Good Morning!

As you may have figured out by now, Tuesday horoscopes are on an as-available basis. Currently I write two monthly horoscopes, which run the first two Tuesdays that the Sun is in a new sign. The rest of the Tuesdays, I send a letter. Today, you get a letter: about a chart I will be using later today to write Friday's horoscope -- that is, Saturday's Aquarius New Moon.

Simplified version of the Aquarius New Moon. for the full version side by side with this one, tap this link. Clue about charts: the houses and signs overlay one another in a seemingly random pattern. The house cusps are in black. They intersect the signs in the middle of a sign; the numbers around the outside of the wheel tell you where that happens.

If you are in a hurry and want some useful information, here is my summary of the chart: you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to 'back into your desire', or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake; you may discover what you want by an experience of conflict that resolves itself quickly and then leaves you with real information. Therefore you need to be mindful of experiences that teach you what you don't want, and therefore provide information about what you do want.

One other point. What you want and how you feel about that influences your environment -- particularly your mental environment but also your direct 'physical' environment. Your conscious desire changes the world around you, and has an influence on elements of life that you thought were 'too powerful' to respond to you. Therefore, focus on what you want and observe how the local cosmos responds. Observe how you respond.

One last point. This is a good time to observe your conditioning patterns and see the ways in which you are influenced by groups and by the media. Until we do something about it, we are all brainwashed by the influences of others who are trying to tell us what is supposed to be good for us (a luxury car, an awesome new deodorant, chewing gum that makes you hallucinate). To move out of that level of consciousness primarily takes awareness.

Now, how did I get there? Are these kinds of declarative statements really possible? (Note to English majors: astrology writing is a literary format, in which I am expected to give you useful material that you can actually apply to your life. But this is a kind of mental trick; it's useful because I interpret it in a way that slants it in that direction.)

Let's look at the chart for Saturday's New Moon. This chart is a simplified version, with most of the planets and points removed. If you want to see this contrasted with a more complex version, tap this link. I've left the ones that are directly in the current game. I will name them in order, from the top, anticlockwise: Mars retrograde, Saturn retrograde, Pluto, Mercury, Sun, Moon, Chiron, Neptune, Venus and Jupiter. The glyphs are all intuitive and you already recognize some of them.

Notice that there are planets with lower numbers next to them (from 3 to 6). They are talking to one another, and working as a set. Then there are planets with higher numbers next to them and they are talking to one another and working as a set (those in the 25 to 26 range). The sky is a little like a radio. Planets tune into frequencies based on their degree position, and relate to other planets in that range. Easy.

The definition of astrology. Photo by Eric Francis.

The planets in the 3 to 6 range are in aspect to Mars retrograde (the purple guy at the top). The ones in the 25 to 26 range are the Aquarius New Moon, conjunct Chiron and Neptune.

Reading astrology, the thing that is odd or unique can call the tune. Mars retrograde stands out in this regard. Mars has retrograded far enough back in Leo to be mixed up in the Saturn-Pluto square. You can see that because Saturn (green thing on the left) and Pluto (purple thing on the bottom) are within one degree apart, in a square aspect (see the line that connects them? It's not necessary, you can see the aspect without it because planets in the same degree range are in aspect to one another.)

Toward the right, Venus and Jupiter in Pisces have moved into the aspect structure. When I am describing all the planets in the 3 to 5 range, that is called an aspect structure: the one that involves Mars retrograde and the Saturn-Pluto square. This is quite a mix of tension and gratification. Notice how Mercury is opposite Mars: that's the conflict (Mercury opposite Mars can have the flavor of a blow-up or of psychic tension), which is largely mental in nature. It's about an idea, and that could well be within you, trying to work itself out.

When I say, "you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to 'back into your desire', or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake," that is the influence of Mars retrograde talking to, and influencing, and being influenced by, Saturn and Pluto: an aspect that is changing civilization as we speak. Where Mars encounters that is where the individual will meets the big forces that shape the world. Example: if you lose your job (presumably as a result of Saturn-Pluto restructuring), you then get to figure out what you want to do next (Mars involvement: desire, but it's retrograde, it's an 'odd' way to figure something out, but it works).

New York City skyline. Photo by Eric Francis.

Then there is the New Moon group, at 25-26 Aquarius. (By the way, they are really at 26-27 because once you go over 25 even you are into 26th degree; but I'm stating it this way to match the chart illustration.) As I explained in a recent edition, when a slow moving setup such as the Chiron-Neptune conjunction is met by a close event from the Sun and the Moon, it brings out the nature of the slow moving setup.

And what would that be?

Chiron conjunct Neptune is about seeing our environment for what it is: the psychic environment, the digital environment, and any environment involving exclusive groups of any kind. By exclusive I mean anything for which you need membership, a password, a device, or to believe in an idea. The Neptune fog is being clarified and focused by the high-precision energy of Chiron. We are getting to see through the fog, which includes seeing the potential for creative movement and the toxic potential of the environment that is around us. If we get good information, it will give us some ideas for how to respond -- not merely present a hopeless situation.

I have been learning a lot from the Abraham-Hicks material under this Mars retrograde in Leo, and today's daily quote sums up this point nicely.

"Anytime you feel negative emotion, stop and say: Something is important here; otherwise, I would not be feeling this negative emotion. What is it that I want? And then simply turn your attention to what you do want.... In the moment you turn your attention to what you want, the negative attraction will stop; and in the moment the negative attraction stops, the positive attraction will begin. And -- in that moment -- your feeling will change from not feeling good to feeling good. That is the Process of Pivoting."

Yours & truly,


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