Goodbye Trudge, Hello Run-and-Jump

6.6.05

Introducing our week, a Gemini New Moon caps off a past month during which (1) a lot of our personal goop shifted and stirred, and (2) not a lot of the simmering goop-storm sliding around made much sense. Indeed, if I were to ask you what specifically shifted for you, you might not even be able to muster an accurate reply… though your body and/or soul might still be experiencing the shock.

The big news this week—and I'd like to consider it good news, or at least refreshing—is that our overall temper, the manner with which we act and react and process our data, is undergoing an extremely significant transition.

I'll put it like this: Where we've recently been trudging slowly through mud (and, just maybe, manically worrying that we've misplaced the map, lost our momentum, or wasted too much time), now we will be running and jumping across the landscape, enjoying the faster tempo and allowing our manic minds to relax. And as long as we stay present in our bodies and in the process of what we're doing, any minor variations in physical sensation should instantly tip us off to those directional switches we need to make. (You can thank your lucky intuitions for that). Believe me, this is as dramatic a climate change as waking up one morning and realizing, after weeks of snow and sleet, that the sun is shining warm and bright.

Let's be honest… this past month has been as strangely ungrounded as they come, especially odd considering it began with the New Moon on May 8 in Taurus, the most earthy and practical of signs. But as I told you then, this was no ordinary Taurus influence—that New Moon squared off against wet-and-wispy Neptune, which will do whatever it can to inspire spiritual wonder and awe by substituting regular reality with magic, madness and mystery.

This Neptunian sway over our rational lives was further emphasized with Mars spending the month in Pisces (Neptune's ruling sign), a position where his trademark talent for propelling us onward becomes dampened and drifty. Picture the concentrated flow of a garden hose, diverted through a sprinkler-head attachment and decentralized into a hundred spindly streams that gently mist but never get much water in any one place, and that's Mars in Pisces. This is, frankly, not Mars's favorite place.

Plus, may I remind you that Mars also conjoined Uranus back on May 15, an aspect ripe with the unexpected and the destabilizing? Yet, with Pisces as the sign of the conjunction, even the startling surprises (whatever they may have been) came cloaked in confounding costumes. Three weeks later, we're still barely grasping the impact.

If you think back over your month and quietly review the events, stripping the account of whatever emotional moods and mopes accompanied them, you might be surprised at how much actually happened—patterns broken, attitudes altered, decisions made, losses grieved and left behind. Perhaps you didn't notice the extensiveness at the time, especially if you're prone to those escapist tendencies characteristic of the Neptunian/Piscean dark side: drug-and-alcohol mood enhancement, too much food, too much sleep, all we need is love and rescue me and other la-la-land lullabies. Okay, now snap out of it.

In a rather quick 1-2-3 span of little over a week, the three closest planets to us—Mercury, Venus and Mars—all change sign, effectively turning the dial on the glowing box, from 'Mysterious of the Unknown' to 'the 24-hour action channel'. Apart from the luminary duo of Sun and Moon, these three are the most influential forces in setting the scene for our day-to-day lives. (The planets past Mars, starting with Jupiter, travel more slowly and shift signs in intervals of years, not weeks.) Thus, when Mercury, Venus and Mars all cross cusps within such a relatively small window, you just know you're going to feel the difference. And in the current situation, all three are moving from mutable signs into cardinal signs… which translates into a shift from more passive 'adaptation and synthesis' to more active 'impetus, ignition and initiation'.

Venus kicked it off by boogieing from Gemini into Cancer last Friday, and Mercury follows suit over the same zodiac border this coming Saturday. Venus and Mercury together in Cancer aim us away from the frenetic, mentally-and-verbally hyperstimulated of Gemini. Under Cancer, we know what we know because we feel it to be true, not because we thought it all out. We communicate with caring gestures, meaningful glances and soothing rubs. Or, if these can't authentically be mustered, we withdraw in self-protection. Words are fewer, and more densely saturated with unspoken sentiment.

While the general emotional tone is heightened, it's also more immediate and personal, as compared with the recent Piscean fog of emotion. We recognize the feelings more easily. They are ours. And we are better able to follow our instincts, to actively pursue what makes us feel good and to build up a shell against what doesn't.

Also, on Saturday—and blow the loud horns for this one!—Mars stumbles his way out of Pisces and storms into Aries, his ruling sign and a position of true physical power. Mars in Aries is a leader, a warrior, a shit-stirrer, a project-starter, and an all-around energetic guy. Without exaggeration, this movement of Mars from Pisces into Aries is one of the most distinct and noticeable astro-changes there is. It's like reigniting the pilot light on your oven… my, how quickly the kitchen heats up, and now we're cookin'!

By the beginning of next week, we will all surely feel the increase in courage, initiative and physical energy, thanks to Mars returning home to Aries. Of course, along with greater self-possessed drive and fiercer personal force comes an amplified potential for conflicts and clashes—ultimately, it's nearly impossible to have one without the other. But a little healthy confrontation (that is, respectful and non-violent and fair) is all part of the process… and could actually provide a good excuse to push for what we really want.

It's worth noting that Aries and Cancer, like Pisces and Gemini before them, are signs that square off. Both energies require respect, or else there's a challenge on our hands. Whereas the past month of Pisces v. Gemini pitted confusing spiritual shifts against our poor overactive minds that tried to make 'em make sense, the newly-in-effect Aries/Cancer square is, in my opinion, potentially less maddening. Both Aries and Cancer are bodily signs—Aries pushes and prods the body along, while Cancer sends and receives its intuitive messages through the body as its vehicle. The trick is to both act and react, without relying too much on one or the other. Run with desire, listen with care… all instantaneous, unmediated and pure.

As we welcome this new astro-energy, the best advice to offer for this week and into the coming few… Listen to your body. The more you think about what you should do, the more you'll second-guess your truth impulse. The more you worry about the spiritual meaning of things, the more likely you'll miss the living expression of spirit in your every action and interaction.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what advice I give. This dramatic atmospheric shift—and you will feel it by next week—is enough inspiration in itself.