Astrology Highlights for May 15-21, 2023: Cobbling

The Christmas Truce

Mars is a fighter. But Mars in Cancer, and especially trine Neptune (May 15, 2023, 6:44 am PDT), would prefer to avoid bloodshed. Two weeks from Memorial Day, this story seems appropriate.

On Christmas Eve 1914, in the throes of World War I, German and British troops spontaneously began singing Christmas carols to each other across enemy lines. At dawn on Christmas morning, German soldiers came up from the trenches and called out “Merry Christmas!” in English. The British soldiers initially thought it was a trap; but when they saw the Germans were unarmed, they too emerged. The enemies shook hands, exchanged gifts of cigarettes and sweets, and sang carols together. Some Germans lit Christmas trees around the trenches, and there were even reports of an impromptu soccer match.

Imagine you’re far from home (Mars in Cancer) at Christmas, cold and damp and miserable, afraid for your life – when a Neptune wave of unexpected warmth, kindness, and humanity unexpectedly washes over you. Keep your eyes and ears open as Mars trines Neptune this week; someone you’ve been protecting yourself from might actually welcome a chance to clink glasses and share a song with you.

Appetite

On May 16 at 10:20 am PDT, Jupiter enters Taurus for a one-year journey (through May 25, 2024). It most recently visited this sign between 2011-12, 1999, 1988, and 1976.

Jupiter is the planet of more, and Taurus loves ease, leisure, safety and security, and the finer things in life, including fine food and wine, fine objects, and real property. When Jupiter travels through Taurus, it awakens our appetite for these things – with predictable consequences for our bank accounts and waistlines.

Jupiter, the planet that move us forward, expands our horizons, and prods us to step outside our comfort zone is an odd match with Taurus – which, all things being equal, would prefer to just maintain its very comfortable status quo. Similar to Uranus, which has been in Taurus since 2018, Jupiter will challenge that status quo.

It wastes no time in doing so. Within eight hours of entering Taurus, Jupiter squares Pluto in Aquarius (May 17, 2023, 6:10 pm PDT), wheeling in a backhoe to dig up the ground for a new foundation. Jupiter’s other big aspect in Taurus is next year’s spectacular conjunction with Uranus (April 20th, 2024, at 21°49’ Taurus); expect an exciting and unpredictable shake-up wherever your life has become stagnant.

Cobbling

This week’s Taurus New Moon (May 19, 2023, 8:53 am PDT, 28°25’ Taurus) is on the Sabian symbol, 29 Taurus, Two cobblers working at a table. At the New Moon we formulate a vision of what we’d like to do next in a particular area of life – specifically, at this New Moon, the house of our birth chart that contains the New Moon degree (28°25’ Taurus) shows where we should be planting new seeds.

But wherever it falls in your chart, Taurus symbolizes wealth and worth, stabilization and security. And, after two Aries New Moons in a row and a couple of eclipses, it really does feel like time to settle down, find our footing, and let ourselves take it easy for a little while.

The New Moon’s Sabian symbol is an image of working comfortably alongside someone, performing the same task. You may have different approaches, but together you can share satisfying shop talk and exchange ideas about how to do the same work.

The message of this New Moon may be as simple as that: We each have our own work to do, left over from those entrepreneurial Aries New Moons. But we may come to realize that it can be much more enjoyable (and possibly lucrative) to invite another cobbler into your workshop from time to time.

Fight Like Kings

Leo’s great gift is its ability to show us ourselves in a noble light. When Mars, the warrior planet, enters this regal sign (May 20, 2023, 8:31 am PDT, through July 20, 2023), it rallies support for a cause not just because it’s worthwhile, but because the fight itself elevates those who support it. Mars is the planet of battles and those who fight them, and in each sign of the zodiac it symbolizes a different style of warrior. As Mars leaves quiet, defensive Cancer this week and enters Leo, it’s time to fight like kings.

The classic example is Henry V’s magnificent speech to his troops, badly outnumbered by the French at Agincourt. His essential message? “It’s actually a good thing that we’re outnumbered, because that means a greater share of glory for each of us when we win. This is a very exclusive club we’ve got here. We’re going to kick some serious ass, and as we tell this story for the rest of our lives other men will be green with envy that they weren’t here. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” etc.

Henry got lucky that day, and his army won. But from a rhetorical point of view, it didn’t much matter. The idea was that simply fighting alongside your brothers made you better than the next man, shinier and more resplendent.

In the interest of full disclosure, Mars in Leo can have an ugly, self-serving, bombastic side. The preening, vain, and vacuous playboy that was Prince Hal of Henry IV, before he renounced his old boozing pal Falstaff and became King Henry V, is the failed, shadowy side of Leo. That Prince Hal could never have rallied the troops at Agincourt. First, he had to become the exemplar of men’s highest vision for themselves.

That’s the sort of transcendent work that Mars faces as it opposes Pluto (May 20, 2023, 8:12 pm PDT). Pluto will not stand for less than our best and most honest work, and anything less will almost certainly backfire.

While Mars is in Leo, put forth a vision of yourself that you can be proud of, and apply every ounce of it to each important task at hand. And be an example that inspires others to do the same.

Passengers

Each year, when the Sun enters Gemini (May 21, 2023, 00:09 am), I find myself itching to take a road trip. It’s a family tradition; we spent several late-60s summers traveling to visit family in Los Angeles in an Oldsmobile station wagon.

I loved those trips, jostling along the open road for days at a time; it was like being on a cruise. What luxury, to spend days in that snug, automotive womb with nothing to do but read comic books, fight with your siblings, and watch the landscape change across the miles. When you’re young, you instinctively feel safe with someone else behind the wheel. All you have to do is sit back and entertain yourself while the world drifts by, filling you with a sense of adventure and endless possibilities as wide as the big desert sky.

Four years after my first trip to California, we moved to Los Angeles permanently. Just before Memorial Day, almost exactly one year after my father died in a car accident, my mother, my sister, and I set out in a new station wagon to leave the place where all of us were born and raised. This time, Mom had to handle the driving chores alone, and often grew tired; I remember one witheringly hot afternoon nap under a freeway overpass in the middle of nowhere, when we miraculously woke up just as a creepy looking stranger was approaching our car. The sense of adventure and wide-open spaces had given way to an unsettling awareness of our vulnerability.

This week, just after it enters Gemini, the Sun trines Pluto (May 21, 2023, 6:58 am PDT) and brushes up against the shadow side of the open road. It’s not just menacing strangers in the shadows; it’s also the uneasiness we can feel, as adults, with giving over control to another driver. As this Sun in Gemini season dawns, Pluto is behind the wheel. We may be eager to hit the road, but it’s not necessarily all that comfortable being a passenger instead of a driver.