This is tomorrow, the 3rd June, at about 11 am GMT.
Gemini is light of foot and thought, quick, communicative, sociable, easily bored. New moons represent new beginnings and this new moon is not heavily aspected by anything else in the sky, so we're looking at some pure Gemini here. Expect a lot of frenetic activity and chat, and multiple options opening up in some area of your life.
As the sun and moon are widely squaring Neptune, these new options may turn out to be flash-in-the-pan stuff – mirages with little basis in reality, or outright deceptions. So try to keep your head screwed on amidst all the flux and activity.
At the same time we have Venus in Taurus beneficially aspecting the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, which means there are things of solid value in your life that you can rely on for security and stability. Real assets and real relationships, real commitments. These things are weighty. If the Gemini stuff is like a sailboat responsive to every breeze and change in the weather, the Venus-Saturn-Pluto stuff is a very heavy and dependable anchor that will keep it from drifting off course.
Another way of describing this: despite multiple narratives and desperate spin and cleverly constructed falsehood, the bedrock reality will not be denied. This especially regards love and money scenarios – the truth will be apparent if you care to look at it.
Of course you can choose to engage in willful self-delusion if that's your thing, but we are headed for a difficult reckoning, like it or not. Mars in Cancer is in opposition to the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, and this is happening across the north and south nodes of the moon. Oppositions play out interpersonally, and this one denotes some very dark and brutal karmic drama – especially involving family.
Mercury in Cancer is going to be part of this opposition at the full moon in Sagittarius on the 17th June, and holy crap. This looks like a set-up for verbal and mental and emotional and physical violence. Again, the emphasis here is on family stuff – but even if you manage to avoid your crazy family at this time, some kind of drama is likely to land at your door. Please be careful, avoid angry people, and try to keep calm. (Strenuous physical exercise can help if you find yourself wanting to kill someone.)
To sum up: light – even frivolous – as this new moon in Gemini may feel, we are not really in the silly season this month. It reminds me of the fun episode of Game of Thrones before the big battle with the ice zombies – everybody's telling stories and partying and singing songs, meanwhile some extra heavy shit is about to go down.
That is not meant to scare you – hopefully you won't be fighting undead ice zombies or whatever their metaphorical equivalent is. But the month ahead looks difficult and fairly gut-wrenching, and I think things are going to start feeling a lot heavier and darker.
I think the key to getting through this time is knowing what your anchor is: what and who you can really depend on, what your real assets and values are, what grounds you and lends you mental and emotional stability. If you stay anchored in what's solid and real, hopefully you can avoid being blown off course this month.
Making moves to protect your assets is probably also a good idea at this time. At the very least, avoid risky gambles.
This is tonight, the 21st May, at 10:14 pm GMT. It looks kind of explosive and warlike. Sagittarius can be crusading and self-righteous; a moon in Sagittarius inflates emotion. And this moon is conjunct a retrograde Mars, which denotes major pent-up emotional intensity and irritation. Plus the moon is facing off against the sun in Gemini and Venus in Taurus. This has to do with communication (Gemini) around matters of love, money and values (Venus). So expect some repressed emotion around these issues to come bursting out in potentially over-the-top fashion. There will be a big need for freedom of expression, and because of the levels of frustration and blockage involved, speech could be inflammatory. Issues between men and women are highlighted, with Mars opposite Venus. Venus in Taurus isn't likely to budge – she knows what the bottom line is, for her. So this looks like an intractable kind of conflict. And consequential. Communication planet Mercury resumes direct motion in Taurus late tomorrow. He is bound into the grand trine in earth, which is all about careful attention to the facts, calm consideration, realism and internal reckoning. So whatever gets said or revealed around this full moon – it's weighty, and it has probably been building a while. It's really about knowing where you stand, what you stand for, what you value. And communicating that, if necessary. But the danger here is of an uncontrolled explosion of dammed-up emotional material. If you find yourself in a touchy conversation, try to stick to the facts and rein in the emotional reactions. And state your case as succinctly as possible - fewer words are better. More words will only lead to confusion. We have two major patterns in effect at this full moon: a grand trine in earth, which is steady, calm, reality-based energy. And a t-square across the mutable signs, which is jarring, edgy, frustrating and unstable. The grand trine involves Mercury, Pluto and Jupiter, and it denotes great mental clarity, insight and quiet attention to the facts. Also intense mental focus, analysis and restructuring. The t-square involves Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune, and it's about conflicting or deceptive versions of reality, frayed nerves, confusion and dissipation of energy. Nervous breakdown stuff. So both these influences are in play right now, and the full moon will likely bring them into conflict. And as this full moon is happening across the Gemini-Sagittarius axis, which has to do with information gathering and the construction of guiding narratives – well this really becomes about which version of reality to trust, what to believe. If you're conflicted and confused as to what's trustworthy information, consult the still, small voice within you. Intuition is never emotional. It is very quiet and calm. I'd be wary of anything said or thought in the heat of emotion, because emotions are likely to be really overblown here, and there may be a lot of conscious or unconscious obfuscation or manipulation going on. We have a pretty intense few weeks ahead, and these issues will likely take center stage. The grand trine in earth will gather force toward the end of the month, heightening our capacity for solid, deep, pragmatic thought and communication. At the same time, Venus and the sun in Gemini will turn our jangly, dissonant mutable t-square into a grand cross: an extreme tension necessitating change. Venus issues – love, money, self-esteem and personal values – will be highlighted. Things will be in major flux, and this sets the stage for the new moon in Gemini on the 5th June. Gemini is changeable, communicative, adaptable, networky and frenetic. It's like social media: a constant stream of information, gossip and amusement. Interesting and distracting - but knowing what's actually true can be tricky. With the sun now in Gemini, that's the season we are in! And it looks like this June will be more relentlessly Gemini than usual. Potentially really neuron-frazzling. New opportunities will be popping up all over the place, and the ground will be dissolving from underneath our feet. It'll be a blooming, buzzing confusion – reality will be shifting in previously unimaginable ways. So if you can connect with your bedrock sanity and sense of reality now, under the grand earth trine, you'll be better situated to navigate the shifts that are coming and to know real opportunity from pipe dream. The grand trine will break up in the second week of June, so what we have now is a brief window where you get to clarify what you really value in your life, before 12 million dizzying options get thrown at you. Mars (energy, will) backs into Scorpio, sign of psychological depth and transformation, on the 27th May, and this will help us to dig deep and parse truth from falsity. Mars in Scorpio is a good bullshit detector. His retrograde will involve excavation of past patterns and possible re-opening of old wounds – but in order to heal them. We can't move forward until we've adequately dealt with this stuff. We'll have a second full moon in Sagittarius on the 20th June – tonight's is at the beginning of the sign, and June's will be on the very last degree. So for the next month, we are really on a journey – Sagittarius is about travel, learning, mental expansion and the search for meaning and truth. Because of the involvement of retrograde Saturn in Sagittarius, it's a serious, inward journey, with long-lasting import. We will be trying to find meaning and joy in the chaos, to be true, and to live with integrity even as conditions shift wildly. And I think we are liable to end up someplace very different to where we're starting from. Paths will open up, leading us to places we didn't think we'd ever see. So over the next month, please try to keep a hold on what you really value and hold true. Define and hold to your own personal line. Keep focusing on what's simple, practical and sensible (per Jupiter and the north node in Virgo). But also, leave some space in your mind for life to surprise you! Reality is much stranger than we can imagine - I think we're about to find out just how strange. Some songs for the full moon:
(PS: It feels like a Lee Ranaldo kinda moon! He always sounds so solid and steady in the midst of chaos.)
This is on the 20th March, 9:30 am (GMT). It's a total solar eclipse – symbolic of a supercharged new beginning – and it takes place at the very last degree of Pisces, the final degree of the whole zodiac, symbolic of the very end of a cycle. So it's beginnings and endings again. Death and rebirth. It's a scenario very reminiscent of the new moon in Aquarius last month – a reiteration of that theme.
But that was the prelude. This, coming just after the final Uranus-Pluto square on the 16th March, is about life in the aftermath zone. Uranus (shock, upheaval, revolution) and Pluto (death, rebirth, transformation) are only a few seconds past their exact square in the chart of this new moon, so although the square will be loosening from now on, we are looking at a month colored by the high intensity and pressure of the final square.
It's like after a big earthquake - the aftershocks keep rolling through for a while. The shocks may be interior ones, or they may be in your external life – or both! But we are looking at unsettled situations that remain in flux for the next month, amid a sustained pressure for radical change. The dust won't really settle till mid-April.
Here's a link to hexagram 51 from the I Ching – all about shock, and how it wakes us up.
If you're feeling almost insane with the internal and external pressure, hang in there. Pay attention to the wake-up calls and revelations you're being hit with – and they're coming thick and fast these days, right? Don't tune out. Keep working to shoot yourself clear of your old patterns. We don't get this kind of opportunity for deep, systemic change – really ever. Ever. Many of us will never have it again.
Think about the last few years – the years of the Uranus-Pluto square (2012-2015). What can you never go back to? Where are you standing now, after the hurricane has dismantled your old life? What are you moving toward?
(NYC post Hurricane Sandy)
We have a big stellium in Pisces right now, and dreamy longing, blurred vision, regret and addiction to the past will be cheap and easy fixes for the next month. Let's not indulge in that stuff too much, tempting though it may be! It's one thing to process and release old pain – another thing entirely to wallow in it.
Try to keep the focus on where you're headed, not on what you've lost. There's no going back. But what's ahead of us could be very interesting...
The sun hits zero degrees Aries – the Aries Point, the start of the zodiac – around 10:45 pm (GMT) on the 20th. And suddenly it's spring! Anything could happen. We'll have Jupiter in Leo beneficially aspecting Uranus in Aries for a good while – all through the summer. All kinds of happy accidents and sudden windfalls are possible. So keep the faith, keep moving forward... even if things feel kinda hopeless and stuck right now. Remember life can turn on a dime.
Mercury in Pisces is just past exact conjunction with Neptune right now – this is a dreamy, poetic, otherworldly mental influence. He will move to conjunct Chiron in Pisces on the 24th March, and this can be about painful but necessary thought and communication. It can be great for dissolving old mental habits and conditioning - but it can also be the hangover to end all hangovers.
It's a brief influence anyway – Mercury moves fast. He will enter Aries on the 31st March, and this should be clarifying, as far as our mental processes and communications are concerned. The Piscean veils of insinuation, illusion and doubt fall away and we'll be able to see and communicate the obvious with blunt simplicity. (And with Mercury moving into the Uranus-Pluto square during the second week of April – well it looks like the obvious is damn well going to get communicated. Like it or not!)
Venus entered Taurus on the 17th March, and this is a stabilizing, grounding influence, especially in relational and money matters – something has been decided at the root level, even though it might not entirely feel that way yet. Stick to your values, whatever happens. Hold to what makes you feel happy, satisfied and secure in a deep-down way.
Mars will enter Taurus on the 31st March, and that should further stabilize and ground our energy and will, and help us to stick to our guns. With Mars and Venus in calm, steady Taurus – the explosive relational issues we've been dealing with over the past few months should start to settle.
We'll have a very fraught full moon eclipse in Libra on the 4th April, and this looks like a point of closure for those issues to me. It will probably come as a relief on some level, but Jesus - it doesn't look fun. Aaargh. I'll write about it closer to the time.
Anyway, nothing to do (ever) but keep moving forward. May the force be with us all.
Some dreamy Pisces songs for ya:
A "checking out & moving on" song:
And here is some cheese! Hair metal & power ballads will pull us through, if nothing else can!
OK, so we have a busy sky heading into the full moon in Sagittarius on Friday the 13th June (around 5 am GMT). It's just kinda all over the place and intense. Awkward, complex, brutal, dramatic. I'm not sure where to begin.
I guess we had better look back at the new moon in Gemini a couple weeks ago for guidance. If you recall, that one had something to do with artistic license and inspiration...or on a more mundane level, misinformation. Confusing news coming from multiple sources, unclear new developments. Drunken networking and siren songs.
The Gemini-Sagittarius axis has to do with knowledge vs. understanding. In Gemini, you gather up the raw data. In Sagittarius, you use that information to intuit broader truths; you find the underlying meaning.
So I think this full moon is a scenario where the swirly mists dissipate and the actual landscape comes into view. The truth becomes self-evident: the actualities are all lit up, and they are likely to be quite stark.
Here is Emily Dickinson on having the scales fall from your eyes:
It dropped so low -- in my Regard -- I heard it hit the Ground -- And go to pieces on the Stones At bottom of my Mind -- Yet blamed the Fate that flung it -- less Than I denounced Myself, For entertaining Plated Wares Upon My Silver Shelf --
This full moon should light up exactly where you stand with regard to issues of love, money, values and self-worth. Venus in Taurus will be exactly opposing Saturn in Scorpio - and not just to the degree, but to the minute. This is all about the bottom line in relational and financial matters. There won't be much leeway available with personal and shared resources, inheritances and debts (and this means energetic debts as well as the financial kind). You either have it in the bank or you don't, and that's that. It's either the real deal or it isn't.
There is constraint and austerity involved here, which is not so pleasant. But there's a solidity and depth to this aspect that is comforting. Knowing where you stand is always good, even if it involves knowing you're broke as a joke and all your romantic prospects are fantasies. At least you can work with that: it is a bedrock fact.
And if you do possess something solid in the love or money departments – well that's good to know as well, even if it feels like a ball and chain at times.
It may feel like more of a ball and chain than usual, with the moon in freedom-loving Sagittarius aspecting revolutionary Uranus in Aries and an excitable sun in Gemini. This all represents an urge to cut loose, to leave the past behind and strike out alone...but it is bumping up against the reality of limits and responsibilities to others. Especially to family.
The Sagittarius moon is disposited by Jupiter in Cancer, and the Gemini sun is disposited by Mercury (now retrograde till early July) in Cancer. Cancer is heavily involved with this full moon, and the energies (air and fire for Gemini and Sagittarius, water for Cancer) don't sit comfortably with each other. It's like a really awkward family reunion...everyone is desperate to leave already and do something fun, but they're all held there by the undertow of a shared history.
Cancer is about family and home life, nostalgia, the past. So the emphasis is really on family stuff for now...and this ties in with the Venus-Saturn aspect outlined above.
Where do you come from, what is your bedrock inheritance? What do you owe to your family; what do they owe you? Probably you won't be able to avoid looking at these kinds of issues right now.
Anyway, family duties are going to feel damn uncomfortable and constraining when there is such a contrary pressure for freedom, personal expansion, fun and adventure at work. Things look quite uneasy and emotionally awkward: this is courtesy of a whole bunch of inconjunct aspects, which speak of mutually irreconcilable imperatives.
And also potentially violent, shocking and explosive. Sigh. Now we get to the ugly part.
I'm sick of this shit, but this is the cosmic weather we're in: a cardinal t-square involving Mars, Pluto and Uranus, in effect for the rest of June. The god of war vs. the god of death vs. the god of shock and upheaval. Can you see what this might look like in your mind's eye? It's not a garden party.
The Mars square Pluto aspect will be exact at the full moon, and here are some fun key phrases for that: killer rage. Death instinct. Power drive. Intense aggression.
It is damn uncomfortable. You combine it with a tense aspect to Uranus (shock)...and it's pretty clear you'd better keep your wits about you for the next few weeks...and especially at the full moon (Friday the 13th, ha). Try to avoid bashing anybody's head in, or getting your own head bashed in. Be careful driving, be careful around machinery, try to stay alert, obey your instincts, be ready to jump out of the way of the oncoming train or whatever. Be prepared!
Here are some less scary Mars-Pluto key phrases: physical endurance. Rising from the ashes. A will to transform. Survival instinct. Fighting to the death.
Nothing about this is pretty or nice: it is a relentless, angry kind of energy, and it demands action. So if you start feeling it, you'll need to DO something with it...hopefully something that doesn't involve decapitating anyone. Run 12 miles, destroy the hell out of something inanimate, chop all your hair off like Katy Perry in this promotional video for the US army, I don't know.
& here is Rihanna gyrating on tanks & blowing shit up in Afghanistan, while we're watching disturbing US army ads.
Well that was disgusting, but so is Mars square Pluto. (They are sex gods too, remember. Very Freudian.)
(sex & deth, yo)
I should probably play a bunch of punk rock to balance out all this pop, because punk rock fits these aspects - and punk involves some level of honesty and integrity. But I don't feel like it right now. Here's some Destiny's Child instead.
Soldiering through is where we're at.
OK, stupid videos aside, the best use of this energy is transformation. What we are looking at for the next few weeks is an intense rage for transformation of circumstances that seem stuck. Corrupt old power structures, corrupt old family and societal dynamics: these things are going to be glaringly obvious. The rot underlying the old order is going to be glaringly obvious.
Things have got to change. And what's too far gone to change has to die.
This story has been in the news lately where I live, and it encapsulates these themes perfectly. The hidden abuses of a rigidly patriarchal society coming to light.
Infuriating as this stuff is, I think compassion, rather than righteous fury is the way to go here. Righteous fury will be easy to come by, courtesy of the cardinal t-square. But we also have Mercury and Jupiter in Cancer, which is nurturing and emotional. And we have Saturn in Scorpio exactly trining Chiron in Pisces - again, not just to the degree but to the minute.
This is a grand trine in water signs, emphasizing compassion, forgiveness and deep understanding. The real task here is not to blowtorch the past, but to understand it.
A song for the end of the old order, by Shakespeare:
Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them,--ding-dong, bell.
A sea-change; a transmutation. That's what's required here.
To sum up, I think this full moon has to do with understanding our debt to the past. “The damage that was done and the treasures that prevail”, as Adrienne Rich says in Diving into the Wreck – a poem about confronting collective psychic damage.
I'm thinking too of what Joyce said about history: "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken."
And hexagram 18 in the I Ching, about corruption originating in past abuse or neglect, and the effort of righting it.
Individual freedom is impossible without an awareness of where we came from. We may want to be our own people – but we are products of our social and familial conditioning. There is no getting rid of it; there is only recognizing it and reconciling with it. It's tempting to split off from it and fix upon a perpetrator to blame, but that only absolves us of personal responsibility.
In order to be free, we have to 'own' our roots, in other words. However uncomfortable and ugly this process is.
So all in all, this is a complicated and uneasy kind of cosmic weather we are headed into...and full of danger and drama to boot. Please remember that luck (Jupiter) is attendant here upon engaging with deep emotional and family responsibilities, however much you might want to run away and do your own thing.
And please try to avoid killing anyone, or getting killed!
