“At the gate… This is the place to pause, to accept, and to know the peace which alone can insure to the seeker for spiritual reality success in his search.”
When the Sun enters Gemini on May 20th, the rush to perceive and experience people, things and events will increase. Gathering information is the Sun in Gemini’s passion, creating links from one person, thing, event to the next, his forté. The zodiacal symbol of Gemini represents a gate: the two columns of Joachim and Boaz linked by the roof and floor of Solomon’s temple forming a mystic rectangle that pulls from the power of the four directions. “Gemini,” says Rudhyar, who himself has a four-planet stellium in the sign of duality and polarity, “is the Gate which leads to the temple of human fulfillment.” In order to experience that fulfillment, the Sun in Gemini must learn to pause and wait for wisdom to come as a hologram rather than piecing it together bit by bit, climbing a scaffold of data that has no meaning, or as Rudhyar puts it, “the art of letting things happen.” That is the gift of Gemini and the Sun here, who becomes the first astral body (other than the Moon) in an intellectual air sign in nearly two months, will reach his highest fulfillment if he can muster enough mental patience to allow the natural rhythms of the universe to unfold and that sacred process to reveal the knowledge he seeks.
As the Moon in Sagittarius moves into an opposition with the Sun in Gemini on May 21st, she brings to light the polarity between information and truth. As the culmination of this lunar cycle initiated at the Taurus New Moon, the Full Moon in Sagittarius will reveal that which we have determined to be essential and truly valuable in our lives. We only need to look around and see what is operating in our lives, what is taking our attention the most. Are we able to focus on that which is important or are we distracted by every little bit of information coming our way in this age of big data, unable to stop consuming it to the point of being utterly scattered? This is our opportunity to stand at the threshold of wisdom and resist the temptation to rush the intellectualized consciousness through it, to pause in a state of timelessness and experience enchantment.
Patience, however, may be a rarified commodity. Mars, the quintessential planet of action, is conjunct the Full Moon as she releases her Sagittarian arrow of truth. In retrograde motion now for five weeks, Mars in retreat mode has been correlating to increasing frustrations in on earth, as forward movement seems to have slowed to a crawl or blocked altogether. The desire to move is pent up, and with the emotional energy of Moon at her peak it will find a way to release. Just how forcefully it is expressed depends on how much we balance the raw power of that desire within the whole of our being and channel it through integral awareness. Mars’ bi-annual opposition to the Sun, exact on May 22nd, occurs during the relatively rare times when Mars is retrograde and is at his closest point to the earth, which heats up the internal review of his individual drive and initiative. With the Sun learning “the art of letting things happen” in Gemini, retrograde Mars is learning “the art of living together” in Sagittarius, as Rudhyar describes the gift of Sagittarius, and while traveling through this freedom loving fire sign, Mars is challenged to incorporate integrity and responsibility in how he asserts himself in order to experience true freedom within the construct of civilization. As he faces the Sun, retrograde Mars receives a revitalizing jolt of purpose, an essential component of self-motivation on any level that infuses action with intention, desire with heart to facilitate win/win situations.
Also on May 22nd, Mercury in Taurus stations direct, standing still in the sky directing attention on essential values in all we perceive. This will amp up the intensity of the already pretty hot day and also mark the end of his second review period of the year, which in Taurus was has been about discovering the space between words and thoughts. Did we slow down enough to feel the essence of what was being communicated by another, as well as by our own soul? Concurrent with the Sun/Mars opposition, the Mercury station may activate revelations or bring to the surface that which has been felt but not yet articulated, and set in motion a new path forward. As discussed in the last AstroCast, Mercury has been part of a grand earth trine with Jupiter in Virgo and Pluto in Capricorn that will remain in effect through the end of this period. The moment he pivots in the sky marks the midpoint of this synergetic configuration that presents an opportunity to tap into the manifestation principle represented by the initiating, sustaining and transition-oriented earth signs. All we have to do is set the intention and make the effort to use Pluto’s primal power, Jupiter’s panoramic point of view and Mercury’s connecting principle. Both Mercury and Jupiter (which recently turned direct) are particularly potent during this time. Working their way slowly through the degree space of their respective signs has the effect of focusing their energy like a laser. Having previously trined Pluto on May 12th when he was retrograde, Mercury will return to Pluto’s point on May 30th, driving us deeper within, beyond the noise to that point of silence where wisdom is experienced. Opportunity indeed.
Creating a tonal shift on May 24th, Venus segues from the earthy expression of love and beauty she exhibits while in her home base of Taurus, to an intellectual approach to relating and artistic expression in Gemini. She’ll prefer to keep it light and airy as she connects one relationship to another, weaving together a network of liaisons that delight in her repository of interesting characters. In order to learn “the art of letting things happen” in Gemini, Venus will need to linger as she relates to another, for the magic happens only when the energies are allowed to build. Then she will be able to experience an enduring relationship based on more than superficial attraction. Following closely behind the Sun for a couple of weeks, Venus is just a few degrees away from him at this time, and although they won’t have their exact conjunction for another couple of weeks, now that she is in Gemini their alliance is much more easily felt, their approach unified in the sign of the storyteller.
Only hours after she enters Gemini on May 24th, Venus has her own encounter with retrograde Mars in Sagittarius, bringing her unique collaborative perspective to bear on the action planet’s personal assertiveness review. Any Venus/Mars contact is sure to light the fires of attraction as well as the creative impulse. The archetypes of yin and yang face each other, creating tension and a compelling desire to integrate from across the spectrum of experience. Venus in Gemini brings her diversely talented connections; Mars in Sagittarius gives them purposeful enthusiasm and sense of adventure. With the Sun so close to Venus he is still tightly aligned with Mars and together they become a stronger pull in this potentially polarizing configuration. Whereas the Sun/Venus in Gemini combination loves a crowd for the massive database of information it collectively contains. Mars in Sagittarius won’t find it so interesting if he can’t see the purpose in it and is more likely to desire the freedom to find his own way. Finding the common ground between them is the art they will create together.
As he pulls away from the opposition to the Sun and Venus, retrograde Mars ends his 12-week voyage through expansive Sagittarius on May 27th and plunges back into the depths of Scorpio where he will remain through August 2nd. The traditional ruler of Scorpio (replaced in the 20th century when Pluto was discovered), Mars loves the total immersion experience here. Free to exude his primal powers, Mars becomes a powerful magnet, attracting his every desire through sheer all-in presence. He may become so identified with his passion as to be burned by it or, as he continues his retrograde motion through June 29th, he may be become conscious enough of his own capabilities to provide some distance through observation. According to Rudhyar, “the dreamer must remain a witness to his dream, if he is to avoid being absorbed by the very shadow of his idea; and the devotee cannot “know” god except by remaining as a container of Divinity. Identification can only succeed through the non-identification of the consciousness with the process of identification. To be consumed by the Fire, and nevertheless be tender of the flame – this is the goal. And this goal can only be reached by using this most magical gift of the Sprit; the power of non-identification.”
May 26th through June 3rd a series of aspects between five planets occur that together formulate a tension-filled configuration called a mutable grand cross, (four squares and two oppositions), the effects of which will continue into the next period so this discussion will also complete in the next AstroCast. Basically since the end of February, one portion of this configuration has been building in intensity (and covered in a few past AstroCasts): a mutable t-square with Jupiter in Virgo, Saturn in Sagittarius and Neptune in Pisces, which has been correlating to numerous boundary dissolving movements on earth, probably the most poignant of which is the migrant/refugee crisis in Europe that is at once stirring our compassion as well as our fears, including an outpouring of aid alongside cry’s for border walls to be built. The experience of great loss has the power to break our hearts to such an extent that we are finally open enough to touch divine love. Perhaps for some, the individual tragedies playing out in distant corners of the world haven’t yet reached the magnitude required to move an entire nation to be transformed by this type of experience. If collectively we didn’t have these types of events to remind us of our humanity and tear through our crusty defenses, then perhaps we would never reach for higher consciousness.
While the emphasis of this analysis leans toward the slower moving and therefore more potent impact of the Saturn/Neptune planetary pair, the presence of Jupiter generally expands the archetypes at play but also brings forth the opportunities inherent in any given situation no matter how good or bad it may seem. At this particular time, the Sun and Venus in Gemini move into the Jupiter/Saturn/Neptune alignment to form the very tight grand cross that will challenge us to get outside of ourselves and really put our heart into connecting with others in order to find solutions to the problems at hand. We’ll have the opportunity to look at the big picture, which hopefully will take us beyond the mundane into a soulful inquiry that will lead to higher truths in service of the great mystery.
Here’s the data (using Pacific Time and planetary positions rounded to the nearest whole degree, unless otherwise noted):
May 20 – Sun at 0° Gemini at 7:37 a.m.
May 21 – Moon opposite Sun at 1° Sagittarius/Gemini at 2:14 p.m.
May 22 – Sun opposite Mars at 2° Gemini/Sagittarius at 4:17 a.m.
May 22 – Mercury station direct at 14° Taurus at 6:20 a.m.
May 24 – Venus at 0° Gemini at 2:45 a.m.
May 24 – Venus opposite Mars at 1° Gemini/Sagittarius at 7:38 p.m.
May 26 – Jupiter square Saturn at 14° Virgo/Sagittarius at 5:28 a.m.
May 27 – Mars at 29°59” Scorpio at 6:51 a.m.
May 30 – Mercury trine Pluto at 17° Taurus/Capricorn at 8:05 p.m.
June 1 – Sun square Neptune at 12° Gemini/Pisces at 7:43 p.m.
June 2 – Venus square Neptune at 12° Gemini/Pisces at 9:15 p.m.
June 2 – Sun opposite Saturn at 13° Gemini/Sagittarius at 11:38 p.m.
June 3 – Venus opposite Saturn 13° Gemini/Sagittarius at 5:47 p.m.
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