "these are the facts", so that we can relate to each other where we are.

So we can listen and learn from each other.

We can't be afraid to be curious, to ask questions, to change our mind - this will all be good uses of this Gemini energy/ways we align with our best path forward.

This will not be about coming into consensus because remember Gemini is a dualistic energy.

We aren't trying to get anyone else to agree with us. Think student here, not teacher.

When we move toward this new mindset, what will happen, because the other person will feel heard (rather than judged/preached at) is we will easily add to the conversation ideas/thoughts/information that help the other person and our words will be accepted.

Now, this isn't some backdoor way to change someone else's mind about something (ie control what they think) because that's not our job and that won't move us in the direction we need to go (because we will be moving in different directions).

Instead, it is a way to get along with people we don't agree with - which we have all done all our lives, but somehow have forgotten how to do now. We will be able to expand the other person's perspective as we listen and allow them to expand ours bringing out the best of that South Node in Sagittarius. A good mantra will be something like, "when I am willing to listen and learn from the other person, I win."

Now, this will be just one challenge of the North Node in Gemini. This will be about everything from our relationship to our siblings/local community to our need to take multiple steps and make multiple choices to get somewhere. Not one big step. There won't be one big solution, but multiple smaller solutions. Like a few years ago when the North Node was in Virgo; small is the new big.

We will talk about this as we move through it.

And because the South Node (where we are now and the problems here are what is ripe for release) is in Sagittarius - the sign of our big beliefs/the sign of the sage/preacher - none of this is going to come easy.

We are in our isolated spaces having deserted everyone around us to explore 'our truth'. We go to our phones and computers and mostly see the stuff that supports what we have seen before - because that's how the algorithms online work now - and we get agitated when someone doesn't agree with us. We even feel the need to argue with other people on their own posts on Facebook or report people's "fake news" to them as if we are their mothers.

We're not their mothers (unless we are, and then, of course, we get to DM them and ask them what the hell they are thinking).

We are not the "truth" police. It's not our job to control what other people think.

Self-righteousness is going to be one of our biggest challenges.

This is one of the reasons the nodes in Gemini/Sag often bring in a time of WAR. We want to avoid that, right. We can all agree - war bad. Avoid the war.

We are going to be working with our very old and very entrenched beliefs; the very spaces we are used to thinking of ourselves as "right".

Also with the Sag South Node we can expect changes with other Sagittarius themes - foreign travel, higher education, weddings, publishing, religion, legal issues, etc.

Now, nothing happens in a vacuum and at the same time we are going to have Neptune in Pisces which makes it very hard to know what is "true" - which is actually helpful for this transit and we are going to have Uranus in Taurus, upending what we value/creating chaos with our security and again this works well with this transit. Because we can't 'do' the North Node in Gemini without some changes to our security and values. We can't 'do' the North Node in Gemini when we have all the answers. We have Venus back in Gemini like she was in 2012 when we could have blown this 3D popsicle stand, but obviously weren't ready (sniffle) and collectively chose, unconsciously, to stay put and fight this out - SNIFFLE!

So, best case with all this is we learn the art of conversation; the process of skillful interaction. Humor will help, too!

We learn to offer our words/ our point of view with a sensitivity to the way the other person is hearing them. We invite their responses. We share helpful information. We turn the spotlight on other people from time to time via our questions rather than just going on and on about ourselves.

Conversation is like breathing, right, we inhale and then we exhale.

OK breathing, which Gemini rules, as well as our lungs, brings us to this pandemic and this corona-virus.

So, we come into this nodal switch with many, many people at home, feeling vulnerable and unsure about our security, our work in the world - if there is even going to be a world.

That North Node in Cancer/South Node in Capricorn - as this sh*t is apt to do - went out with a BANG.

With the Nodes changing at this time - because in astrology the chart when something begins sets up the whole game plan - it looks like we are going to collectively be deciding between two things/two ways of life. With the North Node in Gemini, coming to an agreement is probably not a possibility here. As a group we are going to come apart. We are going to split.

Right now, we are in a kind of limbo land. It's like we have been in an eight billion car pile-up. We have felt the initial impact of the crash. It was hard. It was fast. We had limited time to react. We are hurt and we suspect/know other people are hurt even worse.

The car crash has already happened.

But our car, and the others cars involved, haven't come to a stop yet.

We are still kind of tumbling around/flying through the air. So, whether we land in a soft marsh or slam into a semi going in the opposite direction or a brick wall isn't in our reality yet. We are maybe trying to avoid these worst scenarios, and maybe what we are doing is helping a little bit or maybe it is just creating a whole other set of problems. Like we have avoided the wall (a more rampant disease) which is a good thing, but then that semi is RIGHT IN FRONT OF US (the economy).

We don't know exactly what we are going to do and we don't know what the other drivers, and did I say eight billion, yes, eight billion, are going to do yet either.

I don't want to be negative because like I said we are still in the AIR. I also don't want to toss balloons over the car crash and call it a sweet sixteen party. Someday we will see the good/the silver lining that will come from this, but like I said .. the car hasn't even landed yet. Today is not that day. Tomorrow is not that day either.

I would suspect from the patterns and archetypes we are at a collective split. The cars are going to land on different roads and facing in different directions.

And in some very important ways we have already passed that split. Some of this is maybe already out of our hands. We are married to the future. But maybe there will be paths that lead to the other road in the future if we look hard enough. Then we will carry ourselves to this other space and watch our world reshape herself around us.

With Pluto retrograding back toward my natal Mercury, with my natal Mercury in serious, but also sometimes pessimistic Capricorn and with my third house Aquarius stellium including my Sun/Saturn making me a great over-thinker - I can gloom and doom with the best of them, believe me.

I could see a collective split in the future - being set up right now, between two sides of a scared populace. One side having been taken to the place where all we care about is that "this never happens again" and we give up our right to control our own body and our health via experimental/traceable vaccinations. We are tracked at all times, our conversations and our news controlled - for our safety and most importantly, for the safety of other people, of course. Or maybe there is no vaccine, so it isn't totally safe to venture outside just for pleasure anymore (we don't stop and ask if it ever was) - well who needs that park anymore, we can strip that land and give everyone a virtual reality headset for an imaginary picnic. No need to worry about keeping the cold cuts cold anymore either - another plus! And who needs other flesh and blood people in person - they are all so freaking germy - when we can just talk to the people who agree with us on Facebook or AI can just provide us with friends who will laugh at all our jokes, never be too tired to chat or out-cute us on bad-hair days. Money is dirty so that will go digital and yes it can be turned off and on, but why should we care about that, right? We pay our taxes. They won't turn our money off. We are the good guys. Masks and plastic shields will come in so many pretty designs and even though they could be totally ineffective, they are another great-equalizer and we will keep on buying them. We will call this side - the road for the people who value safety over all else.

And you might say to yourself, I don't value safety over all else, well, let's see then for you there is this other road - you cowboy/outlaw you!

Home to the people who value freedom over safety. This road will have less rules - no masks, no social distancing. There might be more illness for awhile at least, but maybe that will pass. This is the road for people who care more about "returning to the way things were before" or something like that. But maybe these people are not free to get on an airplane anymore or travel outside their "freedom" area or even work or live in certain places. There will be no trips to Disney World or trips to visit their family on the other side for this group. This is alot to give up, so maybe this road is not only the road less traveled, but maybe in not so many years, maybe not in our lifetime but maybe in our children's, it is the road not traveled at all.

This is very depressing, but the car is still in the air, like we said before

and there are certainly a thousand other/better roads - and almost surely I am thinking way too far ahead and extreme anyway. I know I am!

And there is always Chiron in Aries, we can draw ourselves up as the warriors we truly are if we need to.

In the meantime, maybe focus on the art of conversation part of Gemini/Sag. Give some thought to that. And we'll look at some different roads in Part III.


xo all



photo by the talented S-t-r-a-n-g-e

Today's Astrology Forecast | Saturday, May 9th, 2020 - the need to come up for air, our words are our fortune and our future

The Moon continues her journey through Sagittarius, nurtured through adventure and spontaneity and it's Saturday - find a way to get out of your comfort zone and have some fun before the Moon moves into 'serious-as-a-heart-attack' Capricorn tomorrow!

She will inconjunct the Sun in the morning EDT and then move on to square Neptune (1:13PM ) and oppose Venus at 3:13PM.

The waning inconjunct is a rock and a hard place with not only the Sun, but also this week's Full Moon in Scorpio story. That Scorpio Moon wants us to go deep/get to the truth/find the bottom, but today's Sag Moon reminds us of the need to come up for air!

Inconjunct the grounded Taurus Sun - this is also about optimism/hope vs practicality. This is a head in the clouds/feet on the ground blending that is hard to master, so we might kind of teeter-totter back and forth and that's OK.

The Moon's challenges with Neptune and Venus speak of caution/a red light with any large purchases/big investments today (yes, this includes over-the-top emotional investments). It also allows us to connect with other people and with our muses/angels/imagination today.

Mercury reaches 24 degrees and trines Pluto (retrograde in Capricorn) and she/he will trine Jupiter tomorrow. Trines remove the brakes. So communication with authority/power, particularly issues we are backtracking over, should go more smoothly. Talking/thinking about security issues/joint resources. The info we need/seek will come to our awareness.

This is an excellent aspect for manifesting what we are thinking/talking/writing about. Words (Mercury) are power (Pluto) so we need to use them well now. Our voice matters. This is also the energy for powerful people/corporations/govt to silence others' words - keep this in mind, too.

Powerful conversations/alignments with siblings or local community situations. This won't be something we have to push for, it will just fall smoothly into place.

This is EXCELLENT energy to set intentions and make a powerful vision board!

So we want to watch our language today - use our words intentionally or not at all.

BECAUSE WORDS ARE POWERFUL.

I love how "word" and "lord" can be combined to create "world". And "uni" meaning one and "verse" meaning word or poem or song makes "universe".

And a spell is a s-p-e-l-l.

And dog is God spelled backwards (maybe especially that one).

You might be familiar with the Bible story of the Tower of Babel - which is the story of God's displeasure at humankind's progress after the great flood. Everyone speaking the same language and working together meant soon nothing would be out of humankind's reach. This worried God so much that he scattered everyone all over the planet and changed their one language into many as a way to dis-empower everyone.

We can see how this is happening in our world today with Facebook, Google, etc, controlling the information we can access.

One nugget to take from this story is that Babel babble/inability to communicate = dis-empowerment/separation. 

Mercury is the God of communication. 

We honor Mercury when we speak our truth, when we think through our thoughts before we say our words, when we say more and talk less. 

When we say what we want and not what we don't want.

We dishonor Mercury when we babble. We also dis-empower ourselves.

We are working through a powerful chapter about who has the power here and words/communication/connection - NOT AGREEMENT - are the super-power of the masses (Aquarius).

No matter our personal opinion about the Facebook stories/accounts that have been deleted lately (this will vary to the degree we value safety or freedom since we have no way of knowing the real truth here) - it can be very costly to humankind to allow ourselves to be silenced/disconnected again ....


xo all


photo by the amazing thefirebomb

Today's Astrology Forecast | Friday, May 8th, 2020 - practical action, confidence is healing, small decisions, multiple answers, daddy packs his bags

The Moon is in big-picture Sagittarius now (3:15AM EDT) and answering to a very slow Jupiter, ruler of the South Node now, very uncomfortable in Capricorn and preparing for his station next week. Venus is very slow and preparing to station, too, and so is SATURN. So, three planets will join Pluto and station retrograde starting on Sunday.

In the meantime, the Moon will sextile Saturn (1 degree at 6:26AM EDT) then move on to square Ceres (4 degrees) and trine Chiron (7 degrees). The sextile to sober Saturn keeps our "head in the clouds" Sag feet on the ground. Practical and optimistic energy. The need to not take anything too far, but at the same time the need to take it somewhere! The square to Ceres could bring up some tension/challenges later on with things "outside our control" or maybe some mothering/smothering issues. And then, finally, the confident Sag Moon will trine hurting/healing Chiron - we step up/we stand up - we feel better. Moon/Chiron can make us more sensitive, maybe overly reactive - something to keep in mind.

We are all kind of in this pressure cooker/cosmic science experiment anyway, right?

As Saturn stations retrograde on Sunday - and keep in mind all three planets that will retrograde next week are at the degree of their station already - what happens for us personally depends on our natal chart and our relationship with Saturn. If we have planets/points between 22 degrees Capricorn and 1 degree Aquarius (and maybe we can add a couple degrees on either side of this) we will feel his retrograde strongest. This can also apply to planets/points in the other fixed to cardinal signs as he squares and opposes them. If we were born with Saturn retrograde, and so the need to face up to certain responsibilities in this lifetime we have previously avoided, we will feel his retrogrades more intensely, too.

For everyone else and for all of us collectively Saturn's station will either:

1. ease restrictions/limits/traditions (daddy on vacation) 

or 2. create delays/pull back support (again, daddy's on vacation). It just depends on which kind of "daddy" we have via our natal chart! 

Saturn retrogrades give us a second chance to get it right. 
  
He will station direct at the end of September and it's report card time.

In the meantime, watch for over-confidence/delusion that creates avoidance. 

We want to use that Saturn sextile today to take practical action. 

Keep in mind always now the North Node in Gemini - keep your mind open, our stories/the facts are changing, there will be MANY small answers not one big answer, small will be bigger than big.

Small decisions are easier (and faster) to make anyway, and we have to start where we are, which is obvious because the concrete feels pretty thick. So, focus.

I keep thinking about that scene in the 80's Chevy Chase film "Funny Farm" where the moving guys are asking the locals for directions and the local guy, sitting on his porch and chewing on a piece of barley (as I remember it) says "well, I wouldn't start from here", and the moving guy says "well, supposen' you had to". That's where we stand with something. That's the thing that needs to move. It doesn't need to move from New York to Cleveland, but maybe it does need to get over the Brooklyn Bridge. Which might also be what someone is trying to sell you now, so stay frosty/alert.

We have less than 72 hours before the dominoes start to tumble backward - what do you want to do with these hours?

We are going to get much more busy. The busy is coming. Even if we don't get very far with all the retrogrades, the busy won't be stopped. But, maybe stop looking for a way out because we are all going further in.


xo all 

photo by the talented Njurur