The Hague, Monday, April 17, 2006
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Note to everyone: as far as I know, due to schedule changes earlier in the month, we are out of monthly horoscopes for April, and we'll resume with Planet Waves Monthly for May a week from today. But I may be wrong about that. Note to people in The Netherlands: I'll be passing through Amsterdam and Rotterdam this week if anyone is looking for me. If so, please reply to this email.

Late Aries Birthdays

ARIES has come through reality like a storm this year, and after the storm, there is progress. Solar returns during the phase approaching last week's Full Moon on April 13 have an up and over feeling, and there these charts have a sense of no control and many questions about the future.

There's a most indefinite tension in the air, but it's a fertile, wholesome, useful tension because it's the thing that will lead to progress, if you use it consciously. With Saturn now in your sympathetic fire sign Leo, in truth you have more support than inhibition on the creative front. Saturn may be said to restrict, but in fact it provides a container to more fully express our reality, and this is your story right now. Saturn says get grounded and do your thing. Don't wait for somebody else to get you going. A good prescription with Saturn is identify what scares you most and then do it.

Something definitely came loose with the March 29 total solar eclipse. Aries is about identity, particularly for you, and the past 13 months of the North Node and a series of eclipses funneling through your birth sign have been taking turns gathering strength and then dissipating it over and over again, leading to a mental state where you've had to get accustomed to locating your center (and what I call locus of identity) over and over again, then finding it in a whole new place. This has grounded you in who you are at the same time it's allowed you to get accustomed to something difficult for people: change.

Those dedicated to waging war against progress have likely experienced these past five or six seasons as an unfairly challenging time, though those who dedicate their lives to growth may also have had a little more than they bargained for as well. But in the end, you will most likely look back on this interval as the time you used to get beyond your past and make a transition into someone genuinely different than you were before, even if this mainly means you've deepened yourself, begun exploring real interests, and pushing yourself to be a little more free than you were yesterday.

But recent birthdays are defined not so much by the last week's Full Moon or the eclipse two weeks earlier as they are by the change of signs of the planet Mars, a planet so closely related to you that in not so ancient times it was called Ares. The defining moment of this transit could be summed up in a few words: which way am I going now? Add Mercury in Aries to the equation and this becomes an inevitable, burning question.

You may sense that this question (which comes up over and over) has hardly ever seemed to have more personal importance or immediate urgency, and yet somehow it goes beyond the personal because you're likely to be sensing your destiny in a magnified way, along with your inevitable impact on events in the world that reach beyond your life.

Thus may those with solar return charts leading into the Mars sign change from Gemini to Cancer on the 14th (shortly after the Full Moon, and deeply mingled in its spell) be feeling a healthy dose of chaos. It's as if the only thing that could induce a real sense of direction is no direction at all. And this can be frightening, particularly since the whole world seems to be swallowed in this quality.

Yet tune in and you'll see that the seed of the new is contained in every old question you're asking yourself, and the truth of who you are and what you want is just below the surface of every moment of doubt and debate. When in doubt, go deeper.

And what might that truth be? Well, desire is extremely personal, and the most I feel comfortable doing is describing the energetic qualities of the moment. For that job, let's tune into the Mars ingress into Cancer chart, which is relevant in the life of any Aries or Aries rising and worth a look by other Mars ruled signs, such as Scorpio or Capricorn as this will reflect part of your story as well.

After many months of moving slowly and/or in reverse, Mars was moving at the respectable clip of 35 arc minutes a day when it made the ingress, suggesting that you are able to make progress at a rate apropos of your Arian nature.

Combine this with Cancer being a Cardinal sign, closely related to your own, and the feeling is one of initiative and even relief at finally being able to assert yourself emotionally, claim your space, take some emotional freedom and put into action a few choice ideas about what it means to have control over your life.

What is developing now is closely related to the events of early summer 2001. Maybe you are finally getting past what commenced at that time. Maybe you're going back to certain situations to see what you've learned. Apart from a lot of world political shenanigans, that summer was a watershed in your life and may represent a moment you can trace back as the beginning of an emotional security struggle, an uprooting or a purge that set you free from an extraordinarily complicated or intractable situation that was long overdue for change. There may have been qualities of all of the above. Indeed, this may have been the scene of a seeming disaster, but one that set you free.

The recent sign change of Mars likely took you right to the core of this situation, even though it seems like ancient history. You don't need to go all the way in, but rather, remember where you were, what was happening and most particularly, how far you've come since that time.

Then comes a moment of truth, and it's actually yet to fully align: Mars, your ruling planet, is square the lunar nodes, which are in Aries/Libra. Mercury is now approaching a square to Mars as well, on the Aries Point and the North Node. Regarding Mars, this is one of those special conditions: the ruler of the North Node is square the lunar nodal axis. This can, in my experience, be summed up succinctly. Jeff Green described it first, and I tested his theory a lot of times -- it's a good one.

He calls this the 'skipped steps' situation. The suggestion is that when the ruler of one of the nodes (Mars, ruling the North Node in this case) is square the nodal axis, it's a condition where the chart native's tendency is to skip necessary steps. What does this mean? You have to suss that out for yourself. But look, and you will find, and you will make a difference by doing so.

You can apply this formula proactively -- that is, be careful to take every step of every process you undertake in your life -- and retroactively, looking for why you may be going in circles. If you find you're going in circles or not getting the results you're striving for, if you get close and then suddenly don't make it, the remedy is pretty simple: go back and look for any steps in the process that you've skipped.

This is such a dependable bit of astrological formula that it makes me wish astrology were always that simple and easily reduced to an easy equation. While not everything in astrology works this easily, we do have this little ditty. I suggest you write it on the wall, or type it into your screen saver. "What steps have I skipped?"

Whether you're balancing your checkbook or making a movie, this will help you.

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NOTE TO ARIES: We will post all of last year's birthday reports to the subscriber homepage (and the Lemonade homepage) shortly, and doing this as we go through the signs. Ah here they are now, mysteriously appearing!

http://www.lemonade.planetwaves.net/bdreports/aries.html

More on the Aries Point stuff in today's blog and the current Astrology Secrets Revealed.

NOTE SPEICAL BONUS BELOW

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OKAY NOBODY FAINT, I AM ATTEMPTING A SERIES OF WRITEUPS OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS (and it will take help, this is not my specialty). THESE ARE GOING TO GO IN THE LEMONADE HOROSCOPE AREA AND ELSEWHERE - AND WHAT YOU HAVE BELOW IS A KIND OF ADVANCED ROUGH DRAFT. BUT I WANT TO GET THE BALL ROLLING WHILE THE SUN IS IN ARIES AND I WELCOME YOUR IDEAS AND FEEDBACK. I'LL BE DOING THIS THROUGH THE SIGNS THROUGH THE ASTROLOGICAL YEAR. THE ONLINE PUBLISHED VERSION WILL BE ILLUSTRATED BY TAROT CARDS.

ARIES
The Emperor - Mars

ARIES is the cosmic energy that turns the key to the thought, action and creation, and as one born under this sign, you are the keeper of the key. Aries is the beginning of the astrological story of humanity. It is also the beginning of the story of the year, as you are born in the first month of springtime.

"The first impulse is awakened in Aries, for Aries is the place where the initial idea to institute activity takes form," wrote the occultist Alice A. Bailey in the book Esoteric Astrology. "It is the birthplace of ideas, and a true idea is in reality a spiritual impulse taking form -- subjective and objective. There originates the response of the soul to the highest aspect or quality of deity because there appears the 'will to incarnate'."

It is indeed a privilege to be born under this sign, as you possess, teach and share in your heart these qualities of humanity. You respond to the cosmic creative impulse and strive to be one who creates with all your being. You are indeed the pioneer of the zodiac, a fact which also applies to others with strong Aries placements in their charts, such as the ascendant or a very strong Mars.

It is often said that Aries are great at beginning things, though challenged at completing them. This is a silly complaint, because the most vital thing we can do on the Earth is get stuff going, and we should all be happy to have people who are trailblazers. Yours is a Fire sign, and Fire is the element of passion. You share certain properties with Leo and Sagittarius, though express them quite differently, with a childlike enthusiasm and a level of naiveté that would make great achievements possible. The expression, "If I had known what I was getting into, I never would have started," describes your approach to life.

Yours is also a Cardinal sign, which is a grouping of four signs of the zodiac which begins the seasons. Aries begins spring, Cancer begins summer, your opposite sign Libra begins autumn and Capricorn begins winter. These four signs carry the energy of turning points, new developments and major changes. Each has the property of bringing individuals into contact with the larger world picture, and vice versa. Aries is the sign that reminds us, "The personal is political."

It is for this reason you may feel you have an especially significant lifetime this time around -- as if you were born with a special mission that only you can fulfill.  

Whether you have the ability to follow through on your plans, innovations and developments, and actually build the bridge or castle, would depend on other factors in your astrological chart, which you can study for clues -- but there is nothing about being born an Aries that inherently prohibits this possibility. Still, it is always wise for an Aries to surround herself or himself with people who have strong Earth and Water energy, to help you develop the qualities of consistency and persistence.

Keep an eye out for people who are experts on follow through and taking care of the boring details -- they will be very helpful to you.

In astrology, one or more planets is associated with each sign. For Aries, the first planet is Mars, the Roman god of war (also called Ares). While Aries people can certainly be confrontational, and are not afraid to get in anyone's face (as you well know,) this god of war business is mostly symbolic. Mars is the energy of passion, of drive, and of the push for achievement. Without Mars energy, nothing would happen in the world. But the result is often a level of conflict that you will, gradually, learn to work out in your lifetime. It actually does happen.

The second planet associated with Aries (called the 'exalted planet') is the Sun. Both are hot, fiery celestial bodies. The Sun we can consider the source of all life. Mars is the source or origin of all action.

In a spiritual system called the tarot, the card associated with your sign is The Emperor. One of the keys to understanding this card are the mountains in the background, behind him in the traditional deck (on the left). These mountains represent the concrete achievement that is possible in this lifetime when you become the master of your own energy.

The Dauntless Moon (on subscriber area - not so pretty, needs repackaging)
http://planetwavesweekly.com/drdc8/current/031010.html

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