Flying into your future
Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone.
Flying into your future
I flew in an airplane for the first time when I was in high school. I’d taken innumerable road trips with my family over the years, and I was used to that slow pace of travel. This was my first experience with covering territory in two hours that would once have taken two days of driving.
Unquestionably, there’s something nice about a road trip. You gain an intimacy with the terrain, which was fascinating in the 1960s and 70s, before every city and town in America looked quite similar. You savored every inch of the journey. And I missed that, in flying. But by taking an airplane, your vistas increased dramatically.
Sometimes, making a bigger life for ourselves requires that we let go of some of the treasured minutia of each mile so that we can cover new ground, and more of it. This First Quarter Moon (Sep. 13, 2021, 1:39 pm PDT, 21.16 Sagittarius) pits the Sun in down-to-earth, eye-on-details Virgo against the Moon in Sagittarius and its wider lens. Taking a leap of faith can be scary. But if you’ve paid attention to detail and planned carefully, now is the time to trust that you’re ready to jump in a plane and fly into your future.
Longing
As the Sun engages in an opposition with Neptune (Sep. 14, 2021, 2:21 am PDT), longing is the emotion that springs to mind. What are you longing for these days?
Neptune also represents an emotional undertow that can suck us under if we’re not careful. This aspect reminds me of the Nietzsche quote: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Neptune represents those fathomless depths in us, sadness that never really goes away, nostalgia (a word whose root means something like homesickness), an aching to return to the old ways, and the haunting awareness that we don’t really know what happens after we’re gone. On one hand, we have to be willing to look at all these things and to understand about our own hidden fathoms. But on the other side of this aspect is the Sun – and the Sun is the way out of the abyss, through love, fun and games, creative expression, and sharing our stories.
Mars in a Morning Suit
What does a warrior do when he’s forced to wear his morning suit for breakfast and eat with his pinkie sticking out? He behaves charmingly, sparkles with wit, and when no one is looking he picks up his butter knife and rubs his fingertip across its blade, wishing it were a little bit sharper.
Mars, the warrior planet,enters Libra, the sign of fairness, peace, and pleasure this week (Sep. 14, 2021, 5:14 pm PDT – through Oct. 30) for a nearly five-week stay. It last visited this genteel sign in the fall of 2019; this could be a beneficial time to revisit any projects that were left uncompleted then, or conflicts left unresolved.
It’s definitely time to clear the air and restore balance to your life, particularly in your relationships. Not just romantic relationships, either, but all your important relationships —with friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers – need recalibration. Mars in Libra prefers to avoid conflict, but a Mars restrained can become an edgy Mars. Tension and frustration build as Mars transits here, particularly as it approaches its square to Pluto (Oct. 21).
Power that can’t be taken away
If you’d asked me when I was young whether I’d rather be rich or famous, fame would have won handily. Today, I’d lean the other way.
But actually, an extreme amount of either wealth or fame seems to come with its share of problems. It seems that our happiest, lightest, most joyful characteristics risk being dimmed or obliterated in either situation.
This week, as the Sun – symbol of the happy, full-hearted child within – trines formidable Pluto (Sep. 16, 2021, 6:52 pm PDT – 25 Virgo/Cap), true power comes from neither wealth nor fame, both of which make us vulnerable to the whims or avarice of others. Rather, the Sun trine Pluto illuminates the power that comes from joyfully embracing our authentic selves. That’s power that can’t be taken away.
In the end, this kind of power can’t be given to us. We can become obscenely wealthy and still lose a partner. We can be elected to office or crowned a monarch, yet lack the love and respect of our constituents. Pluto reminds that real power can only come from within.
Worth the hard work
When everything we desire seems to have been denied us, we can give up or we can try harder. Sometimes, we’ve been wishing for the wrong things, and the universe holds up a stop sign for our own protection. Other times, the approach we’re taking is wrong, or the timing is off.
As Venus squares Saturn (Sep. 16, 2021, 11:15 pm PDT) in the intractable signs of Scorpio and Aquarius, anything we want had better be worth the hard work it will take to get it. Fortunately, this aspect forms the same day as the Sun’s trine to Pluto, which makes us very clear about what is the true thing, the thing we not only want but that will be worth working for.
Writing and images © 2019-2021 by April Elliott Kent
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