The Audience
At the First Quarter Moon (Aug. 12, 2024, 8:19 am PDT, 20º24’ Scorpio), the Moon in Scorpio – a simmering water Moon, warmed by Mars, Scorpio’s ancient ruler – is tempering the Sun in fiery, joyful Leo.
A joyful toddler (Leo) runs through the backyard yelling “Mama! Look at me!” His normally kind, loving Scorpio mother has had a tough day. At that very moment she’s on the phone with the assisted living facility where her ailing, aging mother lives; she is receiving the news that her mother will require skilled nursing, and wondering how they will afford it. Her nerves strained, she snaps at her son: “NOT NOW!”
He stops in his tracks. Tears begin streaming from his eyes. It’s a tiny moment; years later, most likely neither he nor his mother will remember it. But his heart will never forget. Forever after, expressing himself will require tremendous bravery – because now he’s learned that there won’t always be applause. But it also teaches him to ask an important question: do we express ourselves for applause, or just to share our true selves with the world?
Hot Air Balloon
Picture a giant, colorful hot air balloon, gliding across the valley. The sight of it sets imaginations soaring.
But it needed fire to get there. And as fiery Mars comes together with Jupiter in Gemini (Aug. 14, 2024, 8:21 am PDT), watch your big ideas take flight. It begins with being willing to take action on things that have, up to now, lived only in your mind, as cool, intellectual abstractions. Maybe you didn’t feel ready, didn’t feel your ideas were fully formed; or maybe, it’s just easier and less scary to dream big dreams than to make them happen. But as Mars conjoins Jupiter, kindle a fire underneath them – it’s incredibly exciting to see that balloon take flight.
Sculptor
We have more gifts than we know, and the greatest is the honor of being one true, authentic, and utterly unique self. We get only one chance to be this person, with this body and this biography. It seems to me, now past my second Saturn return, that the entire process of living exists only to bring us closer to who we’ve really been all along. As T.S. Eliot wrote, “…And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”
When we encounter bumps along the journey – hard transits, if you will – we’re given a chance to chip off more artifice. Take this week’s square from Mars to Saturn (Aug. 15, 2024, 10:30 pm PDT). Imagine Mars is the sculptor’s chisel, and Saturn is a huge block of marble. What’s inside that cool chunk of rock? The sculptor thinks he knows… and his mission is to undertake the hard work of uncovering it.
At this transit, something that feels pushy or cruel may in fact be the hand of an unseen sculptor, taking its first big whack at you, trying to release the beautiful figure it sees in you. As the sculptor removes the unnecessary rock and begins the fine carving, a truer and more beautiful you can emerge.
Obsolete
Let’s say you’re a fantastic typewriter repair person. You’ve spent your career mastering the idiosyncrasies of various makes and models, sleuthing out sources for replacement parts and in some cases, fashioning them yourself.
The problem is, hardly anybody uses typewriters anymore.
You can be the very best at something, but if it’s something that’s on its way to becoming obsolete, you’re not going to have many opportunities to do it. As Mercury squares innovative Uranus (Aug 18, 2024, 2:47 am PDT), circumstances may force you to take a new tack. The world is accelerating toward change; don’t let yourself be passed by.
Blurry Photos
One of my oldest friends sent me some blurry photos from our grammar school days. Although my memory is generally not what it used to be, I recalled the names of every classmate in those photos with no effort. But who was that long-haired, fierce-looking, awkward girl with my name scribbled underneath? I remembered her, too, how she struggled to feel good about herself and to fit in. Looking at my youthful self made my heart catch, made me feel protective of that girl. And for a moment, I realized how far I’ve come in the 45 years since, and also how much I’m the same.
Mercury retrograde, especially in one of its strong signs, can be aggravating for all the usual reasons – technical and electronic snafus, communication problems and misunderstandings. But it’s good for remembering; and as it makes its conjunction to the Sun this week Sun conjunct Mercury (Aug. 18, 6:58 pm PDT), remember who you used to be, who you are now, and how far you’ve come.
More time, less stuff
How much do we actually need in order to be happy? It varies from person to person, of course. But happiness studies have shown that beyond what is needed for necessary expenses, plus a little bit extra, more money doesn’t really bring more happiness. It can provide more pleasure and comfort, but that’s not really the same thing. Many people on their death bed who would give everything they own for a bit more time.
As the money planet Venus in Virgo squares Jupiter in Gemini (Aug. 18, 2024, 10:53 pm PDT), take some time to consider how much of your freedom, how many hours of your life – the most precious commodity of all – are exchanged for things that don’t bring you all that much happiness. Venus in Virgo is a reminder of how delicious it can be to trim down the excess stuff in our lives, and to reclaim the time that’s traded for buying and maintaining it.
Writing and images © 2017-24 by April Elliott Kent
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