Thoughts for April 2008

24 March 2008

Graphic Ephemeris April 2008

New Moon 6 April 2008

1st Quarter Moon 12 April 2008

Full Moon 20 April 2008

3rd Quarter Moon 28 April 2008

Aries Ingress 2008

Apologies for not having written anything for February and March, things have been a little busy and I'm only just getting back on track. This has followed the astrological cycles very tightly and I've made some very interesting observations. It's as if we've been down Alice's rabbit hole.

I would put the start of this around the end of September and you can track this by following the shenanigans of Mercury, Mars and Pluto. I hear you all shouting “Saturn in Virgo” but there is a very interesting interpenetration of cycles which I’d like to point out.

21st September saw Mars oppose Pluto at 26 Gemini/Sagittarius, very near the degree of Mars’s station direct at 24 Gemini, with Mercury at 23 Libra about to complete the trine. There would be three exact Mars Pluto oppositions due to Mars’s retrograde period and the final one will be on 7th March at 0 Cancer/Capricorn. Throughout this period as either Mars or Mercury reached a station the other would be catching up and maintaining the trine relationship.

As they approached the second Mars Pluto opposition, Mars and Mercury opposed each other from the early degrees of Cancer/Capricorn and were joined by the Sun, Jupiter and the Moon coinciding with Saturn’s station retrograde. This was shown by a period of extreme tension just before Christmas, manifesting with the death of Benazir Bhutto on 27th December.

Mars stationed direct at 24 Gemini at the end of January and Mercury caught up to complete another trine when it stationed retrograde at 23 Aquarius, conjunct Neptune.
Jupiter and Pluto have already moved into Capricorn. Perhaps we are waiting for Mars to complete this aspect to draw a line under things? The combination of Mercury and Mars has certainly given extra gusto to these already uncertain periods. I’ve never seen Mercury retrogrades like this. It’s enough to put the fear of god into new students. Don’t worry they’re not all like this and it’s nice when you can identify something else underpinning a cycle. It certainly feels that what lead us more deeply into a knot at the end of last year is leading us out again. We pay lots of attention to the larger cycles but the interplay of the shorter cycles can be absolutely fascinating. We should pay more attention. We're nearly back to the point at which mars stationed retrograde and to Saturn's station, we should now be moving forward.

We have a continuing fixed T-square at the moment - Mars, Pluto and Sun - which will quickly go out of orb now Mars is picking up speed but we do have a queue of faster moving planets which will leave Pisces during the first week of April and in doing so will square Pluto. Don't forget that slower moving planets are always waiting to pick up aspects from the faster ones, hence they get to square Mars in the second week and then Mars will have caught up with Jupiter so we get another T-square later on.

When you have two planets in aspect the sky is just waiting to present these configurations and we can see this on 18th April when Saturn and Pluto are in exact trine and Mercury fits into the empty corner to complete the grand trine in earth. We get a double dose on 21st when Mars catches up to make his exact trine to Uranus and the Moon fills in the gap. Not a star of David but two grand trines in the sky at the same time.

This month could be a little calmer but don't disregard the Aries ingress. This has Uranus conjunct the ascendant which is never something to take lightly. Uranus is sextile Jupiter and both of these planets are involved in the aspect activity this month. Perhaps the fact that these are grand trines and T-squares should give us the clue although little comfort. The cardinal hard aspects indicates continuing underlying tension - we want to act but we are frustrated. The earth and water soft aspects show where our energy is able to flow - we can act to protect our safety and our feelings. Lets hope the lack of air doesn't leave us at the mercy of our instincts.

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