Astrology of 3/29-4/4: Transmutation at the Threshold of Peace

Note here this week our friends Jupiter, Pluto, Uranus and Vesta forming a grand cardinal cross, with Jupiter and Pluto squaring exact this week! These are very dynamic times and anything you “do” in the realm of one of these planets acts in formidable alliance with the other three, a little bit like a hanging mobile constantly recalibrating its balance. Since each of these bodies form ninety degree angles to one another, they grind and chisel at one another like tectonic plates – forming both interruptions (eruptions) and mountains. Our correlating experiences here on Earth tend to build both conflict and character. Grand Crosses are powerful geometric alignments that up the ante of our lives and I’ve noticed that in playing with them and getting creative, it’s way fun and exciting (versus sitting around dreading them and their mysterious power or what will happen). We have choices and the transits are just like the wave; our actions how we surf the given wave.

To break it down (but do more research if you are called) these are our four developing fronts on this Grand Cardinal Cross:

Pluto in Capricorn: Soul level accountability, infrastructures of power, the transmutation from force/control to true power/empowerment, empowerment through maturity, breaking down/transforming our judgements and our internalized oppression, alchemy or transformation that occurs best through a formidable container, the depth psychology of authority and one’s attraction/repulsion to it, inner-authority, merging with external authority.

Uranus in Aries: Shaking up the status quo, innovation, pioneering, trailblazing, radical defense of the underdog, new experiences which are traumatic and/or liberating, liberation through the Hero’s Journey, setting off on the path because of an impulse to become, electric impulses of destiny.

Jupiter in Libra: Higher knowledge of what constitutes peace, magical relationship, magical break-ups, learning how to give and how to not give, how to receive and how to not receive, higher knowledge about how relationship works, learning our relationship beliefs and styles, cutting through relationship bullshit, discovering the difference between real and false peace, discovering the benevolence of discord, expansion through the social realm and meeting new people or new types of people that expand one’s reality, learning how to listen, expansion of charisma or the search for personal charisma.

Vesta in Cancer: Creating sacred space in the home, creating sacred safety, discovering/maintaining a spiritual key to always feel safe or at home, nesting, womb magic, yoni magic (such as jade egg practices).

If you have thoughts on how these forces are playing with each other in your life at more depth than this, do write in the comments so we can support each other! Many of the weekly readers here are excellent astrologers…

Here’s our week:

March 29

Mercury in Aries trine Saturn in Sagittarius (11:16 AM PST):

(Image: Emma Black)

• As a communicator, this energy reminds me of a coach who drills harsh but benevolent messages. Sagittarius can speak in ways where it is not really concerned about tact, but instead cares about its perspective of truth. When it hears people speaking of a problem, it may rather point out the error in another’s thinking and beliefs and the relevant consequences, with options for how to think/believe instead, than it feels like holding space and consoling another gently for their issues created by false beliefs. This occurs all across the spectrum of alienating & prickly/abrasive to heartening realtalk/peptalk, and likely this has to do with how practiced one is in speaking their truth, and how loaded these truths are (i.e. microaggressions collected over time and patiently repressed). The messenger in Aries at any rate, brings new information, which can be learning experiences for both the messenger and receiver.
• Mercury in Aries trining Saturn in Sagittarius is also like a meeting of the novice (perhaps with a chip on their shoulder or something to prove) and some wise/established guru. These characters grain on one another in some fascinating ways and trade different kinds of consciousness with each other. We may find ourselves fluidly navigating between these depending on how we organize our perception of who we have to learn from versus who we are teaching (when the difference in knowledge is that defined). I imagine Mercury in Aries knocking on Saturn in Sagittarius’ door without regard for the many boundaries Saturn has put in place, and Saturn being like “Who the fuck are you kid? Do you want to be schooled right now?” “Yeah, I do!” Mercury in Aries says back all chipper, to which Saturn deliberates.
• In the case of that spectrum, Saturn in Sagittarius might correlate to where we feel called to facilitate the growth of another being, where that is appropriate for us, or where we need to put up a boundary, where there is a fundamental non-meshing of realities and the need to take space and independence (Aries) from others whose realities who strike us as intrusive in some way or taking up a large amount of space (Sagittarius). I don’t mean ditching others from a holier-than-thou stance, but from a self-authority place recognizing that energy exchange can be mutually supportive or it can be draining for one or both individuals, and that we do have the right to set up our lives as to not be drained but actually moving our vital energies effectively. Ideally one is not erecting boundaries to avoid participation or responsibility with important matters at hand, but it’s more a vibe of professionalism: getting serious about one’s gifts and knowledge as to use it in the most inspired, effective way. Saturn likes to suture up energetic leaks.
• Consider what adjustments to your communication allow you to say the harder things in a way that it might be benevolently received: herein is a real quality of leadership that this transit calls forth. The passion/fire element of this is moderated through a judicious reasoning of cause and effect. Also consider that the more truth-speaking is put into practice, the easier it becomes to say the right thing at the moment it’s asked of us. That quality is like an ideal of this transit that may actually take time and practice to be a part of a person’s character. The adversity of this transit is more about the interior frustration of not knowing how to have the conversation, or of feeling like one cannot be honest without also being offensive or burning a bridge, or straight up not wanting to put in the work because – priorities. You might receive the message that something that is frustrating you requires deeper contemplation, time, truth-seeking, and maturity, or that you actually are in a position to seamlessly execute a communication that would have been difficult for you in the past.
• Also relative to the application of this transit would be new information (Mercury in Aries) and how that fits in, activates, or creates cognitive dissonance with a given belief structure (Saturn in Sagittarius). The new information may be less of a threat to the status quo if we look at how the authority that Saturn represents is actually vitalized by having continued relevancy: that new information that challenges us is actually an opportunity to more accurately and fluidly forge our own integrity with the changing moment-to-moment nature of reality.
• The possibility of moderating/directing anger rather than suppressing it. It is common, culturally, to view anger is this bad thing, if often because it is associated with mistakes and violence. Anger, especially with Mercury in Aries, is a messenger. Rather than suppressing the anger for having the judgement that it should not be an emotion we experience, it might just help to listen to what its message is for us. What if instead of suppressing or judging anger, we had developed an actual cosmological skillset for its relevancy in our psyches and what to do with that raw, Martial heat?

March 30

Jupiter in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn (11:41 AM PST):

(Image: Jade)

• Dramatic resolutions of conflict that occur when there is an alchemical transmutation of consciousness involved, relevant to what is being judged or what is taboo about the situation. Peacemaking past the resistance to doing so.
• We are called to truly consider the underlying beliefs, stories and attachments that keep us bound to the realities we keep attracting even though on a personality level, we may not like or prefer them. Not taking personal, soul level accountability for our part in this dance allows another belief to form in which some nebulous, mysterious force out there separate from us – like the man, an externalized God, Karma – is controlling or limiting our lives in some fashion. The intensity of this particular disempowerment is at the crux of a major transition, in which a person wakes up to their personal power to create and effect reality. The guru (Jupiter) in this case really is Libra, relationship, cause and effect. If we are on every level, part of an ecosystem, then reality is not just this separate thing acting upon us. It is in relationship to every aspect of our being. Therefore, it becomes impossible to judge our external circumstances as having nothing to do with us. Yet this is not the moment to become self-judgmental, or not compassionate to ourselves, as these judgmental constructs are also illusions. The judgement that this “bad thing happens to us” does not equate to being bad on the inside. It is more nuanced such as: a person chooses to use wishful thinking when in relationship to others rather than understanding other people’s motivations. Because of this, this person has a partner who always breaks the code of their relationship and cheats on them but promises they will never do it again, in a sense to only appease the other and keep the relationship going. The person with wishful thinking is content to believe the other person, and when the other person falls through with their promise, the wishful thinker feels disillusioned and betrayed. Their work, on some deeper level, may be around becoming more objective about how other people structure their consciousness, and so they attract people to help them learn that lesson. That itself is sweet or benevolent in some way, but the circumstances it creates feel traumatic on the ego level. A false belief may form such as, “No one is trustworthy” or “people who are close to me always betray me”, when the deeper message is that this person needs to get to know who the other is, versus pretending the other is someone they aren’t and thus banking on the future falsely.

• The need to understand that we are not passive receivers of reality when it comes to relationship: that we are always dancing with others and are truly in relationship to all that is. There is no separation. On the 3d plane and what we call reality there can be power deferentials and abuse is also a reality. But from Pluto in Capricorn’s perspective, it’s about ultimate, soul-level accountability for one’s shadow. When we continue to attract the same kind of character into our own life, it turns us back in on ourselves. Why are we interacting with that energy? Where are we tapped into receiving that? How is our consciousness structured in such a way that we resonate with that other?
• We might believe a construct for a time so that we are able to have a given experience; but that construct is apt to change as reality changes, and we are better off for allowing our constructs to be malleable. This transit may invite some constructs to break down in a rather extreme way (such as a collision that kind of knocks us sideways like hey wtf?), but even the intensity of the message is a gift, for not all gentle lessons are learned. Quiet alarm clocks won’t wake one up out of a deep sleep.
• Consider scenarios in which peaceful resolution of conflict is actually an option: maybe the “enemy” or the “other” we swore off to never speak to again. Where have our declarations of “never again” been defense mechanisms which serve a purpose: to contain our energy into relevant channels for a moment of space-time, a moment which is now up? If the souls need to keep dueling, they will keep meeting again. We see this in terms of past life connections re-meeting life to life, as well as the scenarios in our current incarnations in which we will even keep dueling with the same energy in different people. This transit is a last quarter square which correlates to a “crisis in consciousness”. It asks for solutions that haven’t been tried out before. So maybe you cut people off, ignore them when they do “the thing”, but like some mythical beast who grows back its head when it’s head is cut off, avoidance or persecution even isn’t really the solution. The situation remains. The thing keeps happening with the same person or with different people. Relationship, dancing and transmuting, getting to the bottom of those energies is where change may occur. This is soulwork that this particular transit brings up via a turning point of depth clarity.
• We feel into honoring what wants to be given and what wants to be received, as well as what does not want to be given or received, on a more natural and balanced level, rather than one that is historically conditioned to us by culture or by our own historical narratives. Necessarily this will often be full of unknowns and new territory, like someone who stops enabling an abusive relationship for the first time by ceasing to participate in ways they have been accustomed… “but who will take care of them like I did?”
• This transit asks of us where do we show up with authority/leadership to hold space, or where do we back off and let others carry their own part of the weight? This question is hardly ever a matter of hard and fast rules: it is a sensitive matter similar to parenting. We also ask ourselves why we are attached to “holding it together” for the team when doing so is at personal exhaustion (is it control?), as well as denying others chances to develop their own maturity. At an opposite extreme, this can have to do with harshly judging others for not having it together, and not sharing one’s resources or assistance where it is desired because of that judgement.

(Image: Caitlin Hackett)

• It becomes relevant to consider how our deepest losses have been so expansive and opening for us. We have (if we’ve listened and adjusted) always come out stronger, better, more deeply aware and compassionate after our darkest nights of the soul. When Jupiter and Pluto interact, they bring with them a sense of massive transmutation, the changing of forms: something leaves, something arrives. One or both. This cycle is natural, and depending on our resistance or lack of resistance, we may feel when fruit is ripe and ready to drop from the tree; when an experience is full, saturated, and ready to recycle itself. This can manifest in so many ways, on so many levels of life – even in a structured relationship that is continuing as a whole, for example, an aspect of the relationship might die or a new energy between people might be birthed. We do not get to control the cycles of life, but we can find the joy and presence within them and realize that we were never separate from them; that our illusion of separation from them is what causes us the pain and suffering of loss. And that pain can trigger us to find our truth; to find where the illusion was scaffolded, and what deeper peace lay underneath it.

March 31

Mercury enters Taurus (10:31 AM PST):

Mercury will be in Taurus until June 6. Our next Mercury retrograde begins April 9, from Taurus.

• Using Mercury’s flexibility and realm-traveling skills to loosen up stagnation, whether it be through bodywork, communication and language, herbs, etc.
• Mental activity can slow down or get down to simple basics. It can definitely be a time of cultivation. But accessing new ideas at the pace we are used to in Mercury in Aries can be a little difficult – this is more about hearing what the body wants, or contemplating basic matters.
• Considering presence when it comes to communication: slowing down and being deliberate/embodied with the moment. An image comes to mind of someone who has speech difficulty, but finds that when they slow down and get really intentional with their words, they are able to communicate; that they are not tripping up over trying to articulate ideas faster than their mouth can annunciate them.
• Picking up cues and intelligence from the body – opening or deepening into the process in which we can feel mental ideas somatically, and therefore form a discernment around how we value those ideas: such as the difference between a thought making our heart sink or a thought filling us up with a felt sense of buoyancy.
• Understanding that we we choose to receive or to not receive (Taurus) affects our mental processing and allows for fluidity or stagnation. Communications can be stubborn at this time or very present, earthy. It might come under greater awareness the ways in which our thoughts change depending on what foods we eat (Taurus is all about connecting to the world through the mouth!), and how we can actually speed up or slow down our minds based on what kinds of food we are eating and how they resonate with our particular digestive and nervous systems.
• Finding a style of communication or expression that really resonates with you intrinsically. Taurus is the inner-side of Venus, about our personal values and self-love. If you find a way to journal, dance, sing, paint, alchemically cook, etc. that makes you feel full of love when you are all by yourself, this can be a way to sink your toes deep into the sensual potentials of this transit. It may also be a time that we note that our expressions change based on what we wear, how we hold our posture, what smells are around, etc… we can get very sensitive, very earthy and sensual, about how we filter and interpret our realities.

April 2

Venus retrograde enters Pisces: 5:25 PM PST

(Image: Jim Buckels)

• If Venus retrograde has thus far in Aries confronted you with anger that has yet to be resolved, Venus’ dip back into Pisces might correlate with being resourced in compassion and forgiveness. Essentially, while Venus in Aries may bring us in touch with where we feel separate from others, Venus in Pisces reminds us that we are all One. Part of the beauty of our extended stay through Venus in Aries has been to understand the love that is inherent in the breakdown, the fight, the feeling of separation. The sense that those who battle are actually intimately related to one another. The love potentials here are not just in further separation or further othering. By all means we can separate from others or take space where that is inspired. But there may also be potent moments of re-union, forgiveness, resolution, and love that result in the dissolution of polarity and dissolution of separation.
• This may signify a time of remembrance of what higher ideals we feel resources by, what things inspire us to take action in our lives, what things inspire our courage, and what things inspire our courage to be vulnerable and to be openhearted. These inspirations are not far off from where we are also disillusioned when ideals seem to fall flat. Ultimately Venus in Pisces is learning unconditional love, which does not mean that one tolerates and accepts tragic or abusive or non-satisfying love, but it does mean that one loves from a higher place if you will – spiritual, rather than security-minded or just trying to extract a performance/transactional reality from the other. This kind of love can challenge many ideals of love earned from one’s culture and its social contracts.
• It will be until April 28th that Venus hangs out in Pisces. Venus will station direct in Pisces April 15. While the vibe has been about willing our hearts or love natures into being through Aries (if not deflecting or defending one’s love nature, on the other side of that Aries spectrum), the Piscean vibe can be more about our relationship to Oneness and to Source/Spirit. It can be about opening up our true longing, and to consider this act of longing to be prayer and worship. It takes courage in the heart to not close up or harden against that longing, as to restrict the flow of the fruits of longing, but to really open up to the divinity of our capacity to love even if that which we perceive ourselves as capable of being, giving or receiving in love is not yet present. Faith is one of Pisces greatest allies. And in terms of manifestation, being able to imagine and feel what it is we are imagining as though it already exists and we know it is here for us, is incredibly magnetic. When this is too difficult to do (as in it creates pain through the vacillation of hope and despair), learning how to be in love with what already is is another high spiritual option, easier said than done but totally possible.

April 3

First Quarter Moon in Cancer (11:39 AM PST):

• In terms of who we aspire ourselves to become (Sun in Aries), this First Quarter Moon in Cancer can signify emotional realities we choose to take on… that we can actually choose our emotions much of the time, even if the events and tides of life occasionally sweep us up from time to time. Where we can choose our emotions, we step into the role of creator/manifester.
• We often don’t choose our emotions, but just experience them, when we perceive ourselves as separate from life and on the defensive – things can do things to us. What happens when we take ourselves in a different light and act upon life and our own direct experience of it? It is up to the imagination to start to form interpretations of reality that are more resonant with one’s chosen vibrational/emotional state. It can seem shaky or forced at first, but it begins to open up possibility and over time these interpretations become more resonant. It helps to identify something you are aspiring to become and to imagine how that version of yourself would feel in any given scenario, what that version of yourself would do. In that way, you get to choose momentum forward, rather than to be limited by how you have manifested your self-construct in the past. Think of the difference between creating new experience that becomes memory, versus calling upon memory to have experience. Or, imagine the present moment and all that surrounds it as future nostalgia, and see if your gaze changes, becomes more tender.

That’s our week. (Nothing like a good Jupiter-Pluto transit going on to get all existential up in here.) Thanks for meditating on the planets with me!

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~Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys kundalini and ashtanga yoga, hiking and creative writing. You can subscribe to receive her weekly forecasts by email here.

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