The Astrology of March 2019: Lost and Found

In the interim between dark Moons the fiery red hot rod melted into a paddle wheel river boat, sending fans slowly through the muddy slurry, and the sky high hot air balloon shrunk into an Ox landing four hooves into the muck with a muffled thud. In the ditch where we found ourselves bailing brown water from the puddle into the channel pale by pale we could still remember yesterdays fission, the sparks and nuclear chain reactions that spat out newspaper clippings and incinerated them into scintillating ideas that would flash against the fast moving clouds like puppets of fire performing out our fantasies for us to enjoy and be inspired by; we could hear the roar of excitement as we rose our spirits to the apex and added to the energy. Now, with our hands in the cool, soft silt sifting out the coarser aggregate and the sludge squishing between our toes, leaning into the hillside for support, things seem so distant. A potters wheel spins in our minds, and all we can do is press it with our imaginary hands and shape the stuff into something that might someday hold our fates secure, be a vessel for our heart’s outpourings, something to collect the humoral slippage, a vase for next springs wildflowers, fingers crossed like plaited clay around the rim of the cup, inverted then uninverted so nothing spills out. Brick by brick we make progress, Wack by wack the standing dead comes down to reveal soft pulp within the heart-rot and bug eaten cellulose. The curved blade scallops the sod, penetrates the soil like the teeth of a giant carnivore, flattened to the bovine molars that chew the cud. Our eyes plump like pearls, and our imaginations bubbles and opals that float in the medium message spoken by a fish that has swallowed the world. Undines and Gnomes approach from aqua blue caves and out the knots of fallen trees decomposing into topsoil, their scales and gils and moles and knobs and whiskers stick and swap onto each others skin and slide around as worms and caterpillars writhe in around soft shoots and draping tendrils. They remember us from childhood, we reminisce and they remind us to wash our memories in the clear water currents that run within the center of the streams, like when we all came together to launder our linens, something we tend to forget but can carry out the motions from a knowing in our marrow. The work awakens something; our desires breath in fresh air and it stratifies our lungs, rarifies, invigorates, beckons. We wander as if in a trance toward distant desires in far-off, around the bend, obscured by corners, attracted to things out of reach, we model in our minds what it might be like to taste hypothetical fruits, we delight in metaphors for things there are no words, and create equations to represent our new found loves out of integers and variables that represent romance one might find beyond the known boundaries of our tangible reservoirs. We try to swim to the edge of the pool to peek over the side and see, but as we come near it flees before us, a fleeting curvature of glistening moisture. We try to pull ourself up by ropes and straps out of the water and above sea level so we can get a view of the lands beyond, the whole picture, a wider scope, a birds eye view, but its only thoughts grasping at grains of sand, and the map in our hearts burns with unyielding plasma like a sun in a snow globe, our guiding light within, our internal lantern that whose single ray pierces through the membrane and pinpoints a place on the earth. We dive, and through the repeating reflection which refracts across the liquid mixture we see the whole universe, articulated in the thrust of the currents, pressed against us in the caress of the tides, it speaks in water words, in pressure, pull and caesura backsplash. Our way is lost, but still we are suspended in the world somewhere and that is all. We build our way out from everything into something slowly, clay pot by clay pot, mud brick by mud brick, cold stone by cold stone, wet word by wet word, we dream it into existence with our hands, and our sweat falls upon the earth as rain so that life can begin. In the saline savor an indissoluble secret; that which can survive all impulses of future fires.

By Month

Venus Ingress Aquarius

Venus doesn’t necessarily mind being in Capricorn, as she is in triplicity there in the earth element, and can feel the stones and bones of the earth with a grave sensuality, and be a perfect aesthetic renovator, capable of managing beautiful materials and either building or fixing up structures and properties in a beautification process. Although, she takes on a particularly light and intellectually stimulating energy in Aquarius. As this is an air sign, and she rules an air sign, Libra, she ends up collecting mastership of two decans in Aquarius, the 1st and the 3rd. She is not the charming hostess at the ball she is in Libra nor the social chatterbox she is in Gemini, but a far reaching, eclectic and entranced wanderer through a matrix of mental abstractions and avant garde art in search of new and innovating forms of creativity, of alternative kinds of romance, of what ecstasies exist beyond the status quo’s of love, taking pleasure in the complex and desiring hypothesis, investigating what art and beauty can be found in the unvisited places, in the obscure and out on the fringes. If something is distant, conceptual and difficult to grasp it only increases in seductive power. This is the beauty of ideas, attraction to what is yet to be decided, so often what is new, cutting edge, fresh and unorthodox. Of course there can be loneliness, out far afield and away from the central throngs there are only a few others who can understand your way of enjoying yourself, only a couple others who share in your appreciations; but it is often preferable to be exiled from the distasteful masses, to be other than the ugly hordes, even if that means exile, as one can be exiled to a beautiful and enchanting isle with flora and fauna the likes of which no one has ever seen. This might have us lost in our thoughts, the kind of spaciness we experience after spending a day at an art museum, after getting our conceptions of beauty and creative possibility thoroughly challenged. The airy winds might be a perfect intellectual romance, a beautiful breeze to lighten the stagnant mood we might have settled into suddenly as so many planets have switched into earth and water signs. Venus’ fresh and frenetic values in Aquarius might help us become unstuck. Just be careful to not distance yourself too much and become mentally unavailable, or alternately cease to see the beauty in anything conventional whatsoever. Explore, wander, search, but remember to keep connection to the core while you are simultaneously allowed to cut loose in likes and loves.

Mercury Retrograde in Pisces

Since Mercury ingressed Pisces on February 10th we have noticed our logic and ability to articulate clearly, conduct analysis and efficiently navigate has been submerged in a sparkling slime, a plasma that flows through all of everything. Our thinking is more sensitive, synchronicity has become common, we move one way and then back the other on return trips without ever reaching our destination like a tidal motion rather than a linear trajectory, we tend to circumambulate, and get no where but not care, we might find our thinking has slowed, but become more psychic and impressionistic and poetic. If we move fast we exhaust ourselves and make a mess churning water, but if we are receptive to taking it slow we find so many insights are just floating by that expand our ideas of things. Its as if every integer is soaked and swollen, there’s more surface area and its juicier inside, easier to make a mess with every letter or number or space left for what’s in between. A math equation is more a scrawled artwork of esoteric significance, a written message a medium from which we can extract hidden meaning, running errands an experiment in augury and omen. This slows down business as usual, but offers much chance for wisdom and lessons in mystery along the way, especially with Pisces ruler Jupiter in rulership in Sagittarius; the circular flow model that Mercury must take creates more space for reflection. Of course this absolutely still derails business as usual, as we can only think when we feel like it and need to be in the right headspace and are much more easily influenced; how things function in the 9 to 5 office environment go into whirlpool spin cycle. This only got worse when Neptune got involved, who Mercury will conjoin three times in the process of his retrograde and eventually station direct upon, highlighting the height of confusion, illusion and dissolution we will suffer in the process of allowing our minds to become more mystified. Jupiter is hell bent on creating space, and in 2019 part of his tactic is throwing us into one big blur where our heads spin and we can barely keep up mentally against the deluge of mind bending emotions and psychic/synchronistic phenomenon. We will not be able to get our bearings and there just will not be much difference between real and fake. Experience it, engage with it, as you would in a lucid dream, let it be whatever it appears to be and keep awareness of it but don’t let it take you out to sea. Learn from it, feel it all, come to know it with a 6th sense, or a 7th, and an 8th and so on; but don’t try to make any definite, objective or analytical judgement calls until later. Neither accept nor reject, just engage and observe, acknowledge and be aware. It’ll be emotional, it’s be elating, it’ll be depressing, it’ll wash us out and leave us washed up on distant and dramatic shores. Take all that into consideration. Knowing you are going to feel both joy and sadness, that you will laugh and cry during this acid trip helps you not get swallowed up by it when it happens. Mercury is investigating this area intently, and with Jupiter’s help. Take the trip. Experience it. Do the dream journey. Look for clues and connections. Open your mind to what your intuitions might be sensitive to; but don’t decide anything you experience will be there on the manifest, material side waiting for you until after mid April. Dreams are valuable to us even after we wake up. Invaluable really. Sleep occupies a third of our life. In a period like this dream and reality are blended, and we have to make the absolute most out of the opportunity while not allowing our lives to become flooded and wash away.

Uranus Ingress Taurus

In an amazing twist of fate Uranus returns to Taurus the same day that Mercury stations retrograde. Uranus first ingressed Taurus in May of 2018, and spent the summer in the Bull’s sign before dipping back into Aries for some unfinished business in early November. As of March 6th 2019 he’s back in Taurus until 2026, where he is sure to destabilize markets, material culture, food, the environment, and radicalize art, craft, agriculture, eco-tech, and the general pace and rhythm of our lives, causing some natural disasters along the way. Uranus tends to crack the paradigm of a generation with his activity in the zodiac and he does so in a promethean fashion, impulsively thrusting new innovations and technologies into our hands and watching us go haywire with them. This will happen for the world, and there is much to talk about along that thread, but it will happen for us all also personally where Taurus falls in our chart; so knowing where you have the sign of the bull in your houses can inform you about which are could use some experimentation, revolutionizing, some radical updates and some influx of ecstatic experience. This is volatile energy, and when planets change signs they make a big splash, as they change polarity, element, and modality and jump quickly from one life topic to another personally; so watch around March 6th for strange rumblings, sudden shifts and off the charts stimulus. Take her easy here, and knowing Mercury will be going retrograde in the sign of his most acute confusion, prepare to not really know what is going on. Being as ready to move with the motions and be both flexible as well as observant will help you not get tossed too hard. Imagine you are experimenting with substance of potent catalyst in your lab and you want to be able to measure all the effects you see but also insulate the rest of your life from possible explosions. The parameters need to be loosened, the bolts backed off as if we know things will vibrate we want them to be able to shake and not crack. Don’t be overly rigid but be prepared to keep the checkers on the checkerboard as they start to hop around. With Mercury in Pisces we are going to have to grope and fumble our way around the lab in the dark. Our instruments might be all out of wack and reading unreliably, so we have to use our instincts and operate by feel. Be careful out there and enjoy the ride.

Sun Square Jupiter & Mercury Square Jupiter

Neither of these aspects are likely to cause havoc, although, it would behoove us to pay attention to what transpires on and around these dates as it may be important to the larger narrative of Jupiter in Sagittarius, and how Jupiter cycles through your chart and thus your life generally. While Jupiter is in rulership he is making space for us to expand our horizons and take new territory, so he brings opportunities, optimism, inspires us, opens doorways, lifts us up to get wider perspectives, connects us with our dreams, goals and ideals; puts on our most righteous and prosperous paths. Just because we are put on a path doesn’t mean we’ll go anywhere on it, or even go the right way, or stay on the path very long at all. All of these capacities have a lot to do with how our other planets are functioning, rather than the good influence Jupiter is currently lending. So when the Sun Square’s Jupiter on March 13th, pay attention to how your vision of the primordial essence of the whole, the orientation to intuitive interconnectedness stirs your spirit and motivates you toward philosophies of acheiving your aims no matter what. Some dynamic should be striking a cord here in the big picture scope between your passions and your emotions, your feelings and your creativity, your volition, what you are striving for and your understanding of the world. It can be a variety of things in a variety of different charts, so just keep eyes peeled and ears open here for the excited alarm. The same goes for 15th of March, when Mercury in retrograde square’s Jupiter. This will be slightly more in the dimension of the thinking, of the intellect, and likely an intellect that’s totally swept up in emotions and quite mystified, but still, its tugging on your heart strings and making noise, causing you to pay attention to what your holy grails in life might be, and inspiring you to consider making room for the adventure to chase them. Listen for this and begin to consider what you might change or what preparations you might have to make to keep on the path as it has been here illuminated. But this is still a heavily debilitated and confused Mercury, as described above; you're still dreaming, log these insights and realizations for guidance purposes for later when we wake up.

The most acute time to collect data along these lines is 9:45pm EST when Mercury will make an Inferior conjunction to the Sun, the Messenger here literally hands messages up from the depths. Be in meditation mode when the notes are passed and you will be likely to receive them.

Sun Ingress Aries

The Moment The Sun enters tropical Aries is considered by many Astrological New Year, the moment of the Spring Equinox when the Sun has traveled around the whole zodiac and made it back to the point of more light than darkness and the beginning of a new cycle. This is also the moment the Sun begins his period of exaltation, as he loves being in Aries, a sign where he can show us how its done, when we are inspired to effect a walk the walk and talk the talk way, radiating by acting and proving ourselves and what we are capable of. Many astrologers cast an Aries Ingress Chart for this occasion to get information on what the astrological year holds.

This is a very important and appropriate time for a variety of Solar Ritual, and multiple operations from antiquity found in texts such as those of the Greek Magical Papyri may be successfully carried out. It is a vitalizing time and also a period of initiation. In the Catholic Calendar the Feast of The Annunciation is held around here, commemorating the archangel Gabriel informing Mary that she would carry the Christ-child as a virgin mother. The equinoctial points are potent in magic, and especially in romantic and erotic magic, and interestingly only a few hours after the ingress we receive a Full Moon in Libra at just past 0 degrees. Here the Moon blossoms in Venus’ place receiving the sun’s light while he grows in dignity in Mars’ sign opposite the zodiac. Coincidentally, Venus and Mars are applying to form a square at this time, so there is both reception of light through the luminaries as well as tension between the gender polarities. Venus in Aquarius and Mars in Taurus sounds like tension between intellectual disconnect or intangible desires against struggling with the sensory, sensual and material world, how stuff has come to be and how to find a groove in it and be productive. Venus Mars squares can strike up some sexual tension, and with the Sun all yang and the Moon full in a Venus sign, I’d say that this is explicit here. If that manifests appropriately then fantastic, if it comes at the wrong place and the wrong time with the wrong persons, channel it into creative outlets.

The Moon is not in Libra, although, at the moment of ingress, she is at 27 degrees of Virgo, in a grand trine with Mars in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn. This points to some of the seriousness suggested by the triple presence of Saturn and Pluto with the South Node in Capricorn generally for 2019, and the grave and necessary strip down and dismantling that must be done to our systems and hierarchies and the rationing and cutting back of excess we must abide by now in the context of the natural world, its ecological limits. The harmony between a Moon who feels that all things come to an end and needs to bring procsses to closure, a Mars who struggles to find a groove and labors to be effective and deal with how things have come about in the natural world, especially around disasters, crop failures both metaphorical and literal, and the voids and unknowns and obsessions and fears and deep manipulations in the shadows of the system and within nature brought about by Pluto in Capricorn ring both sonorously and darkly in the next 365 days, from equinox to equinox. This is made more acute by Mars treading over the degree of fixed star Caput Algol, or the Head Of The Ghoul, the Gorgon’s head, who signifies decapitation and natural disaster, the green world at its most dangerous, poisonous, predatory and destructive. Considering Uranus newly in Taurus having a reputation for earthquakes and natural disasters this plays a complimentary note, and for the sexual tensions this day might deliver, consider wrestling with the wrathful goddess incarnate in your bed, for the evening, or for the next year. For Washington DC this is a Virgo rising chart, and Mercury is retrograde, in detriment and fall and conjunct Neptune in the 7th house, so for us in the States, except it to be a period of heightened confusion and surreality with our relationships and communications with other nations; but also how that resonates within your own life. Jupiter is in Sagittarius in the 4th, so perhaps this is good for the land we call home, and these confusing talks are part of necessary yet utterly perplexing dialogues to improve conditions. The Moon is in virgo, highlighting the procedural nature, but one that is concerned with peoples needs and being quietly helpful. The Sun is in the 8th house, of both death in ancient times and ‘shared resources’ in modern interpretation. It’s hard to not see a natural disaster and foreign aid signature here. A harrowing prospect, but perhaps one that hopefully swerves directives to more humane and necessary issues in the immediate.

Venus Ingress Pisces

Venus ingresses Pisces on March 26th, which is a big relief, as Mercury is still retrograde at that point and very much in Pisces, being only midway through at 16 degrees. Having the ruler of Pisces, a benefic, in rulership in Sagittarius, and the other benefic, Venus now copresent in exaltation. Despite the gloomy and serious notes carried throughout 2019, the inspiration stirring and swelling transit of Jupiter in his fiery domicile and a utterly mystifying Mercury retrograde in Pisces seems to conclude with notes of sweetness and the ability to express what was analytically swirled up creatively, and experienced pleasurably. Jupiter is hopefully giving us enough optimism and opportunity to swell our sails and fill our balloons and stir our hearts to face whatever might come our way as we quest for our ultimate goals. What confusion gets stirred up in Pisces has to be part of this narrative. Venus brings some balm to what got disrupted when Mercury had to relinquish logical control, taking pleasure in the beauty of the creatures he encountered in our deep sea dream. We may have gotten our brains scrambled, but perhaps we are better for it, as we need to all increase our compassion and ability to think holistically and animisthically. We might hope Mercury got thoroughly haunted, as you never go back from that first acid trip, and in almost all cases that’s a good thing. Venus is renowned her for free love, flowing artistic expression, boundless desires, unchecked pleasure, and valuing wholeness and and being acutely sensitive to all other people. This is exceedingly positive, but of course all the normal Pisces caveat’s of don’t get carried away and apply equal amounts of rigor to your intuitions, etc. all still apply.

Mars Ingress Gemini

On the final day of the month Mars transitions into Gemini, bringing our energy levels finally up out of the pits and ceasing our struggle to get in the groove or despairing over how our garden’s got trampled by giants and assailed by hail. Our minds might become a kind of windstorm when the warrior planet steps into Mercury’s airy domicile. Mars makes the mind very over active here, attacking myriad subjects simultaneously which can disperse energy and attention over a wide spectrum. This is of course fantastic for multi tasking, although we must monitor how many cables we currently hold at any given time, as some may be lost in the fray or become loose ends that can’t be tied up. This is the classic spreading ourselves too thin transit, and with Mercury still very much debilitated and conjunct Neptune, there is not much the sign ruler can do to give us guidance; although, as previously expounded upon, Mercury is in a Jupiter ruled sign, and Jupiter is in rulership in Sagittarius. This continues our themes of confusion leading to opportunity and expansion, getting hopelessly lost to find a more noble path, but with Mars in Mercury’s sign we might find now our minds race and our hands grow curious, fluttering about quickly handling and manipulating many things. This is certainly an improvement from our capabilities and critical response time being considerably slowed in Taurus, but take care to notice if you are becoming argumentative, rapidly defending position after position as if there were no preferable angle, just the objective of victory in debate, which can find us playing the Devil’s advocate to no purpose.

By Week

Monday February 25th to Sunday March 3rd

3/1 Venus’day: 8am:Venus square Uranus

-11:40am: Venus ingress Aquarius

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Monday March 4th to Sunday March 10th

3/5 Mars’day: 7pm: Mercury stations retrograde

-Saturn’s-night: 11pm: Uranus ingress Taurus

3/6 Mercury’s-day: 11am: New Moon in Pisces conjunct Neptune

-and closely sextiling Mars and Saturn

3/9 Sun’s-night: 2:30am Sun sextile Saturn

3/10 Mercury’s-night: 3:30am: Moon conjunct Uranus

-Sun’s-day: noon: Mars sextile Neptune

-5pm: Sun into Pisces 3

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Monday March 11th to Sunday March 17th

3/13 Mercury’s-day: 10:30am: Sun sextile Pluto

-Sun’s-night: 9:30pm: Sun square Jupiter

3/14 Jupiter’s-day: 6am: Mars trine Saturn

-Moon-night: 9:45pm Inferior Conjunction in Pisces

3/15 Mars’-night: 7pm: MercuryRX square Jupiter

3/16 Mars’-night: 1am: MercuryRX sextile Pluto

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Monday March 18th to Sunday March 24th

3/20 Mercury’s-day: 8am: Mars trine Pluto

-10:30am: MercuryRX sextile Saturn

-6pm: Sun ingress Aries

-Sun’s-night: 9:43pm: Full Moon in Libra

3/21 Sun’s-night: 4am: Venus square Mars

-Jupiter’s-day: 10am: Venus sextile Jupiter

3/24 Sun’s-day: 2pm: MercuryRX conjunct Neptune

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Monday March 25th to Sunday March 31st

3/25 Jupiter’s-night: 3am: Moon in Sag

3/26 Mars’-Day: 3:45pm Venus ingress Pisces

-Saturn’s-night: 10:30pm: Moon conjunct Jupiter

3/27 Mercury’s-day: 10am: Moon exit Sagittarius

-12:45pm: Venus sextile Uranus

3/28 Moon’s-night: 8pm: Mercury stations direct conjunct Neptune

-close to sextile Saturn

3/30 Mercury’s-night: 8:15pm: Sun into Aries 2

3/31 Mercury’s-night: 2am: Mars ingress Gemini