June 5th ~ 12th
“Luncheon of the Boating Party” by Pierre Auguste Renoir
Everyone who ever changed their life or laid claim to their own destiny began by surrendering to two words: Not This. It’s okay if you don’t know yet what happens next. You just have to be honest about what your deepest truth is telling you, which is: Not This. If that’s what your body, heart and soul are trying to tell you: Listen. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
There are a few interesting transits this coming week to take note of. Perhaps the one to watch most is Uranus at the bending (square 90º angle) of the Nodes, which perfects on June 12th. That is the same day that Mercury enters the shadow preceding its retrograde phase which begins on June 29th. During the month of June, Mercury will gradually appear to slow down, until it finally comes to a standstill at the end of the month. This has an effect on all things Mercury: communications, commerce, travel, our senses and perceptions. Mercury will be making this gradual and barely perceptible shift over the next month, but it is not retrograde yet. However it is making a conflicting aspect to Saturn this week.
Mercury square Saturn can feel like a mini blockage in the things of Mercury such as communications, messaging, and the natural flow of our lives. It is not a retrograde. But it could be frustrating for many of the same reasons: Having difficulties with communications, finding it hard to reach agreements or connecting with others; the mind feels sluggish, resistant, limited, pessimistic, judgmental and critical. Mercury/Saturn can feel like bad news, but there are positive ways to use the Mercury/Saturn square this week: Can be helpful for work that requires focus, organization and concentration; taking care of those menial tasks that we have been avoiding; correcting our work; editing, setting boundaries, cutting back, and saying No when you need to.
This will be an interesting contrast to the Venus/Jupiter conjunction on Tuesday. This is an expansive, celebratory transit of good will, generosity and joy. Despite what anyone else may think, we’re in the mood to party. Mercury/Saturn may be a Debby-downer, but Venus/Jupiter falls in the Pollyanna camp where we really don’t care what anyone else is talking about or thinking. Find your people, gather the community, laugh hearty, love and be loved, celebrate, bring out all the good stuff, and bask in the luck and glory of the Venus/Jupiter conjunction. You can use Mercury to do the dishes and clean up the mess later.
With the Sun/Pluto ‘sesquiquadrate’ it could feel a bit like we’re fiddling around while Rome is burning, but this could also be about attitude and perspective. Especially in light of the Uranus square to the True Nodes of the Moon. Change is afoot. And we may get wind of that this week. What may seem like a terrible thing to some, could bring reason for celebration for others. The Sun/Pluto transit can be revealing. Like a wake up call, people, situations or things that we’ve been putting up with and trying to ignore, will feel insufferable. And so we begin to look at the idea of change as a good thing.
When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings. ~ Dean Jackson
Unlike our planet, Uranus rotates on its side. It is the only planet in our solar system that does that. Like many of the planets in our solar system, including the Earth, Uranus has a magnetic field, but its magnetic poles are at a wide 60º angle from its rotational poles, which creates a very unpredictable and seemingly chaotic atmosphere. One thing we learn with Uranus transits is that just because everyone else is going in a certain direction, it doesn’t mean that we should as well. Uranus is something of an awakener, often bringing sudden and even shocking revelations in its path that can change the whole picture. It’s like nothing else. With Uranus insinuating itself between the Nodes, we become aware, perhaps in a number of ways, that the paradigm is shifting and we are not in Kansas any more. We are not who, what or where we were before.
We often feel like we are at a crossroads when a major planet comes to the bending of the Nodes. A crossroad between the past and the future, between an old way of being and a new one that is emerging. And with Uranus in Gemini, a new way of perceiving, seeing, and receiving information is at hand, allowing us to see that we are indeed at a crossroads.
In this way Uranus can be something of a catalyst, pushing us quickly into a new era driven with new ways of perceiving the world, both technically and intellectually. Illuminating. Potentially enlightening. We are being shown the advantages of new ideas, new technology, new energy sources, new ways of communicating, seeing, hearing and connecting; Conversely we are also being shown the things that we have since outgrown, are limiting us, and are something of a distraction, preventing us from growing.
Uranus wants us to be free. To be true to ourselves. To be able to grow beyond our previous limitations and outworn concepts. And to think creatively. There is no shoving us back into the cocoon once we realize that we have wings. For once we emerge from the cocoon we can fly.
For this week’s horoscopes, click below: