Exciting, busy times here – with Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto all in Capricorn, and with my having my natal Sun and two planets there, I am feeling alive, engaged . . . and also run pretty ragged. Along with my usual client work, we are in the late stages of pre-production on The Book of Air, which should be out very soon. I’m also diving into writing The Book of Water, which will be the last volume of my Elements Series . . . whereupon I hope to finally get time for a vacation!

In these four Elements books, my essential aim is to write down “everything I have learned” in half a century of astrological practice. (Saturn is especially fond of impossible aims.) Put any of the planets in any of the signs, houses, or any aspects to each other, whether natally or in motion somehow, and I have an instantaneous first impression of the core issues involved. All of that has to be put in the context of the rest of the chart, and that’s where the deeper arts of interpretation come into play. No book would be fat enough to include all of those integrative perspectives – but in these four Elements books, I at least want to record my “instantaneous take on those core issues.” It’s all “cookbook” astrology with its inherent limitations – but I remember how helpful those kinds of thumbnail sketches were to me when I was learning the craft. I spent a lot of time looking up configurations in Robert Hand’s Planets in Transit or the books of Charles E.O. Carter, Dane Rudhyar, or Ronald C. Davison.

With the books of Fire, Earth, Air and Water,  I want to do my best to follow in their able footsteps, but to do it in the context of evolutionary astrology. .

In this newsletter, I will focus on a half a dozen of this month’s upcoming transits. I will use text taken directly from the two Elements books that are already available, The Book of Fire and The Book of Earth. I hope the words that follow support the kinds of good fortune that come from mindfulness for all of us – and I am also hoping to give you a sense of how these four volumes can work as a practical handbook of evolutionary astrology. 

As I mentioned, The Book of Air will be out very soon. I am hoping to have The Book of Water ready for publication by next Spring.

As the month gets going, we have a significant event: Venus enters Taurus, one of the signs that it rules. That is always a big deal, since a planet in its own sign is simply coming at us all at a higher amperage. Its meaning for you personally depends on the house it occupies and the aspects it makes, as well as your own karma, nature, and level of wisdom, but here are some guidelines:

VENUS ENTERING TAURUS

Your New School:  The serene rapture we can experience as we surrender to the sheer beauty of nature. Precious moments of transcendent peace that arise as we are uplifted by art. Loving your physical body; being kind to it. Gentleness; kindness; the healing and soothing mysteries of physical touch.

Don’t Hold Onto . . . anything ugly, whether it is an emotional state or a physical object. Maybe now, for example, is when you recognize the unpleasant feelings you get when you consider your worn-out living room sofa. Softening the textures of your immediate domestic world is now a path of mindful kindness toward yourself.

What To Expect: Opportunities arise to pass time peacefully with some dear, familiar souls – people whose simple presence soothes you even if you are just “talking about the weather.” In those relationships, more healing is conveyed to you via touch, gesture, and silence than can ever be conveyed by words. Opportunities to immerse your senses in beauty present themselves – surrender gratefully to them.

The Shape of Failure:  Rigid adherence to fixed patterns of behavior – even ones based upon your actual responsibilities – can block you from claiming these necessary islands of serenity. Give yourself a break; the world will not end if you take time to show yourself a little kindness.

By Transit: Much here depends upon what house of your chart is contacted by Venus and what aspects form and separate. As you answer those questions, recognize opportunities to reach out and ask for help and support in those areas. That assistance is very likely available – and a helping hand will cut the stress-load in half.

On March 8, by transit, we have a Venus-Uranus conjunction. In The Book of Earth, I emphasize that all aspects are ultimately about energies coming together. Rather than parsing out the real distinctions among conjunctions, squares, quincunxes, and so on, I just offer some basic guidelines about how the energies of two planets might enter into a temporary marriage.

VENUS CONTACTING URANUS

How Best To Reduce Your Stress Load:  Break out of the tyranny of your own routines and habits. You are at risk of becoming a victim of your own predictability. Deep down, you are sick and tired of it. Trust those feelings. You need change in terms of your circumstances, your memorized daily patterns, and above all, your attitude. You need more of a sense of freedom in your life, and you need to be its author or it will not happen. This edgy feeling is most pressing in your primary relationships. Astrologers often use these aspects to predict breakups; here, we are turning it around, talking about how to avoid breakups.

Most Beneficial Aesthetic Input: Your tastes are at risk of becoming jaded. It is time to stretch your aesthetic horizons. You need fresh input – something that perks up your ears or your eyes, something new. If you like pop music, try listening to an opera. If you like modern abstract painting, make a study of Rembrandt, Velasquez or Delacroix. 

What You Need To Learn About Love and Trust:  Nothing sustains a relationship more effectively than blessing our partners’ natural right to follow their evolutionary threads wherever they lead. As the U2 song says, “We are one, but we are not the same.” Love and trust should enhance our freedom rather than diminishing it. Change is equivalent to being fully alive; partners celebrate that aliveness in each other: they support each others’ changes.

How to Identify Your Soul-Helpers: They hear a different drummer and dance to a different tune than most people. From the conventional point of view, they are probably at least a little bit strange. They regale you with unexpected perspectives and unusual understandings. They may seem “not to be your type,” although the opposite is the actual truth.

What Happens If You Squander the Opportunity: Your relationships move in the direction of becoming stale and predictable. Perhaps consciously, perhaps subliminally, you begin to lose interest in each other. People do drift apart, and sometimes that is what this aspect indicates. But it can also be something darker: a failure to do the work of keeping up with each other’s changes. Then a love that does not need to die, dies.

On the same day that Venus and Uranus align, we also all experience a conjunction of the transiting Sun and Neptune . . .

THE SUN CONTACTING NEPTUNE

What Must Be Integrated: True mystical spirituality. The next step on your inner path. Increased psychic sensitivity. Faith in your intuition. A flowering of the creative imagination. A vision arises for the next stage of your journey; you must surrender to it in order to receive it..

The Price of Failure: Escapism, as you fail to deal integratively with your increased psychic sensitivity. Falling prey to delusion and illusion. Ignoring the inspiration that is knocking on your door. Lassitude of spirit. Tuning out.

Synchronistic Correlates: Encounters with spiritual teachings and teachers. Bizarre, inexplicable dreams and psychic experiences. Seeing ghosts; feeling energies. Books you need to read falling off bookshelves and landing at your feet. Kisses from angels. Communication with the “dead.”

When Ego Grabs the Steering Wheel: Headstrong commitment to delusional states, chimerical goals, and an inflated sense of one’s evolutionary condition. Being seduced by the glamour of the world: fame, money, or power. Dumb decisions, often unbelievable in retrospect.

On March 20, Mars aligns with Jupiter . . ..

MARS CONTACTING JUPITER

Time To Defend Your Right . . . to expand your territory and enrich your kingdom. To take calculated risks; to bet the house. To achieve victory. To elevate and update your definition of success, and then not be afraid to make a bid for it. To celebrate your own passions. To claim what you have rightly earned already. To expect a miracle. To savor triumph.

Synchronistic Correlates: Opportunity abounds, but it requires bold and decisive action on your part to claim it. “Faint heart never wins fair maid.” Adventure; risk. At this juncture of your life, admit it: you need a fresh victory; you need to raise  your game to a new level. Gambles. Miracles.

Beware of . . . inflated, fantastical schemes that will never work. Dreaming instead of doing. Grandiosity compensating for insecurity. High-handed cruelty relative to the needs or rights of other people. Remember that you will meet the same people on the way down whom you met on the way up  – and in either case, they will be waiting for you.

And just three days later, Mars aligns with Pluto . . . 

MARS CONTACTING PLUTO

Time To Defend Your Right . . . to do deep inner work, however much its revelations might threaten people around you. To ask hard questions of yourself and of others. To bravely ferret out the truth. To integrate sexuality and honesty. To look the devil straight in the eye. To bravely recognize the exact nature of your own woundedness. Then, with the foregoing steps at least partly accomplished, to confront the problem of evil, lies, and darkness in the world outside of yourself. To rise to your mission.

Synchronistic Correlates: Psychological crisis as a turning point in life as well as a point of illumination. You are now ready to face realities you were not previously ready to face. Intense interpersonal events, often sexual or otherwise passionate in nature, which bring challenging truths to the surface. The possibility of violence. Encounters with true evil or darkness. Soul-revealing contact with tragedy.

Beware of . . . the unintentional cruelty of trying to “help others see truths” which they in fact are not yet ready to see. Grandstanding; hyperbolic drama; extreme, overheated pronouncements. Unwittingly acting out your own woundedness rather than dealing with it psychologically, internally, and directly.

Finally, on March 28, Venus forms a trine with Jupiter  . . . 

VENUS CONTACTING JUPITER

How Best To Reduce Your Stress Load:  Be your own Santa Claus. Give yourself a gift; spend some money on yourself; blow off responsibilities and have some fun. Dress in bright colors. Take center stage, at least in front of your friends – tell a joke. Tell a mostly-true story about yourself, one that puts you in a good light, and do not be afraid to embellish it a bit for effect.

Most Beneficial Aesthetic Input:  Something “above your pay grade” in any category: buy a beautiful painting, upgrade your sound system, go shopping and purchase something personal of impressive quality that you can barely afford. Buy yourself expensive tickets to a performance that attracts you. Dress up when you attend it. Do everything you can to like what you see when you look in the mirror.

What You Need To Learn About Love and Trust:  That generosity of spirit is precious and essential to the maintenance of an attitude of love and trust. By generosity of spirit, we mean a supportive attitude, a spirit of forgiveness and radical acceptance, and the expression of sincere joy at the other person’s victories. You must both offer and receive this kind of affirmation. Now is the time to assure that it is flowing. Shared laughter builds love and trust; make time for some giggles.

How to Identify Your Soul-Helpers: They are big-hearted, generous spirits. They laugh easily. Look carefully and you will also detect a hint of star quality in them, as if in a parallel universe, they could be in the film industry. They believe in you, perhaps even more than you believe in yourself. Their presence lifts your spirits; when they walk into the room, your reflex is to smile.

What Happens If You Squander the Opportunity: You overreach in a relationship, making unconsciously-selfish assumptions about another person’s generosity – or level of duty – toward you. You lord it over someone, creating a reaction of resentment in them. Without realizing it, you make yourself look silly, “entitled,” or foolish.

These are of course just a few of the many astrological events that flavor the month of March for all of us, and April will naturally bring more of them. The combinations are practically infinite. But one beauty of astrology is how, behind the monthly kaleidoscope of energies, there are really just a few dozen basic archetypes. Once we learn them, we can see the underlying pattern of meaningful evolutionary opportunity that underlies our wild ride through this world.

Listen to the podcast version here

Facebook Comments