Give Yourself A Hand

Sunday May 6th

The series of 0s and 1s that represent us, the program of our every chromosome, of our every protein; the poise of our intentions, the impetus to all our actions, like snakes darting out of the dark, ones snapping out of the centers of zeros into the sequence which connects and completes us, a catalyst in the chain instigates us to step from our caves, and as now Mercury is free of the retrograde shadow we progress forward into new logic, new sequences of action, new ideas firing off, new impulses igniting. We are what we do in Aries, or, with Mercury in Aries, we say we are what we think we do, or we think we are what we say we do. If we could slow down reality and replay it we might find a version of ourselves programing our moves before we make them, the synaptic spark, the instinctual action that has us hustle into posture, or run towards our targets. As Mercury proceeds into the 3rd decan of Aries our Mercurial faculties grow craftier and flashier, blunt and gaudy but picked out precisely for effect and to draw attention, the Trickster’s Pied costume in loud and clashing colors that get attention and draw it to his dance, one carries a message loud and clear, but also carries a sucker-punch, a jab that wakes up the audience like a sharp whistle or the firing of a pistol, and then makes them witness to a spirited spray of language in motion; and if this doesn’t get their chests thumping his tongue will wrap around their hearts like a serpent and pump it for them. Neon letters erupting into vain and combative sentences that rouse the spirits of who’s ears or eyes they fall upon. These are new and original ideas, and even dangerous ideas, or at least naive and full of energy, brash slogans and rushed manifestos passed in pogo packs with bold typed phrases to latch onto in fist pumping chants. Logic, ideas, words, hearts, tongues, fists in a chain reaction.

Although, hold on, wait a minute. That’s all well and good for thoughts and speech but feet on the ground and the pace of life in the hazy felids of languid luncheons and slow and steady labor pulls the reigns in on the lip service. Somehow, all these new ideas and crafty logic need to be paced so that they drizzle evenly into the gears of attention and time so that they make sense and don’t sound like squirrel chatter or high pitched peeper chirping. Releasing speech in a way that is soothing to the steady Sun traversing Taurus and in accordance with strict Saturn’s slow steps from station in Capricorn, or else be the more susceptible to what you say falling as a clamorous clash.

The Sun sextiles Neptune at 9am coloring the day with a collaboration between our organic visions, how we steadily step towards attaining them and our intuitions, our psychic connections to the wholeness or ambient totality of the universe. We may be inspired to pause in our work and contemplate over the needs of others, taking a moment to put some prayer into our practice and petition Saints etc. to aid those in crisis, or consider how a cut of our harvest might go to charity, even if it is a division of our labor, or simply spiritual petition.

Monday May 7th

Venus coming to squares Neptune over Achernar at 6pm may dedicate Monday to daydreaming and romantic imagination. This sounds lovely in theory, but if you are scheduled to require focus or discipline distraction by daydreams and artistic inspiration can imbue circumstances instead with turbulence, especially in relationships arising out of fantasies and delusions. You might become preoccupied with an imaginary crisis, that doesn’t read as whimsical and charming when it is you swinging your sword at the windmill, or even Rabelaisian level escapades that detour the day away. Chatty, journalistic, curious, idea loving Venus in tension against the imaginative dreams and psychic experiences of the ambient universe, where vibes and creative conversation clash, for better or worse.

Tuesday May 8th

The morning begins with Venus passing over Rigel around 10am, which directs our aesthetic attentions towards education of the masses from creative ideas and media arts. This is not necessarily an act of softening our focus to make it fit for mass consumption, but having no regard for social conventions, ethical considerations or religious sensitivity; instead this is art being art in a way that makes society look at issues how they really are in a way that sometimes journalism or media might not be able to acceptably present.

A Sun who has just recently learned to work hand in hand with cosmic intuition and psychic phenomenon in the most organic and grounded way then sights across the ecliptic and comes face to face with the planet of optimistic outlooks at 8:30pm as the Sun opposes Jupiter. We receive a vision of steady, organic progress in fully coherent of intense emotional alchemy. Plodding progress need to be put in balance with philosophies of primal hungers and an understanding of how they are sublimated, how the poisons we hold within can be filtered and transformed into medicinal potions that are not only suitable for everyday use, but are beneficial to what we sow. How can our most dangerous desires be diluted by giving them expression daily in gradual holistic doses?

The combination of this days aspects culminates in an interesting interplay of dynamics; how can our inner darkness be brought out into the open in a way that it is free to express but no longer weaponized, and how can the masses become better informed by this collective experience? If we all bring a digestible dose of our intensity to the surface in our continual actions do we encourage the blossoming of a more balanced and well informed culture? Or at least a more creatively varied or aesthetically stimulating one? And how is this done? Art may be the only answer.

Thursday May 10th

As the Sun progresses into the third decan of Taurus, and continues to the third phase of that earth sign’s agrarian metaphor, our Solar eye looks directly toward the possibility of agricultural disaster, catastrophic crop failure is always a possibility in a mass planting. While waiting for crops to mature into harvests there is always the chance of hazard interfering, such as hail, blight, drought or pests. Here then is a form of humility, patience, phylactery, charm, and apotropaicism; essentially the dynamic of myriad fertility rites practiced by all spectrums of culture to assure bountiful returns and to sustain the lives of those who work and , hopefully, live in harmony with the land. This may be accomplished by any rite out of folk history, any talisman, amulet, sacrifice, dance or custom, from the simple to the elaborate, and from the wholesome or gentle to the gruesome and terrible, such as the cinematic conclusion of the The Wicker-Man sacrifice. At this phase of the spring, our hopes have been made manifest, and tools have touched the earth, our spells have set sail and there is no turning back the seasonal clock to catch up with what we might have missed or ran out of time for. The waves of yellow and purple and white flowers tell us how far along we are in the sequence and for many things we must keep our fingers crossed as much as we keep our eyes peeled and our hands busy helping our yields along to realization.

Friday May 11th

Very early, only technically Friday, Venus follows the trend of entering into third decans by proceeding into Gemini’s third face, where opposites migrate even further to the extreme ends of the spectrum, and choices between diverging elements in the realm of venusian affairs must be made. Suddenly we look over the polarization of creativity, art, pleasure, aesthetic, sex, love, relationships and we realize we must make decisions between A and Z, between Alpha and Omega, that ultimately opposites of this sort, though they attract, cannot be combined, and in the end there can only be one. This especially applies to cultural, social and mental/intellectual channels as this is Gemini, an air sign. The universe, or nature itself, beyond the customs of the cultures within it, occasionally only allows one thing to happen at a time, and the tension between pairs is too great for steady, ongoing merger. You cannot look to the right and to the left at the same time. You cannot monitor the North and the South simultaneously, and if you are going to make sense out of what the wind carries, you must decide which cardinal direction you give your attention. Again, this is Venus, and so this has obvious implications romantically, but creatively, art might be the only medium that can express this tension, like a surfer, trying to hold on to the swelling paradox as it crashes. Ultimately even here, will you be able to best capture the essence in film, in painting, in poetry, in documentary, in fiction; amalgamation has taken you so far, and as the road before you forks you must decide which path you now take. Aesthetically, the stang rises before us on the road, and it becomes a place to petition and pray to Fates in other ways. We might consider what Idols belong at such a place, and what performances accompany such frenetic narratives, when stories divide the page and text funnels down two drains, the strings of sounds decreasing by one letter at a time in parallel until they’re gone, and then what? Then where did the spirits of this place go and what are they up to if the song has simplified until it stops? Now what? Again we must choose once more: sit in silence or start all over again and repeat the sequence. There are times where either is required, but you can’t do both, at least not at once. But if you could…

Later that morning by 11am the Moon conjoins Chiron creating an opportunity to feel what The Wounded-Healer, newly in Aries, is wounding or able to heal. We might not want to concentrate too much of our energy here, but as she passes the Centaur by we might keep ourselves observant and see if we can’t get a whiff of the medicine the old one carries.

Later, that evening, at 7:15pm the Sun trines Pluto, where we might spelunk with headlamps into our absolute depths to inform us of our volitional actions. What are we doing? What should we do? Perhaps the Obsidian Mirror can guide us, especially when it is our own entrails in the reflection for us to paw through. But the darkness is too thick, our lantern won’t cut it, and we might as well abandon it and go blind, search in a more subtle way, look with our eyes closed, do some kind of deep investigation and study, seeking intense and initiatory experiences to attain realization and vitalization. enact raw power to harness forcefulness. Vision and identification with organic, steady pace and preparing rites of fertility protection harmonized with voids and beyonds or raw mysterious powers in the structure of how concrete reality and nature (or hierarchal systems) operate. Really what we look for is a sound, all we need to do is find the harmonic, the piece that resonates with our reflections as well as our shadows.

Saturday May 12th

Saturday opens with another potential clang as Mercury Squares Mars at 9:30am. All communications are likely to become both combative and challenging here, and its likely you might be telling people off who cross you, or simply, or not so simply, having to defend your ideas and beliefs. We must be careful today as driving and traveling can be rather dangerous. This is not necessarily from ill fortune but because repressed rage weaponizes communications, logic and travel, effecting our abilities to think, speak and to drive. The inspirational performance which communicates individual ideas clashing against calculated, strategic, managerial actions. Really it is about energization, that Mercury has to contend with agendas when he really wants to shout slogans. He wants to do his own rendition of Crass but there is sequence of maneuvers that must be completed for him to be free enough to evoke anarchy. The tensions of squares is what stimulates action and causes stuff to happen. You leave the patio and go inside because the mosquitos are getting bad, quite simply. You fix the car because it is broken down. You do something about it. This is the same, and as long as there are positive and productive channels for the expression to flow into it might be one of those times where you kick ass. Keep on the look out for these channels during the week leading up to Saturday as Mars is in Saturn’s sign and this is Saturn’s day, and the night is Mercury’s night, and Mercury is in a Mars ruled sign, so he is not likely to get ignored or shoved into the background. Mars will want to direct Mercury, so this is for the better, rather than them having opposing objectives altogether. Make it a call to action and use your brain and voice to inspire yourself and others to manage the affairs at hand, like the work chants that get you through a hard day of labor.

At 4pm Venus visits the fixed star Bellatrix, and Creative/relationship/artistic/sexual success comes but at the expense of facing various shadow-side issues in the process. You may become or encounter a romantically rogue character, or creative person clearly on an alternative path, highlighting non-conventional relationships and controversial social circumstances. A few hours later Mars comes to Acumen at 10pm, a star in the tail of Scorpio which brings the feeling of being under attack to the mixture, which could stir up the motivation to act in the face of hardship or despite social negativity. This star also stimulates interaction with the shadow side of things, but through meeting stimulating challenges. Saturday, indeed, has potential for drama and conflict, but perhaps conflicts that lead to success by passing through darkness or rousing the resources of your shadow self to the occasion. As aspects and transits go, these can manifest as messy social drama’s, actual all out wars, devious deserts at dinner, or the themes you encounter in a movie. Don’t lock yourself in a bunker, although alternately avoid obvious aggressive escalations or be totally prepared to tango.

This is stressed as The Moon and Mercury will both conjoin Uranus by 7am Sunday morning and will be absolutely applying overnight. This can be a very vigorous influx of new ideas that ripple through you emotionally. If you are not normally set to quick thinking this can potentially blow you back when you open the box, but if you are mentally speedy normally you might course with inspiration and excitement. Both possibilities have the potential of a system overload, as keeping pace will prove harder than it seems, especially as time and vision itself is rolling along much more slowly. We might want to prepare for Saturday and Sunday as one does for a rowdy concert or a rollercoaster or a frenetic festival. Don’t dread it, it probably won’t kill you, but still gear up and embrace for impact.