Mercury sextile Jupiter

Astrological news this week: Pluto retrograde and eclipse season begins!

Astrological update for the week of April 25 – May 2, 2022

art by John Craig

Pluto turns retrograde. I’ve been talking for a while about the Pluto station because Pluto hasn’t moved much in months – it’s only traveled one degree since the end of February and won’t travel more than one degree until early July.  That is a long time if you have planets between 25 and 29 Capricorn or the other cardinal signs Cancer, Libra Aries.  And if you have planets between 0 and 2 degrees of Aquarius or the other fixed signs (Leo, Taurus, Scorpio) you’ll feel some effect too. (Some astrologers use 10 degree orbs or more – I tend to use tight orbs as that seems to work in a more practical setting, like real life.)

We have had quite a few months with no planets retrograde, and with Pluto changing direction we have just one retrograde planet. The next retrograde will be Mercury turning retrograde on May 10, but in the meantime the focus is on Pluto and drilling down to the absolute Truth. Self-deception might have been the name of the game over the past few weeks with Jupiter and Neptune slamming together in a dance of bliss and psychic harmony, and we now have Mars and Venus joining them in Pisces (see the information about the eclipse below).

When Pluto is in charge, we are under the guidance of fate. Anyone with tight aspects from Pluto to their natal chart knows this, and eventually we learn that when fate is in charge we are guided towards our highest destiny if we can only let go.

A note about the Pisces stellium.  The blurring of details is a feature […]

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By |2022-04-25T13:33:14-04:00April 25th, 2022|Planetary news this week|0 Comments
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Astrological news this week: Mars in Pisces and stationary Pluto

Astrological update for the week of April 18-25, 2022

art by Sangsoo Jeong

Mars in Pisces.

As I wrote in last week’s update, Mars entered Pisces on April 14th just before the Libra Full Moon on April 16th. That was a highly potent Full Moon, with the Sun and Moon both in a square aspect to powerful Pluto. Unfortunately it did not lead to a peaceful Easter weekend, with three mass shootings in the US, riots in Sweden and Jerusalem, and the bombing of the wonderful World Central Kitchen in Kharkiv Ukraine.

Astrology cannot prevent global disaster and war, but knowing where there might be land mines can help us in our own small ways to promote peace and healing. Mars will be in Pisces until May 24th, and when Mars is in Pisces all of that aggression tends to be driven into the underground of the psyche. In Pisces, the sign of the artist and the mystic, Mars can be compassionate and fueled by creativity and a yearning for spiritual connection. But the drive and motivation of Mars doesn’t do well when subsumed by the passivity of Pisces and it will take more effort and conscious intention to express and assert ourselves where necessary.

Repeating what I wrote last week, during this time Mars will conjoin Neptune and Jupiter, which may exacerbate the fuzziness of planetary energies. We can ameliorate this somewhat by enhancing our own physical energy through physical activity – always an excellent way to stimulate the chi and activate our intellectual energy as well as physical. But in the end we will just have to be patient and wait for the Piscean clouds to lift, utilizing this […]

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By |2022-04-24T13:14:55-04:00April 18th, 2022|Planetary news this week|0 Comments
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