The Weight Of Luxury

She fills bottles and spent light bulbs with paint. Bold hues, deep vermillions, dark magentas, olive green, royal blue, burnt orange. Like grenades she pitches them at the walls, the chamber dripping with chromatic viscera until all the blankness is smothered. The chemical smell is pleasant, but not enough. She marches out to the shed and splashes solvents into a bucket and inhales the sharp fumes, the acrid old manure livens as it saturates. In a shard of broken mirror she catches her reflection. Her coat looks too new. She takes some shears and cuts off the sleeves. Her phone rings. 17 messages. She gets in the car. At the crossroads she falters, almost bears right but hits the breaks at the last minute and throws the wheel, tires screeching she swerves onto the left road. It branches again and again and the scene is replayed, alternating down binary pathways. The digital dash clock is slow. She’s already late. There is so much to do. Finally, she’s realized that it all falls on her shoulders. She’ll have to make some sacrifices. Sell some vehicles, get off drugs, cancel some trips. If she is going to move it back to the mountains next year she’ll have to trim some fat. She knows it. There are too many old, dead shells in the way. The board needs to be cleared. She can’t trip and fall into old traps; ditches and ruts haunted by ghosts who moan nostalgic songs, taking her ears hostage, slowing her down. No the time is now. If she truly sees herself back on the summit by next fall then there’s a whole system to set in motion, its not going to fix itself, and there are so many faulty parts that need to be pulled for it to function at its optimum, and optimum is the only level at which will get her to her goals. She sees some people she knows toiling in the scrap yard beneath the old warehouse. She punches the switch with her finger and spins the knob all the way up on the stereo so they all notice her speeding by, tones shredding apart and the smell of paint and solvent still perfuming the air. They see her and stare until the road empties. Something ominous remains. They can sense the gravity in her wake, and their hands grow in weight. Their tools touch the ground. They have to get in a groove. It’s the only option. They think, if only they could be left alone and not disturbed every fifteen minutes they could get a rhythm going and work their way through it. They have to be clever in their efforts, keep their mind alert; multitask but not get distracted. There is so much debris and wreckage to clean up, and half of the machines are currently non-operational, out for repair. Someone yells something and points to the sky, their words smeared by a gust of wind. Their hair each whips against their neck and shoulders, streams across their face. So many colors and beads and ribbons licking at exotic prints, layered lace, embroidery, each worker decorated differently, and their bodies painted to suit their spirit. Not the soul, but the first spirit. the one right beneath the face. The Mask Wearer. The one who drives and thrives. The Thirsty One. The Doer. As soon as they manage this wreckage their Spirits might be free. They have to find a new rhythm. A new way through. A new technique. It’s gone on too long. The shadows gather and pool from the fuselage. The Sun no longer banishes them. And no one dare approach them. In the slick stain no image is reflected. All individuality is lost. There is no beauty, just vastness that defies persona. At this point in the quest for noble truth fire bridges void and maw where no scent escapes, so creatures must tread across wicks alit to where other ways are stray.

By Month

May seems to divide midway through for a couple of reasons, namely Venus’ ingress into her rulership in Taurus in the morning of the 15th. Mercury and Venus square the Saturn-Ketu-Pluto configuration in the beginning of the month and then trine the trio in the second half. By the end of May both Venus and Mercury are in rulership, and on their way they both conjoin Uranus. Though the month is characterized by Venus and Mercury’s aspects to other slower moving or outer planets, it is largely the pair’s story, bringing values, desires, creativity, romance, logic, communications and organization to the forefront of our lives in the context of the influences they face along the way. The Scorpio full Moon which occurs in the early evening of the 18th punctuate’s the Month with a moment of possible deep debauch that will likely rewire how we feel about pleasure.

Mercury and Venus squaring Saturn and Pluto

May begins with Mercury squaring Saturn early on the 1st and then squaring Pluto by 6pm on the 2nd. An interesting component of this is that Mercury is in Aries and Mars is in Gemini, making a sign based sextile and pooling resources in mutual reception. Mercury wants to think independently and actively and Mars wants to do many different things at once. Things could certainly go off the rails with all the argumentative multitasking, although, there is also a clever genius here that might just be able to marshal the paradox. One-man-band, or performer and audience in one. It’s this Mercury that finds himself turned the torsion of Saturn’s massive chess pieces; heavy stone blocks that must be moved around on the board and managed. The multitasking for the sake of keeping up an impactful identity and inciting personal prerogatives must get utilized for great and grave obligations if the game is to not be lost. Really there is no choice. Ketu cuts the cords attaching us to any semblance of nostalgia along the way, and we say, “well, this is just what it is now” as we then encounter a brush with ominous power; the vastness of the unknown where fears are aplenty but unfixed. Not the friendlies atmosphere for our independent agendas and the logic that goes along with them, but luckily, Mercury trines Jupiter simultaneously, so we are likely to understand how attending to these weighty responsibilities may have us set up better on the game board and puts a possible checkmate in sight which could move us ever so closer to our ultimate objects of desire. Venus goes through the same process, and for her fired up personal passions and an inability to be totally satisfied flames against the management of the monuments and operations of the empire swallowed by uncertainty, although, her rulershiip is inevitable down the the other end of the scorching blacktop, and a lot of wisdom and insight is gained here by marching through the burning fortress toward verdant oasis on the other side. We must multitask and apply our insatiable passions and ability to seduce our way through the heavy handed maneuvers of our obstacles and opponents, as we’ve fallen into traps we might have even set for ourselves by accident long ago, and the only way out is to make good and face responsibilities with all pistons firing at once. Get up early and get sweaty with a workout as its going to be some work filled days anyway, but labors that will earn you some wisdom and perspective on how you might obtain your fantasies in the end.

Venus in Taurus

Venus does make it to the verdant Oasis in the end, and here luxury reigns, pleasure is a natural fact, indulgence droops and drips from the branches and things of value seem to come looking for us. Expect to be more creative, have a deeper appreciation for sensuality, have fingers that take to craft and move materials in smooth circles, always able to locate the gems within. If you are not delighting in fruits and silks and moss aromas and getting into the feel for the finer things the world has to offer then I suggest you make a little effort to do so, you are likely to enjoy it much more than you knew you ever could.

Mercury and Venus conjoining Uranus

Upon the way into Taurus Mercury’s thinking and communicating process slows down considerably, becoming methodical, preparatory, gradual, considered, steady, and smooth but this time he encounter’s Uranus almost immediately. This is likely a kind of excited to finally get to slow down and find a groove after the alarms have subsided. Pumped to chill out. So pumped you are itchy to try some experiments and find your long lost rhythm of mind that you always wanted to get to. Revolutionize your thinking and planning and how you organize material affairs with other people. You might be planning out your garden, incorporating the latest permaculture techniques, considering long term craft projects, analyzing diet and where foods come from. Either way, you are likely to hit on something that bursts your thought bubble and suddenly shifts how you think about the material world and how you express yourself within it. When the ruler of Taurus, Venus enters the Bull’s sign she has a lot of resources to share with Mercury so that he can apply his thoughts to more quality materials, and she herself, so very thrilled to be in her sign, explodes with creativity and sensual stimuli that the world quakes with beauty and desires send shockwaves across the landscape. Creative, sexual, aesthetic and organic volatility will throw us into an experimental mode on the 18th of May right as the Moon goes Full in Scorpio, filling us to the brim with needs for satiation and carnal satiation, the kind that is often kept secret or to ourselves or normally not acted upon; here the types of activity you may have merely fantasized of previously becomes possible and waltzes right into reality. It’s a time to embrace this kind of change, or at least experience the spike, but do so donning lab coat and making accurate measurements so that the experience is meaningful after and not only a blur which blipped on the radar. This should trigger some major advancements in how you enjoy yourself and experience life as sensual and satisfying, how it quenches your thirsts and hits your spots, so take advantage of it but don’t let it merely take advantage of you.

Mars in Cancer

Venus enters Taurus sextile Mars in Gemini, he following into his fall in Cancer shortly after. So we have Venus in her detriment in Mars’ sign collaborating with Mars as they step together into new elements, modalities and polarities, he plunging into problems as she rushes into the comfort of her own home. There is certainly going to be some switch over and compromise of yang and yin operation styles as this occurs, and the impending Full Moon / Venus conjunct Uranus event follows shortly after, and this foreshadowing appears to be a kind of courtship dance which catalyzes the climax. That being said, Mars is far from happy in Cancer. Here the Warrior planet is trapped in the greenhouse, using his weapons in an attempt to nurture seedlings and not pierce the wall skins with his spiny accessories, ruining the ideal conditions for growth. A fully suited knight heavy with armor rocking a new born babe in his arms. This Mars can be very over protective of the people he cares about, and even of his own emotions, which if offended or polluted causes him to retaliate with much more force and violence then might be expected or called for. Hurt his feelings he’ll burn your house down. Until things hit this boiling point nothing might seem to be the matter, until its too late and gone suddenly too far. The other possibility is war within the family; holding conflict with those you are closest to, and normally in a passive aggressive fashion that exaggerates both the passive and the aggressive. This is both psychically exhausting and tricky to diffuse, as emotions don’t play by rational rules. The trick is keeping clear on what is worth defending and making sure things don’t get so hot they boil over. Let it be a lesson in preserving our cool even when amidst confrontation.

Mercury and Venus trining Saturn and Pluto

After both having recently squared the Saturn-Ketu-Pluto configuration Hermes and Aphrodite find a way to live in harmony with Kronos and Hades harsh demands in the far end of Taurus in the second half of May. This has largely to do with Taurus’ concern with abundant resources. Taurus doesn’t want to be disturbed and it doesn’t want the good stuff to run out, so when they see Saturn and Pluto from this angle they are more willing and happy to accept responsibilities, meet obligations and face the facts, even when they are potentially scary or obscure; the main objective is to assure the good times keep rolling, no matter how many preparations and restrictions to methodology this takes to assure disaster is kept at bay. Mercury might feel more worried in the face of this, but Venus’ copresence helps to calm him down, giving him what he needs to steady his mind, whether it be a massage, a bath, a meal or an exquisite infusion. Afterwards he can worry about propitiating the rulers of fate, speaking the right charms to appease the gods and prevent plague. Venus herself might take it all more in stride. She might simply say to her guests “Oh please, don’t do that, we wouldn’t want to waste all our best fruit making wine now, then there might be none to dine on later. Here, have this wine I have here, but leave those vines alone”.

Mercury in Gemini

Both the sun and Mercury stroll into Gemini on the morning of the 21st, accomplishing a Superior Conjunction at 9am EST. Higher insights download from the celestial sphere and are delivered to us from our Holy Guardian Angels. This may come as a result of widening scopes and perspectives gained from the combination of trials, challenges, pleasures, sensual experience and indulgences, and the wild cards thrown in by Uranus along the way. By the 21st our re-prioritization of what we desire and what we love in the context of what we truly want and what we absolutely have to do and can’t avoid taking care of stimulates a realization of many possibilities and choices we have to investigate, many decisions we might have to make, many discoveries we are on the brink of, and a lot of investigation we have to embark upon. Our minds become highly agile, analytical, technically capable, and able to accept contradictory concepts and roll along with paradox as if it were no trouble at all. The second apex along this intellectual airway opening is Mercury’s opposition with Jupiter late on May 30th. The month comes to a close with a balance of perspectives and scopes available. A detailed summary of all the possible details in full view of a coherence of the single, greater, noble, ultimate objective and everything that applies to it. Be ready leading up to this to compare all the options you have before you to what you most truly strive to achieve in the end, as you are more likely here, then throughout the rest of 2019, able to find a match.

By Week

Monday April 29th to Sunday May 5th

--Moonday: 4/29/19: 8pm: Saturn stations rx

--Marsday: 4/30/19: 11am: Sun into Taurus 2

--Mercuryday: 5/1/19: 5am: Mercury square Saturn

--Jupiterday: 5/2/19: 6pm: Mercury square Pluto

-midnight: Mercury trine Jupiter

--Saturnday: 5/4/19: 6:45pm: New Moon in Taurus

--Sunday: 5/5/19: 6pm: Mars opposite Jupiter

Now that the Sun has been in Taurus for a week we can get the flavor of grazed grass and dirt grit in our mouth. For many the themes have recently been food and work; groceries, clothing, supplies and jobs. Getting in a groove so that you can be both creative as well as productive. Getting the garden prepped. Getting stuff planted. As the Sun has been slowing the organic pace we are oriented to Saturn has been slowing down to station retrograde, a change in his "tidal motion" and not disruptive in the way it is when Mercury, Mars or Venus turn tail, but a change in how Saturn's part in the celestial symphony is conducted. The slowness of Kronos this past couple weeks and his current stance on the 20th degree has added to the gravity of the material world and all that it requires us to manage it, as well as a need to deal with particular situations that have become totally crucial concerns. When he gets moving retrograde the emphasis will be slightly more on his disciplinary, reductive, rationing and negating influence and less on his architectural or constructive faculties. Strap in and ready yourself for the long haul, as low and somber Saturn bell will get rung throughout this summer's eclipse season resonating in low leaden notes.

Tuesday the Sun moves into the second decan of Taurus, where both the Moon and Mercury receive dignity by face each from either system. This speaks of a focus on the articulation and facilitation of smooth cyclical motion and steady gradual growth in a material and physical fashion. This is the grass growing, the vegetal world greening, Hildegard's Veriditas; it is the earth's gyration, its hip swaggering movement, the pleasurable repetition of sensual motion, fertilities dance undisturbed. Although, the world tends to be disturbing, so an awareness of this ideal groove will be evident to all five senses but attaining it though the goal will not always be possible, simply something we prioritize and seek to realize in the body.

Throughout the middle of the week Mercury in Aries squares both Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. Individual logic and language, how we think and operate on an impulsive level, when we get to run our own programs and agendas, and how we express ourselves through this context runs into some serious obstacles. For whatever reason, the gamut of obligations and system requirements and hard realities we face this week clash and create great tension within our analytical processes. There is going to be a heavy load of details to manage that falls on our shoulders alone, and faced with fears that lurk in massive unknown shadows we might have to make blind gambles and reactionary calls into the void, rolling and shooting in the dark with a flashlight volleying with unknown enemies while on the walkie talkie sorting out the situation with the sergeant directly on the other end of the radio. For some reason this round the weight of the empire and its well being is our responsibility, and we might try to be or think for ourselves in the stolen moments in between, the general mission is one where we do the job normally done by other officers or opposed ranks; when the lieutenants and captains are all off on vacation and the shit hits the fan while its your watch. Although, it's not all bad, even though it's certainly serious: Mercury also simultaneously trines Jupiter. Somehow this experience enlarges our understanding greatly. We become much wiser for it, we see more of the world, receive a more profound coherence of the wider territory, and from this expansion of context we glimpse more pathways towards our ultimate objectives; how everything could come together in the end to deliver us to our goals and targets. We see from these tests and trials and brushes with the unknown and unprecedented how we might actually achieve our dreams.

Saturday brings us a New Moon in Taurus' second decan, where cycles of creativity, fertility, sensuality and growth find fecund soil. From here regular patterns emerge out of rich soils and find rhythmic expression over the course of the month to come, or set themselves deeper into our bodies and the faculties of perception latent in our flesh. This garden is flavored with boldness and brashness as Taurus' ruler, Venus, is currently still traversing Aries, so we may be more currently focused on growing nettles and hot peppers rather than lettuce and cucumbers. The way in which we go about organizing our plots and beds and moving through our normal methods might also be augmented by radical Uranus giving our green thumbs and experimental edge. New technology has landed in the hands of the common gardener and they come to the soils with hot rodded hoes and suped-up fertilizers, revolutionary plot plans, and mutated seeds.

The week draws to a close with Mars' early evening opposition to Jupiter from Gemini to Sagittarius. Our over excited minds investigating so many new topics and dividing into so many different directions of discovery might have stumbled upon a greater coherence than expected. What first seemed like being deployed on diverging digressions into opposite ends of the spectrum and scattering our energy somehow pierced the mental membrane and made connections between all the disparate parts and collections of critical diversions to where they are all revealed to be somehow related and can come together in a usable way to achieve our aims as long as we just use our imaginations and command the chimerical combinations of activities we've found ourselves involved in all toward the target directive. In a sense this is dumb luck on a grand scale. Yes we have been wasting chi for weeks, but somehow, if we slant our gaze just so at all the programs running simultaneously we might see how we can land ourselves further along the game path then if we had taken the original straight course through.

Monday May 6th to Sunday May 12th

Moonday: 5/6/19: 2pm: Venus on bends of nodes

-5/6/19: 2:25pm: Mercury ingress Taurus

-5/6/19: midnight: Venus into Aries 3

Marsday: 5/7/19: 9:25am: Venus square Saturn:

-Mercury goes under the beams

Mercuryday: 5/8/19: 10am: Mercury conjunct Uranus

-10:45pm: Sun sextile Neptune

Jupiterday: 5/9/19: 1pm: Venus square Pluto

-5/9/19: 1pm: Venus trine Jupiter

Venusday: 5/10/19: 7pm: Sun into Taurus 3

Saturnday: 5/11/19: 5:30am: Sun trine Saturn

-5/11/19: 8pm: Mercury into Taurus 2

The week began with Venus in her detriment in Aries feeling the tension between the North Node in Cancer and the South Node in Capricorn, the latter being in close company with Saturn, the sign ruler, and Pluto, who she will both square in succession. Coincidentally we had the MET Gala on this day, which was a relatively fitting display of the configuration. Venus in Aries takes on a bold, brash and aggressive aesthetic, challenging status quo and social convention with impulsive creative energy and confrontational presentation of personal beauty. The Gala's theme this year was 'Camp', and the elite that walked the red carpet were decked out in red ruffles, removable ensembles, and carrying their own severed heads as accessories. This was pure Venus in Aries in a monumental and historical context: at a major world museum filled with ancient artifacts and art. Mercury moved into Taurus also on Monday afternoon, into Venus' sign, broadcasting the event and filling everyones feed with images of outfits; everyone grazing on the flamboyant fashions all evening, which was Venus' night. With Mercury in Taurus thoughts turn both to food and fun, as we try to hatch a plan to make appropriate preparations to keep a creative flow and assure that there will be snacks uninterrupted throughout. This is all both literal and metaphorical as usual, and the finding our groove amidst challenges to our personal attractions and creative expressions coming from institutional obligations and grave situations is the name of the game. As we'll soon have four planets in Taurus and started our current Moon cycle between the Bull's horns, much of May seems largely about how to get grooving after the successive disruptions of the late Aries squares and the hatching radical new plans as planets pass Uranus in Taurus' dooryard. There's a kind of I have to get my groove back at all costs no matter what vibes afoot and further on their way. As Mercury slows our thinking down to the pace of material manifestation he also slips under the beams, and we begin to spend more of our time in our own heads, getting methodical and remembering how to keep our cool and concentrate; but this comes after a serious jolt from the Promethean planet which may serve to splash us in the face in order to adjust our pulse.

Tuesday Morning Venus finally completes her square to Saturn and personal creative mojo and the individual fires of lust lock and then pass through the ancient gates of the forum, the torch of seduction is carried beneath the gamut of iron girdles and cold stillness attempting to keep up the feistiness as the flames flicker threateningly in the tomb tunnel drafts. She's as far in as she can be at this point, so from here on she moves her way back out of the critical complex.

Mercury completes his conjunction with Uranus Wednesday (Mercuryday) morning at 10am delivering some mad science to our thoughts of plot planning and food production, to creative crafting and keeping it chill. This is likely a crucial download we will need to process if we are going to adjust quickly to the next seven years of Uranus in Taurus and participate in a radicalized material culture. The big artistic inputs are likely plugged in after Venus' homecoming ingress later in the month, but the thinking that precedes these upcoming art movements happens as Mercury passes the laboratory and gets a chance to receive the most recent reports on what is on the bleeding edge. The Sun is applying to sextile Neptune simultaneously, so imagining a brave new world is an open collaboration between our orientation to where we live and exist and how we intuit and receive imaginings from the wider whole and vast psychic space. As usual this shouldn't be confused with wishywashy poppycock, but a sober and truthful journey into the other and the liminal and beyond. An actual openness rather than a contrived one.

On Thursday, Jupiter day, Venus both squares Pluto and trines Jupiter. Our restless and reactive lusts and bold beauty, confrontational aesthetics and attraction to personal power is disturbed by darkness and depth, by vastness and unknown, by what is beyond fears and in this vortex becomes obsessed, investigates shadowed corners and neglected tunnels and what might be beneath rocks or down rabbit holes and hidden wells. This investigation expands and opens the aperture on our perspectives, speaks to our philosophical and spiritual paradigms, connects points on the map, sounds our harbors and waterways, reminds us of our ultimate objectives. When our own aesthetics are challenged we might at first retreat, in an attempt to not be trite, but when the obliteration of our desires is eminent we instead find a way to ennoble our libidos and see what attracts us on for what it really is, the emergent creative darkness livened by crackling static and licks of lightening; potential in its purest form from which anything might emerge; the vibratory sensors in our sinuses and small bones that pick up on minutia in states of ecstasy and enlarge them in scope until they resonate with the primacy of what they really are; expression of divinity; the play and plan of gods and goddesses.

Friday evening the Sun slips into Taurus' 3rd decan, a place more fraught with worry than the previous two faces. Where the first decan is focused on preparation and the second on keeping up a pace and adhering to a rhythm the third is most concerned with watching things grow and hoping that they come out correctly, don't spoil or face ruination from disturbing or disrupting environmental conditions. The fact that our world is in ecological crisis this time around of Uranus visiting Taurus runs a highlighter over the topic of how we must radically change our ways as well as concoct new approaches to dealing with an unpredictable climate. What's happening on the macro can be reflected into the micro. After the near decade Uranus spent in Aries ramping up our social media technology and multiplying our sense of identity we come at landing on the ground with an altered sense of feet. Where does the real end and the virtual begin and how do the two effect one another? This is likely a question we will be repeatedly faced with as this transit rolls on, but for now, what do we need to do to feel comfortable in our skins and on our soils? If things are out of our control which entities do we have to talk to? In the third decan of Taurus negotiations with nature spirits and elemental beings are conducted, presided over by the Wrathful Goddess who expresses herself through the star Caput Algol, which violently writhes with jungle strangulation and vicious serpentine sexuality, thorn and fang. What does prayer and petitions to the earth mother look like amidst an extinction crisis? Much of this might have to do with thinking as well as praying beyond the data we currently have available.

The Sun trines Saturn on Saturns day May 11th, a good time to be up early in black burning storax. This is one of a series of sextiles to Capricorn from Taurus on the other side of the Aries' squares and betwixt those and the upcoming oppositions in Cancer this summer. This period of harmonization between the Saturn-Ketu-Pluto configuration and personal planets copresent with Venus in rulership will likely be an important period of realization into how we can live well, be calm, create art, experience pleasure and assure fecundity amidst serious challenges, both personally and in the world at large. To be in synthesis with this large scale management through trying times we have to be in touch with our sense of sensuality and prioritize pleasure, leisure, and luxury. It seems counterintuitive, but if resources are uncertain, enjoying nature is more wise than wasting energy; wine and art by candlelight is sager than bright lights and revving motors; sex doesn't require artificial components or industrial manufacture; what grows in the garden makes more sense than what comes off the shelf.

Monday May 13th to Sunday May 19th

Moonday 5/13/19: 11pm: Sun trine Pluto

-Moon applies to grand earth trine with sun and Pluto by 3am

Marsday: 5/14/19: 10am: Venus sextile Mars

-2:30pm: Mercury goes combust

Mercuryday: 5/15/19: 5:45:am: Venus ingress Taurus (w/ Moon in Libra)

-9:15pm: Mercury sextie Neptune

-11pm: Mars ingress Cancer

Jupiterday: 5/16/19: 4pm: Mercury into Taurus 3

-7pm: Mercury trine Saturn

Saturnday: 5/18/19: 2am: Mercury trine Pluto

-noon: Venus conjunct Uranus

-5pm: Full Moon in Scorpio

-9:30pm: Moon ingress Sagittarius

The week opens with a grand trine in earth signs between the Sun, the Moon and Pluto. As discussed last week we can here begin to look at the heavy restrictions and obligations, fears and necessary prunings in our life with a sort of sober harmony and the benefit of pragmatic perspective that suits our creative grooves and sensual experiences. Needing to conform to a slower and more organic pace to suit various inflexibilities poises us to savor to a greater degree what we have and hold or mold and manipulate along the way. We may lose our self in a rhythm and stabilize ourselves in our crafts and creative pursuits, appreciating the blinders we must wear to stay on course. Putting our hands in our work and our fates in the hands of God's in a world generally subject to Murphey's Law is sometimes the most secure strategy in managing our larger affairs, and on this night in particular we may feel a need to complete things and tie up every detail, put your head down, attend to each factor while working steadily through the dark not knowing when it might end but needing to work through to completion and emotionally sort everything out.

Tuesday Venus sextiles Mars from the final degree of Mars' sign Aries to Mars on the final degree of Mercury's sign, Gemini as Mercury goes combust and disappears from the sky, obscured by the rays of the Sun. As Mercury gets burned up, and ideas, thoughts, concepts and logic are purified in the furnace our values are seeking peak pleasures and attraction to performing desires collaborating with a critical frenetic intellect, facing challenging decisions and confrontation of myriad choices. Our logical faculties interiorize and are destroyed in our inner crucible while our desires flare to act out and impulsively take the reigns work hand in hand with what stimulates our abilities to react and deal with things as they come and be mentally capable. This is a brief, almost sexual tension that shifts gears as it spins up into configuration, with Venus entering Taurus on Wednesday the 15th followed by Mercury's sextile to Neptune and Mars' ingress into Cancer. Mid week our winnowing logic reveals fantastical ideas and imaginative thinking now possible as corrupt concepts are removed. Within this our desires for organic pleasure, sensual satisfaction, luxurious materials and sumptuously crafted artifacts emerges and the aesthetic quality of life improves greatly, even wildly, as upon entrance Venus immediately applies to conjoin Uranus, and what might spark artistic movements and sensual revolutions showers with volatile potential and frictive tension. All of our senses and more are ready to receive the beauty of the material world, pulsating with receptors galore, we gravitate naturally toward pleasure. We might experience tunnel vision guided by these lusts, but in a way that our focus is able to collaborate with our fantasies, or the source of imaginative potential where fantasies emanate from in general. With Venus in the house the past few weeks of our minds and eyes on our wallets and our cupboards turns to sensual and creative thinking, focus, and objectives, hotrodded by Uranus to be part of a worldwide ripple in the history of material culture and artistic expression as much as it is a personal revalation of what we appreciate, want, love, and could possibly create. Meanwhile, our actions and critical capacities, our abilities to defend, be tactical, compete and confront both soften and disperse, diluted and dissolved into wider emotional pools. We might want to protect our oasis from intrusion, slay those who threaten our nests, patrol the perimeter of our green houses, but we must be careful that all this marching around the nursery with weapons can result in trodden shoots, shattered glass, shredded plastic, broken eggs and polluted waters. When the war comes home and we fight amongst our family what hurts our opponents also wounds ourselves. Mars in Cancer is sticky, the fighting happens too close for comfort, but at the same time, having a warrior appointed to protecting mother and child is often a necessity and a relief. This is a lot of water and earth, a lot of feeling and intuiting as well as a lot of mooding and brooding, both beautiful and upset, luxurious and emotionally potent, provided for and protective, of fine quality and susceptible to damage.

Mercury trines Saturn on Thursday and Pluto on Saturday, and the thinking we are silently sorting out, perhaps by keeping our hands busy, or keeping our creativity inclined, can get on the wavelength with what obstacles we're up against in 2019, what great structures stand firm that can't be easily disassembled and must be worked around, which helps us to realize which parts can be more easily removed, broken down, or repurposed as tomorrows fertilizer, today being only a collection of dead shells and cells haunted by the past. We enter into the darkness of our own history and that of the history in general to investigate and see what can be put to use in this dark and vast closet in the burgeoning artistic and material revolution, and what must be banished to the dungeons of eternal decay, and what is just a hard reality which will persist and we have to simply live with. Something in all this hard process has sensual appeal, and colors our canvas in deep and hauntingly pleasing hues, saturated and luscious and dripping with obsession and mystery.

By noon on Saturday the first shots are fired; Venus conjoins Uranus in her sign of rulership and our desires and senses of aesthetic get their first experimental injection of promethean fire. To say 'this is Venus on steroids' may even be an understatement. Results will surely vary, and we can expect more side effects than predictable outcomes, but what we can expect is for our normal values and attractions to burst off the charts and/or plummet into unknown depths and altogether other categories. Art has needed big changes for around twenty years now and we may finally now actually get it. An exciting and also scary thought is that it might likely arise from a new technology that opens us up to wild and dangerous new creative possibilities. Expect this also to change how we eat, spend, buy and interact with nature in general; both as the human race and inhabitants of earth as well as in our personal narratives and storylines. While the starting pistols of the Venusian revolution are popping off we receive a Full moon in Scorpio, which each year is a to be expected debaucherous affair to mark on the calendar, where we have a need collectively for intense primal decadence, secret predatory feasting, and reaching climax of carnal satiation process. Scorpio is Mars ruled and Mars in Cancer is already soaking wet, so expect this double trouble debauch to be a messy and muddy affair with a lot of splash and poison sloshing around resulting in some broken bottles and a masterpiece manifested in the midst of the carnal chaos. Perhaps google images of Francis Bacon's studio space (and lifestyle) to get an idea.

Monday May 20th to Sunday May 26th

(sorry, traveling this week)

Monday May 27th to Sunday June 2nd

Mercuryday 5/29/19: 9:30pm: Mercury square Neptune

Jupiterday 5/30/19: 1pm: Venus sextile Neptune

-11pm: Mercury opposite Jupiter

Venusday 5/31/19: 11am: Venus trine Saturn

-noon: Mars into Cancer 2

-2pm: Mercury into Gemini 2

5pm: Venus into Taurus 3

Saturnday 6/1/19: 4pm: Moon conjunct Venus in Taurus

Sunday 6/2/19: 11:30pm: Venus trine Pluto

Mercury square's Neptune in the evening on Mercury's day of rulership. Mercury is in charge here although there is not much as debilitating to our Messenger planet as hard aspects with Neptune. We might expect our logical faculties, ability to organize, analyze, communicate and navigate clashing against fantasies, delusions, illusions, confusions and in a hopefully productive tension with free flowing imagination. Sinse Mercury next opposes Jupiter, let us hope that this is like a getting hopelessly lost and confused along the way and never arriving at the destination but finding a place by accident that suits much better than the original objective that you had no idea even existed. Let's hope. Either way it looks like a rabbit hole of information melting in our hands and ending up delivering us something inspirational and path affirming in the end. Fingers crossed and patience employed we will likely land in the best place available, even though we are likely to make some splashes along the way and wet the works and blur some paperwork. It's a good time to remind to not believe everything that you read; especially in the buzzing beehive-mind of the internet which is more bogged down with subjective, emotional slop than actual cunning content. It's worth noting that this finds Mercury exiting combustion, as if the water the cat spilled on the alarm clock slightly before its set to go off, so we start up as intended but with a mess instantly on our hands, but one that instigates us to investigate better ways of organizing our receptors.

Thursday Venus sextile's the Neptune in Pisces from her rulership in Taurus. Maybe there was something we fancied actually about the feline pranks by the bedside that spilled water which put us in an imaginative rhythm, and hands in materia, rendered the scene in clay or applied pigment to paper or brought the whole affair down to the ground and rolled around with it in pleasure. It might have been logically meaningless, but there was enough physical and intuitive synchronicity to lubricate our aesthetic and sensual senses. In classic Gemini "season" sense, things are meaning multiple things at once and working on multiple levels. We might find our own distractions and interruptions sexually intriguing and get a kick out of getting lost in the mist, preferring it to reaching our destination on time, even though, that doesn't stop us from continuing the search, just awakening our receptivity to how we could satisfy our desires more fully along the way. As Mercury opposes Jupiter later Thursday night, its likely, as noted above, we find what we've stumbled upon much more interesting and inspirational than what we were initially searching for.

The next morning (Friday) Venus trines Saturn. I've talked about the harmonization of Taurus to Capricorn a lot this past month; indulging our natural pleasures for food, sex, beauty and luxury often works out quite well with remaining in Saturn's parameters of limited resources. Idleness and languidity tend to burn less fuel than manufacturing and industriousness. If there are limited supplies, chill out and enjoy the scenery. In Capricorn's second decan this takes epic constructions in mind and in Taurus' second the organic rhythm and pace of natural ripening must be kept to as it is impossible to rush the grass in growing; our works of art accumulate depth by not dashing through them but by experiencing them as a prolonged sensual encounter that ends when the apex is reached and the final piece is placed. Mars, the Sun and Venus all progress into new decans Friday, so it may feel like a day where situations are showing new faces and varied perspectives offer themselves; issues may bloom in dimension and vantage point. Saturday, June 1st the Moon comes to join Venus in Taurus and our feeling for al this sensual attraction to material matters and being in sync with a slow and sultry pace keeps rolling on home. By Sunday June 2nd Venus trines Pluto, finishing her latest pass of aspect with the heavy handed configuration collected in Capricorn. Our sensual, organic and natural understanding of wealth and material manifestation seems in harmony with our willingness to go beyond what we already know and the space of shadow where fears usually harbor might seem worth crossing or considering as a source of momentum in craft. When we begin by feeling the dirt and sensing our way on we often close our eyes to concentrate on the information our body tells us, and at this point we also let in messages from the void itself, and what we value most might parade in from the blackness like an initiation. The Moon wanes to its darkest this night whether coincidence or otherwise.