Insights for Aries
These insights, are meant as contemplations: Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.
March 20: Spring Equinox
Sun sextile Pluto
Sun enters Aries: 05:24 PM EDT
What does it mean to be born and born again every spring? Consider the notion of Resurrection; a sense of wonder as life shoots up through the cracks in the sidewalks as well as on the hills and in the valleys. All you need is sun, light, soil and water! This is truly the makings of a miracle.
We all like a story with a happy ending. How about a happy beginning? This equinox occurs in an interesting time: Just after the Sun sextiles Pluto at the very end of Capricorn and just before a New Moon in the very first degree of Aries. At the very least this reminds us that we are the dwellers on the threshold.
What or where are your edges? What threshold do you stand upon? As the Sun journeys through the fiery sign of Aries it will meet up with the Moon and Chiron at the Full Moon on the 6th of April. Possibly in these times ‘Who am I?’ is a question that only gets answered when we ask ‘Who are you?’ A bit further on it will conjunct Jupiter, inspiring action in all things from gardening to protesting.
March 21
New Moon 00 degrees Aries: 12:01 PM
New lives, demanding attention and effort are being born all over the place. What will life be like for all these babies? Ready. Set. GO! Is the command. What’s your race? What new ground requires your courage and determination to meet it? Unlike the last degree of a sign, the zero degree indicates we have crossed a threshold. Zero holds the full potential of whatever sign it inhabits. In only two days Pluto will enter the zero degree of Aquarius. What possibilities live in the seed you hold in your hand? Old or young, optimist or pessimist, energetic or tired, you are a seed among seeds. How do you imagine your unfurling over the next month (in the case of the New Moon) or the next 20 years (in the case of Pluto)? How will your garden grow? Is there wisdom to be had by calling on ‘old ways’ for a new world? If this is a starting gate ask yourself; What am I at the beginning of and where am I breaking new ground?
March 23
Pluto enters Aquarius
Rally your dystopian fantasies. Scatter them to the four winds. This is the first time Pluto has been in Aquarius since it was discovered in the early 1930s. We are in relatively uncharted territory. Although of course, we do have some idea about Aquarius. This is a big story. A shift in the collective, promising 20 years of whatever it brings…
If you google Pluto + Aquarius you will find what probably amounts to TMI. Nevertheless it can be a fun and inspiring ride. I suggest this article as a starting point.
Pluto often inspires astrologers to look for the worst. It is a symbol of destruction but mostly of things that are already rotten. Some see it as the hoarder of great wealth. We all know how that’s working in our world at the moment. Pluto will definitely go after the power pyramid that enables such inequities. Aquarius is the sign of the commons. The easing of so many of our collective ills might be in our very Aquarian ability to share wealth.
Pluto seems to hate denial. It tends to breed all sorts of negative projections until and unless we acknowledge our deeper, more difficult truths. (Think #MeToo.) Perhaps Pluto’s greatest gift since discovery has been depth psychology (of course there was also Plutonium and the atom bomb). The problem with these great discoveries is of course is the patriarchal inclination to medicate and monetize that which arises from the depths. Astrologers and mythologists often depict Pluto as the Great Abductor: The rapist from below. This seems to allow for a kind of patriarchal sanctification of this behavior.
This has always seemed a great error to me even if it is an apt description of how Pluto has behaved in our times. A grave error because how we tell our stories is how we live. Along with the development of depth psychology at the time Pluto was discovered was also the rise of advertising which allowed wholesale efforts to manipulate people to buy things that they do not need and which may not be and do what they are advertised to do. In fact it is said that advertising began with cigarette ads and we all know what they lied about.
There is no mistaking the pain and suffering when we do in fact descend into the depths of our feelings, wounds, and traumas. But a great deal of that pain is caused by the fear that we will be harmed not healed if we journey so deeply into the nether regions of our psyche, personally as well as collectively. A certain amount of privilege seems to be required to journey safely through the depths not to mention enough education to allows us to know we are journeying at all. Artists take that privilege as their own. Otherwise it requires wealth to pay for the therapies or experiences that enable such exploration.
Rather than seeing Pluto as some kind of holy rapist, how about we honor this principle as the Queen of the Underworld? She who holds the gift of mercy and bears witness to our births and deaths.
Pluto in Aquarius might signify that it’s time to shift our fascination with horror toward healing. Between now and mid-June while Pluto takes first steps in Aquarius the strongest expression will be during the second half of May. Till then you might just rummage around in your own basement and see what might be retrievable or need some work.
March 25
Mars enters Cancer
Mars is said to fall in Cancer. Perhaps this is because it’s not in control when it overflows with feeling. There are those of us who have experienced the amazing kindness and care that first responders often have in situations that are fraught with feelings, not to mention their skill and command of a situation which we generally lack when it’s our crisis. Mars’ task in Cancer is to respond, not react to the welfare of those around us. It’s a bit like turning swords into ploughshares. Look for real-life expressions of this as Mars approaches a trine to Saturn on the 30th.
March 26
Mercury conjunct Chiron
There was that time when we were selfish: When we thought the only thing that mattered was me, myself and I. Like the sun rising after a long night the light is dawning: Everyone is a ‘me’ and an ‘I’; each human, each living thing for that matter, wants life, wants to live fully and express their unique identity. All we have to do is figure out how to do that together. This will require clever thinking and a willingness to try new things. Given the inherent aggression of human beings there may be resistance.
March 28
Mercury conjunct Jupiter
Mercury has pulled Jupiter and Chiron together again for the last few days. We may notice all sorts of clever alternatives to outright aggression and the urge to win at all costs. Likely we are tired of all the talking heads, the puffed-up pundits who spout theories and solutions to the problems of the day; the problem of being human. It seems our ability to defend and protect ourselves which has contributed greatly to our success as a species has, in these times, led us to the brink of extinction. Quite the opposite of success. Each and every one of us is a vibrant, vital singularity. Each and every one connected by birth to all that lives on Planet Earth. Is simply being human an oxymoron?
March 30
Mars trine Saturn
Venus conjunct Uranus
Refer above to March 25th for a refresher on Mars in Cancer. Be inspired to want what’s good for you as well as for others. Think values not economics. To be alive requires us to have the basic things needed for physical survival as well as to offer kindness and concern to others needing the same things. Is the body in the soul or is the soul in the body?
April 3
Mercury enters Taurus
Mercury square Pluto
Mercury, the messenger stands up to Pluto today. Truth to power? Circumstance to ideals? A test of values? Further on, in the second half of May, Jupiter and Mars will trigger this same degree. Zero is the seed carrying the full potential of a sign. While Pluto is at zero degrees of Aquarius (March 23 – June 11) these activations allow us to catch the scent, hear the promise of Pluto in Aquarius for the next 20 years. Consider the wisdom of these wise words:
April 5
Mercury sextile Saturn
Sun conjunct Chiron
What do you need to learn to help move you along your particular wisdom path? Where might you be instructed? May the path of your seeking acknowledge and foster your unique abilities. Push against places that have not been fully cultivated in you. We are unfinished works of art as long as we live. You could dare to be great but even good would be plenty. Themes of wisdom, learning and cultivation carry through the Full Moon tomorrow and beyond.
April 6
Full Moon: 16 degrees Libra: 12:34 AM EDT
My favorite keywords for this combination are ‘cooperation and/or competition. (A Full Moon is always an opposition of the Sun and the Moon.) We benefit when we choose to negotiate rather than negate the other. The challenger stands before us, personally and collectively. How we respond makes all the difference. It has been said that the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.
April 7
Venus sextile Neptune
If it’s not beautiful it’s not functional. Nature shows this to us in in the curve of a branch, the leaf of a tree, a bird on the wing, the pounding of the sea, sun sets and rises, the sky at night. It’s a symphony of functional beauty. Even at its wildest and most destructive it’s there. We are Nature too.
April 08
Mercury sextile Mars
Do something, anything, to foster functional beauty. Sing to your plants. Dance in the kitchen. Fertilize the seedlings. This is your world. How you live in it matters.
April 11
Venus enters Gemini
Venus trines Pluto
Sun conjunct Jupiter
Words have power. They convince and inspire us. They hurt like arrows to the heart and open us to love. They mediate between our inner and outer worlds. They are bridges between us – for good and ill. Words are a gift of magic, we the spell casters, creating the world.
April 14
Venus square Saturn
Test your words. Edit before you send. Consider the weight of what you are saying. Listen to the still small voice inside that knows better as well as to the voices of others who may challenge what you think or say. The bridge of words between us works best when we listen as well as speak.
April 20
New Moon Eclipse at 29 degrees of Aries: 12:12 AM EDT
Sun enters Taurus 4:13 AM
Sun square Pluto
Today appears as both an ending (New Moon in the last degree of Aires) and a beginning (Sun enters a new sign as well as a New Moon). It might be confusing to sort ends from beginnings; starts from finishes. And the square to Pluto twists it a bit further.
Here is an image you might use to help navigate such a puzzle:
You come from an old world, an old way of doing and being. Although you are familiar with this old world and know how to get around in it you are aware that this old world no longer quite exists. It fades in and out. What might be a new world (or what might be an old world pretending to be new) beckons to you but there is nothing familiar there.
As you stand between endings and beginnings you are inclined as people have been since the beginning, to seek the wisdom of an Old One. (An Old One could just as easily be a tree as a two legged: even a book you read when you were much younger.) You are aware that these times have been foretold by poets and pundits throughout history although being here isn’t the same as imagining being here. You wonder if it has always been like this. As you set out in search of an Old One you hear an old song in your head:
“When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s lost her head”…
Seems to fit. All those heroes dressed up as politicians and leaders, talking backwards. And Nature, the Red Queen has indeed lost her head. To be here at this Great Turning of the Wheel of Time in Space, with no idea how to navigate or where it’s taking us can make us fearful. Will our dreams of our own future crash and burn if we accept the invitation to a transformation. Do we have a choice? A bit of wisdom from an Old One might just shed some light on the journey.
Photo by Victor Larracuente on Unsplash