Providential Promise in April's Grand Cross

3.31.14


We're now in the palpable crescendo of this year's most tumultuous astrology, which builds to its peak just a few weeks from now… but this is no startling revelation I'm pulling out of thin air.

We already know this is going down. Not only have I previously described in detail the astrological aspects at play, but we've all been feeling these energies building for some time. The most salient themes have been bearing down on us for months, only increasing in urgency over recent weeks. Are you really that surprised that a critical climax approaches?

One common follow-up response I've received from my review of April's upcoming astro-turbulence: 'Are you sure you didn't mean March instead of April? It seems like what you're forecasting for the future has already been happening!' Along with this common acknowledgment that turbulent vibes are already circulating through our lives, I also hear in these voices incredulous disbelief that this instability could actually get more intense. If it feels this crazy now, what about the weeks directly ahead?

Let's, please, take all this in stride.

For those of us already neck-deep in tempestuously swirling circumstances with no simple solution or immediate relief, we should at least be able to align our expectations accordingly… hopefully taking some solace in accepting that, by the giant time-clock in the sky, we aren't supposed to have our shit worked out yet. We have been celestially invited to not know where we're headed, or how exactly we're supposed to get there.

And because these uncertainty-inspiring developments have already been in dynamic unfolding, we're less likely to be completely side-swiped or gob-smacked by what's coming up around that bend. Chances are, any 'wild-card' occurrence is simply the next step (admittedly, not necessarily the next logical one, at least by conventional standards of 'logic') in a process earlier set into motion.

Even if you are legitimately shocked by a turn you never could've or should've seen coming, let me suggest it still serves as just one more incentivizing trigger, a stalemate-busting pretext for having to take another decisive action, perfectly timed for further fueling moves you'd already intended to make. Thank this 'shock' for keeping your momentum up.

I'm more concerned with anyone who hasn't yet experienced any discernible drift of these energies… who might be under the misguided insistence that everything's 'business as usual' and/or is overly invested in holding down the fort in the same manner it's been held for months or years. These are the folks who are essentially asking to be knocked on their butts by the evolution-hungry Universe.

I'm not insinuating that everybody who feels as if their current life-situation is 'smooth sailing' is due for disaster. That said, this is decidedly not a moment for resting on your laurels, growing complacent or lackadaisical, or carelessly counting on an indefinite continuation of these conditions. If all's going swimmingly for you, then this challenging astrological climate is meant to spur your inventive impulses toward questions of what else you can do with your success besides the same-old-thing. Proactively push against comfortable habit, upping your game past the point of 'reliable' into edgy new practices which might feel like a stretch. Stasis is not our natural state, after all.

If you're holding off on some risky advance (much desired, perhaps, yet rather terrifying), I cannot urge you strongly enough to throw yourself behind it… and GO FORTH! If you don't take some agency in expressing these energies, the startling twist is liable to happen to you—a much-needed release of tensions which built up precisely because you resisted making a move. At least it'll serve to teach you a potent lesson about the pitfalls of passivity.

Despite all the sensational coverage being given to April's eclipse-activated, Mars-retrograde-charged cardinal grand cross—again, a tense clash between Mars retrograde, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto forming to exactitude from April 20 to 23—I'm really trying to simultaneously focus on the providential promise inherent to this moment's other astrological happenings. As I first mentioned in my last article, April also features a Venus-Neptune conjunction in Pisces, the sign of Venus's exaltation, where she operates at her most honorable. This high-hearted Venus makes gorgeous supportive trines to both Jupiter (also honorably exalted in Cancer) and Saturn during April, a synergy of water-sign vibes that assists us in tapping into our emotional insights, intuitions, and sympathies… right in the midst of our having to deal with whatever unforeseen grand-cross discontinuities threaten to leave our predictable, rational response-tactics strikingly ineffective.

Last weekend (Sat Mar 22), I spoke at San Francisco's International Astrology Day event on the topic of 'How Do We Know What We Know?', inspired by the day's conjunction of Mercury and Neptune in Pisces… an aspect similar to what I described above, but more specifically impacting our mental faculties (Mercury). I shared my reflections on various forms of 'knowing', differentiating between (1) objective facts-and-figures and other straight-line data, cleanly transmitted in clear communication from one source to another, which represents Mercury's activity at its finest by traditional dignity, and (2) the more evocative, imagistic, psychically resonant, yet hard-to-decipher and impossible-to-prove sort of insight generally associated with a Neptune/Pisces influence. Considering I was presenting under what's seen by many as disadvantageous Mercury conditions, I purposefully left space in my talk to wander off on rabbit-hole tangents, summon unplanned intuitive digressions, and respond to the feel of my audience—an instinct which proved prescient once my co-presenter unexpectedly dropped out just a few days before the gig, and I suddenly had twice as much time to fill.

At the end of it all, I experienced my talk as a great success, largely due to my willingness to embrace the opportunity with more openness to 'whatever's going to happen' than I'd ever before approached a speaking engagement. If I left those in attendance with any singular message, I hope it was that the compassionate spirit and uplifting purpose with which we share our knowledge with others is at least as essential to its insightfulness as trying to comprehensively capture every last factual detail to the letter (but maybe overlooking why it's so important to 'know' it), if not more. This is also the attitude with which I practice my astrology, and with which I'm looking at the astrological tumult we now find ourselves in.

Against a backdrop of two exalted benefics (Venus and Jupiter) in trine to one another in water signs, then, we mustn't discount the gracious promise of profound emotional connection that comes along with potentially unsettling or upsetting developments. Like anybody who has met a life-challenge (no matter how devastating) with both strength and the spiritually-minded wisdom that 'everything happens for a reason'—which, though we may not know (or care to know) the 'reason' while the shit's hitting the fan, is nonetheless true—we eventually recognize these challenges as clarifying 'gifts'.

Through pains and losses, we discover who our real loved ones are... and we let the fair-weather superficialities fall away. In the face of imposed limitation or looming mortality, we see our true priorities rise to the top… and the little crap no longer seems to matter much. As we collectively face hardship or disaster, we come closer together, realizing that, even as our anxious minds obsess over all we lack, our hearts report we have everything we need—as long as we permit ourselves to be vulnerable enough to lean on one another, and sensitive enough to care about each other.