Insights for Aries
These insights, are meant as contemplations of a sort: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology can be thought of as 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.
Here is some food for Aries thought, from a patriarchal voice (8 centuries old) yet nonetheless wise:
How is it
they live in
such harmony
- the billions of stars -
when most men can barely
go a minute without declaring
war in their minds about
someone they know.
….St. Thomas Aquinas
March 18
Sun enters Aries: 11:33 AM EDT
As if we need reminding that it is time for a new beginning, today is the first day of spring here in the northern hemisphere, the equinox, a new season. One of only two days when, for one perfect moment light and dark are balanced: akin to the moment after exhaling and before inhaling, or maybe the other way around: A moment when uncounted angels perch on pin heads, defying reason, reminding us that it’s all an illusion based on perspective, an endless reality of becoming. Creation is always happening here and now, calling us into being again and again and again. Possibly we hit the ground, running for eternity, always the same, always different. If we see the other as equally alive and deserving of life, in that instant we are an equinox.
Aries and Libra are the signs of war. Our predecessors throughout the dominator age saw the relationship of light and dark as a battle. This is the very notion we must change. Of course there are some, many in fact, who think this perspective is bred in the bone of what it means to be human, who believe that this is how it has and always will be. Consider for a moment the parable of the two suitors.
This year as the Sun journeys through Aries it will encounter Mercury, Saturn and Pluto as well as Chiron. Saturn and Chiron remind us that we have work to do. We are all first responders when Aries is the theme. The trauma or wounding in each of us creates a planet of unease at best, a tinder keg waiting to be ignited, already burning, in fact. We too easily confuse vengeance with justice. When we acknowledge the hurts of the past yet stay present we open to real wisdom. From this wisdom, change. Pluto warns us, yet again, that there is danger, there is evil, there is power. How we use it and react to it matters.
March 21
Mercury conjunct Jupiter
Mars sextile Chiron
Awash in our beliefs we are careful not to make assumptions regarding the beliefs of others. One way to do this is through artistic or creative expression. Sharing our stories through song, dance, image and word is an endless opportunity for healing. It is possible, even in these times, to open our heart/mind in utter devotion to whatever we believe without trying to make someone else believe it too. This is especially good for the children.
March 22
Mars square Uranus
As we continue to keep on rockin’ in the hard places, it’s necessary to believe that the kind of change we need will ultimately come. Nature will reset the ecological rhythms, even if humans are at war with her. Perhaps the human challenge is to bring reason but not rigidity to the process. How can consensus work in a polarized world? Can we reason with people who have already decided on their agenda? Can we be reasonable if we have already set our own? It’s a folk tale. We must find the key that can open the door to the dungeon. It is time to free the princess from her bewitchment. We are the princess, the dungeon, the key and the seeker. All of it. Each of us. Perhaps the seekers need to listen but not just to one another. That’s too much like listening to ourselves. We need to listen to the trees, the flowers, the waters, the weather, the rains, even the floods and the fires. There is where we find the key.
March 23
Mercury conjunct Neptune
Myth, dreams, poetry, song, story. They carry us on our journey through life. They allow us to talk to one another even when separated by time and distance. It’s a love story: A ladder to the sky: A descent into the deep reaches of existence: A longing that opens the door to real magic.
March 26
Mercury sextile Pluto
Dig, right where you stand. There is treasure. Not a tunnel to the other side of the world but more like a dark and twisting path, full of shadows that hook onto the projections of your own mind. Fascinating. Fertile. Awareness beyond ‘me’, including all living things. Whatever it is that grips your inner eye or mind, don’t push it away. Turn and offer your best attention. Profound consideration wins this day.
March 27
Mercury enters Aries
Typical of the fleet-footed god, the messenger, Mercury flies off to Aries just as we were getting comfy with the depths. Such is the nature of mind, yours and mine. Neither or perhaps both, here and there. ‘There is nothing but that thinking makes it so’ said the Bard. Which isn’t to say we can magically turn bombs into flowers but that we can choose to deal with them one way or another, depending…
March 28
Venus conjunct Saturn
If it matters, it’s worth planning for, especially if it involves a group. If you love the idea or if you can imagine the ideal outcome of something that matters, make a plan. Infuse your planning with love, not excessive caution or fear.
April 1
New Moon: 11 degrees Aries: 02:42 AM EDT
Sun conjunct Chiron
The April Fool is on the loose. There are fools and there are Fools. It can be difficult to distinguish the difference between innocence and ignorance when the F/fool shows up. This particular New Moon calls us to beginnings, to the planting of intentions like seeds. We want these seeds to grow even if we might not be around to see them flourish. We are a bit like Jonnie Appleseed, trailing seeds as we travel through life. “Who Am I?” might be the question. The answer changes even as we think we have one.
April 2
Mercury conjunct Chiron
Mercury conjunct the Sun
Wear the wisdom of experience, not like a badge, more like a secret that only you know: the secret that makes you the unique being you are. Feed the fire of life that both inspires and consumes us at the same time. Spring fever is nothing more or less than sap rising, awakening our biology as well as that most ephemeral quality we call soul. We are alive. Life is the gift, precious and fleeting. Not more, not less.
April 4
Mars conjunct Saturn
How does the shoulder fit the wheel? Efficiency is good. Kindness is better. May our efforts be a wise mix of both these qualities.
April 7
Mercury sextile Saturn
Hone your thoughts. Just because you want something to be true, doesn’t mean it is. Struggle if you must to maintain your sovereign right to think and focus on what is real and present, not what you have been led to believe, not to a virtual rendition of ‘real’ and ‘present’. You want freedom? Then find the part of you that can focus and direct it toward something real, present and meaningful: the cat, your dinner, a tree, a crying child, a wilted plant, a neighbor. Despite the bombardment of useless, dysregulating misinformation we have endless opportunity to dig into our immediate circumstance and find what’s real enough. Seeing isn’t enough to inspire believing anymore. Saturn has been trying to tell us for a while now that the ability to reason is a gift worth strengthening.
April 8
Mercury sextile Mars
The faculty of reason continues to require mercy. Do not become a casualty in the assault upon the mind which has been happening for a long time. Defend your right to think, to understand, to use your intelligence. Every conversation, each thing you read is an opportunity for this. We can temper the sometimes, negative Pisces energies of blind faith through the application of reason. This just might be the mandate if we want to enter the Age of Aquarius with our shirt on.
April 10
Mercury square Pluto
Mercury enters Taurus.
Ponder rather than perseverate. Live in the layers not on the litter.
April 12
Jupiter conjunct Neptune
Sun sextile Saturn
Big astrological news! This conjunction has been heading toward us like a wave waiting to break, or perhaps a tsunami heading toward land. It has been brewing for a while. We could say since February 24th but it’s older than that. We are awash in Pisces which is to say, feelings, connections, a sense of oneness with all life. We feel the suffering of others in ways we didn’t use to. Many more of us have come to understand that this suffering belongs to all of us. We are also at the mercy of madmen threatening destruction of OUR planet. Do we need a common enemy to feel these things? Is that the only way? For the many this may be true but for the individual it is not. We are, all of us, each of us, one individual and many at the same time. As we fling ourselves at the door of the Aquarian age it seems we have work to do on remaking our notion of a hero.
April 14
Mars enters Pisces
Here comes the warrior planet joining up you might say with Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces. What can we expect given that one person’s warrior is another person’s terrorist? Among other things, Pisces tells the story of our deep need for sacrifice which is ‘to make the mundane holy’.
Great compassion is often elicited in reaction to great cruelty. This, too is the story Pisces often tells. Everything in the manifest world is made of light and shadow – even signs and symbols.
April 16
Full Moon: 26 degrees Libra 02:55 PM EDT
(close to a square with Pluto)
We could say this is a warrior’s Moon. Aries and Libra are signs that go to war (this Full Moon is made of the Sun in Aries opposite the Moon in Libra). The ancients venerated war and so the Sun was exalted in Aries. We fight to survive. We even fight for peace. We fight. We resist. We make demands and offer challenges. Perhaps the best of Aries and Libra is when they concern themselves with justice and equitable living for all. The Full Moon (consider it the day before, the day of and the day after) encourages us to evaluate these things on micro as well as macro levels. Is there another story we could tell regarding Aries (and Libra)?
April 17
Mercury sextile Venus
In these last days of Aries, it seems we have stepped over a threshold, participated in an initiation we didn’t ask for and weren’t expecting. There was no ceremony for this initiation, no shaman or wise elder to encourage us to make the journey. At a time like this we need to consult with our inner shaman, the wise one within. They undoubtedly have a poem or a story, a song or maybe a suggestion to look at the moon or watch the sun set.
April 18
Mercury conjunct Uranus
Venus sextile Uranus
Sun square Pluto
You might say we have reason to worry about the future. Yours, mine and all the living beings on our planet. We do. But worry is generally alleviated when we take some kind of action, even prayer. We live in a time of Big Change. We can’t go back and the way forward seems fraught with confusion and danger as well as a promise of beauty and peace. We feel it all. Possibly we think too much and listen too little to the voice of our planet. No matter what we think, we are truly Nature’s children. Listen to your mother.