TRANSCRIPT: EP. 164 | Mercury Enters Aquarius: Your Five-Year Plan (2.6.23)
Listen and read show notes hereApril: Hello, invisible friend, April here, and the date today is February 6th, 2023. Welcome to episode 164 of The Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
This week, Mercury gets busy with aspects to Neptune and Pluto, and enters Aquarius. Venus is in an inspiring aspect with Uranus. And I answer a Listener Question about the fascinating technique of Horary Astrology.
Mercury sextile Neptune (Feb. 6, 2023, 10:26 am PST)
The week begins with Mercury sextile aspect to Neptune on February 6th at 10:26 AM Pacific Time, at 23°46’ Capricorn and Pisces. Mercury is on the Sabian symbol, 24 Capricorn, A woman entering a convent. If you have been wanting to explore your creative side, this is a great day for it. Make some time to be by yourself so you can focus on accessing your imagination and making something of what you find there. I hear from a lot of clients that they would like to do more with their creativity, and a lot of the time it’s not that they don’t have lots of creative talent and ability, but what’s lacking is the time.
And while Mercury is still in Capricorn for a few days this week, it’s really a good idea to sit down with your calendar and look at how you can make time for some kind of creative projects or hobbies. And by creative, it’s not necessarily arts and crafts or singing or writing a book or any of those things, creativity comes in lots of different forms. It’s that thing that you do that’s so absorbing that many hours can pass before you even realize the time. So, Mercury in Capricorn is really a friend to us this week as it makes this aspect to Neptune because Neptune provides the inspiration, the urge to dip into imagination, into the otherworldly realm. But to actually create something, it takes more than that impulse, more than the imagination. Mercury in Capricorn will sit down and get it on the calendar, and if it’s on the calendar, Mercury in Capricorn will get it done. So, that’s a little project for you this week.
Venus sextile Uranus (Feb. 7, 2023, 9:29 pm PST)
On February 7th at 9:29 PM Pacific Time, Venus makes a sextile aspect to Uranus at 15°3’ minutes of Pisces and Taurus. Venus is on the Sabian symbol 16 Pisces, The flow of inspiration. And Uranus is on Sabian symbol Taurus 16, Old man attempting vainly to reveal the mysteries. Well, what a lovely symbol for Venus in Pisces, which is a very flowing and inspired sign. But this combination of symbols suggests that we need to listen to our own instincts, our own inspiration, but that we can also gain something useful and important from the wisdom of others.
This is a sextile aspect between Venus and Uranus, and as I’ve said many times, a sextile represents an opportunity, something that’s optional. It’s there for you, you can take advantage if you want to and get something really nice from the connection, but you don’t have to take advantage of it. And here we have Uranus at the degree Old man attempting vainly to reveal the Mysteries. It’s the story of somebody who is older and wiser who’s been there and has valuable wisdom to impart, and we don’t necessarily pay attention to that. It’s much more enjoyable to just be in the flow of your inspiration.
I was listening to a podcast the other day and one of the hosts said something really insightful. He said, “You spend your whole life trying to get to an age where you know something, and just about the time you get there, people no longer want to listen to you. Because they see you as old and often as irrelevant and they think that you don’t have anything to say that pertains to them.” Venus here in Pisces says, go ahead, be in the flow, enjoy what you’re doing, but you could get even a little more out of it if you were to take this kind of approach or keep in mind these kinds of lessons.
Uranus is the disruptor planet and his job is to stop the flow so that we pay more attention, so that we’re more awake and more engaged. But it is a sextile, we don’t have to do it.
I’ve always been self-taught in everything I did. I was self-taught as a musician, as a singer and a songwriter. I was self-taught for the first 15 years or so that I was learning astrology. I did then connect with a wonderful teacher and learn for a couple of years with her. It’s not that I didn’t think teachers had anything to offer me, it was more that I was a little bit afraid of losing what made me unique, an individual, if I were taught by someone else. And it ended up, of course, there’s always something valuable that you can gain from other people’s thinking.
And the quality of Venus connecting with Uranus – Uranus represents a unique way of looking at things and it can also help us avoid the blind spots that come from just being too insular in our own way of doing things. So, it’s an opportunity this week to do both, to really get into what you’re doing, but consider the wise input from other people as well.
Void-of-Course Moon periods
And now for the Moon Report for the week of February 6th. And it’s a little bit of a different kind of week because we don’t have a major lunation this week. The Scorpio Last Quarter Moon will come along next Monday, so we’ll talk about it on Episode 165. So, for this week, what we’ll focus on is just the Void-of-Course Moon periods. On February 6th, the Moon in Leo will make an opposition to Saturn at 6:15 AM Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for about seven hours before it enters Virgo at01:14 PM. When the Moon connects with Saturn, especially in a hard aspect and in particular with an opposition, we encounter blocks in the road, very often, or what seems like rejection. Sometimes it is rejection, but this is an opportunity during this fairly lengthy Void-of-Course Moon period, to focus on what’s truly important to you, who you really are and what you are trying to do. Don’t let yourself be stopped from doing what matters because other people disapprove or don’t like what you’re doing and have negative things to say.
On February 8th, the Moon in Virgo makes a trine to Pluto at 10:40 PM Pacific Time, it’s void-of-course for about two hours before it enters Libra on February 9 at 12:47 AM. Now, this one will happen for the United States, at least, in the night, the very late hours of the evening into the early morning. If you are in Europe or Britain and you are about eight or nine hours ahead of where I’m at, you’re going to be having this first thing in the morning. But if you are in the US, this would be an evening to prepare for bedtime by making a list of what you want to take care of the next day, because getting it on paper will really help get it out of your head so that you can rest. The Moon in Virgo has a mind that is thinking overtime and is a little bit anxious that it’s going to forget what it needs to do. Virgo loves to-do lists, so just make a little list before you go to bed and make sure you’ve covered everything. Otherwise, since the aspect from the Moon in Virgo is to Pluto, that mental quality will really work over time.
On February 11th, the Moon in Libra squares Pluto at 8:41 AM Pacific Time. It’s void-of-course for about two hours and enters Scorpio at 10:34 AM. When the Moon is in Libra, we can be a little too quick to appease others, to want to make peace at all costs and to often give in to what other people want. The square to Pluto reminds us that there are those times we have to stand up for ourselves and for our convictions, even if it means saying things that other people find hard to hear, and to then not turn around and make yourself feel guilty that you’ve been mean or you’ve been rude or unkind. There are times when keeping the balance, which is the core principle of Libra, requires that you push, that you stand up, that you assert yourself because that will keep the balance. Otherwise, if you’re dealing with forces or with other people that want to push you around, that will create an unbalanced situation because they’re pushing and you are yielding, and really in this situation, you need to push back.
Mercury conjoins Pluto (Feb. 10, 2023, 9:16 am PST)
On February 10 at09:16 AM Pacific Time, Mercury makes a conjunction to Pluto at 28°58’ Capricorn, on the Sabian symbol, 29 Capricorn, Woman reading tea leaves. And this very much like that Moon in Virgo on February 8th, the Void-of-Course Moon in Virgo after the trine to Pluto. This is an aspect that can make it hard to turn off our minds because we’re digging underneath the surface and we’re turning things over and over in our heads. This can also be an aspect that is about telling hard truths, about deciding on an important course of action. It can also be that, in your immediate environment with siblings, with coworkers, with neighbors, you might find that people are struggling with some important problems because Mercury is the planet that rules those kinds of people. And Pluto can describe people being kind of brought down and de-energized.
The Sabian symbol is interesting for this one, the “woman reading tea leaves”, because sometimes what seems like a psychic insight or psychic ability, might just be the ability to really look deep down and to pull up as though from nowhere, things that your consciousness has perceived and you just didn’t really look at or think about. So, February 10 is a good day for tackling problems that you’ve been trying to untangle that seem especially hard to get to the bottom of, it’s great for that. And it is a great time for having those difficult conversations with people that you might have been putting off.
Mercury enters Aquarius (Feb. 11, 2023, 3:22 am PST)
Mercury enters Aquarius on February 11 at 3:22 AM Pacific time. It will be in the sign until March 2nd. According to some sources, Mercury is considered exalted or very strong in the sign of Aquarius. And, I really do feel that it works very well in that sign. Mercury is devoted to how we see things, perceive things, think things through, disseminate information, and we put it into Aquarius and we get the ability to think rationally without getting emotional about things. There is nothing wrong with emotion, but there’s no question that if we’re trying to deal with a logical problem, emotion can get in the way of that.
Mercury in Aquarius is excellent for long range thinking. Now, we can never predict the future, and if the last three years or so have taught us anything, it is that. So, we have to really look a little differently than we used to at things like thinking, because we’re keenly aware now that we don’t necessarily know what is coming around the corner at any given time. But Mercury in Aquarius at least opens up our minds to possibilities and potential that we might not have considered. And it begins with questions like the question we all hate on a job interview, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Half the time we’re thinking, “I don’t know where I see myself next week, so I don’t know how to help you with this.”
But, for somebody who’s got Mercury in Aquarius or a lot of planets in the 11th House of the chart or something, long-range thinking is second nature. They’ve always got a five-year plan. Heck, they probably got a 20-year plan. And it doesn’t worry them too much if they don’t get exactly where they’re going. It’s great to have a plan and you might not get exactly to the place that you imagined getting to, but just by making the effort, by having the intention, you can get a lot further along than you would’ve otherwise and you might get someplace that is even more exciting and delightful than you could have imagined for yourself.
Listener Question: Horary Astrology
In this week’s Listener Question, Listener Joanna asks, “Could you say a little something about Horary Astrology? Why would someone use it and what makes it different from other ways of using astrology?”
April: Well, Joanna, that’s a really great question. And, my answer to you is going to be fairly succinct. Horary astrology is the art of answering a question based on the chart calculated for the moment that the astrologer understands that question. So, if an astrologer is sitting with a client and the client asks the question, the astrologer just looks at the clock and calculates the chart and that’s all there is to it.
Horary sounds like kind of a dirty word, but it comes from the Latin word for “Hour”, it’s “astrology of the hour.” The idea with Horary astrology or really, any kind of astrology, is that, anything that is born in a moment of time has the qualities of that moment in time, whether it’s a person or question. And so, a chart that’s calculated for that moment will contain the answers that someone will seek, will tell the whole story about the situation. I don’t think I’m wrong in calling Horary Astrology a divinatory art, maybe somewhat akin to tarot in that it’s based in the present moment and the idea that the moment itself answers the question.
Horary seems particularly well-suited for particular kinds of questions to “Yes” or “No” questions, helping you find missing objects, figuring out when things will happen. That isn’t always really easy to do with techniques like transits or progressions, but that is by no means all that Horary can be used for. You can see a stunning amount of detail in a Horary chart. It’s sort of like a Natal chart in that way. It’s infinite in its detail.
Horary has a lot of rules, and you read a Horary chart a little bit differently than other kinds of charts. The Moon’s position and aspects are very important in showing the nature of the situation and how things are going to unfold. The Houses of the chart have very specific associations with places and people and types of questions. Planetary dignity, which is something that I’ve spoken about on a previous episode, I’ll try to find that and link it in the show notes, that’s very important in Horary.
I will add that, Horary’s rules are similar to those that are used in what we call Electional Astrology, though they serve really different purposes. Horary answers a question based on the time and Electional Astrology is the art of finding the right time to do something. Anyway, there are people who are real masters at Horary Astrology and all of its technical richness. They do amazing work. I will leave links to some of those people in their work in the show notes.
But I did have a teacher who took a far more casual approach to reading Horary charts. And, I have to tell you, she got amazing results. She had very good instincts and she could basically read anything and get meaning from it. But, like all things in astrology, Horary seems to require this mix of the technical proficiency and then the intuition to follow things down a path that might not be that obvious. I do think there is a “Horary mind,” that there are some people whose minds just get it and they work with it really well. I freely admit, I am not one of those people. My mind does not work that way. And as much as I have tried to get the hang of Horary, I really just don’t feel suited to it. I’ve tried to use Horary every single time I’ve lost my car keys – and that is very often! – and I have never had success.
Anyway, Joanna, I do hope that that helps? I thank you for your question, and I hope that you’ll look more closely into Horary because it is a really fascinating subject.
If you have a question that you’d like me to answer on a future episode, leave a message of one minute or less at speakpipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast or email me at april@bigskyastrology.com and be sure to put “Podcast Question” in this subject line.
Donor Thanks
Well, that is everything I have on my show sheet, so I’m going to wrap this one up. Thanks for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe or follow the show in your app of choice. Leave a reading or review, and I hope that you’ll spread the word by telling an astrology loving friend about the show. You can read show notes in full transcripts and leave your comments about each episode at bigskyastropod.com.
Thanks very much to everyone who’s shown support for the podcast over the past year. On each episode, I’m thanking some donors by name. This week, let’s give a Big Sky Astrology Podcast shout out to Tammy Van Ulzen and Luisa Rebelo!
April: Tammy and Luisa, thank you so much for listening to the podcast and for supporting the show with your donations. If you would like to support the show, please go to bigskyastropod.com and if you donate $10 or more, I’ll send you a link to access my bonus episode for “Donors Only” that was released just after the Capricorn Solstice. And you’ll also get the upcoming bonus episodes for the Aries Equinox and the Cancer Solstice.
That’s it for this episode. Join me again bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars!
© 2023 by April Elliott Kent
