We are in the thick of eclipse season, with a new moon eclipse on April 30 that will be followed by another eclipse on May 15. These eclipses are notable for both involving conjunctions to asteroid Eros in Taurus. This week the Venus-ruled eclipse in Taurus is surrounded by Venus in Pisces joining up with Neptune and Jupiter, and Pluto is stationing retrograde. It’s like a swirl of a saturated Venus, the erotic, longing, and a rising of the primal.
This energy is lush, but perhaps challenging in the ways it hates mediocrity and dullness – the socially encouraged forms of mediocrity as well as the personal ways we inhibit the more edgy and daring aspects of our own souls in favor of something safer-seeming, but at what cost.
Living in touch with the erotic is a form of liberation – it is saying yes to the deepest soul essence that lives inside of us and figuring out how to integrate that deepest essence with the world – a life’s work, really. This is explicitly different than snuffing out the fire of the deepest soul essence that lives inside of us because that’s what over time, we’ve thought we ‘should’ do, and so we kept rejecting it until it got harder and harder to access.
Not that I’m advising reactivity, or burning it all down.
But noticing the root essence of your reactions, fascinations, desires, and feeling into where life is teaching you right now about your relationship with the erotic, and where you have the opportunity to cultivate those threads. Even if it’s just a small opening, which is often better than going too quickly or doing more at once than we can sustain responsibly.
Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the zeitgeist feels like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox and be notified of upcoming educational opportunities, sign up for my mailing list here.
(Top image: Fortunino Metania)
Watch this week’s forecast on YouTube, or continue reading below:
Here’s our week after a few announcements!
LAST FEW DAYS TO ENROLL (APRIL 29 IS THE LAST DAY)
The Evolutionary Astrology Intensive is open for enrollment 🖤🐉🖤 May 2 – September 14, 2022.
Pluto’s significance in the natal chart is as deep and mysterious as Pluto’s physical distance from Earth. Pluto is a gateway to dialoging with the unconscious/subconscious realm. It is a trapdoor through the veil – the way we find ourselves here on earth at some point without memory of where or who we were prior. Yet, life speaks to the deeper memory at the core of our being through our fascinations, desires, and struggles. We each have the opportunity in this life to awaken to our deepest inner truth and live from that place.
Working with Pluto and the lunar nodes becomes a direct communication with the soul – the being who has been here before and will quite likely be here again.
In the context of the world, we speak of the importance of history – that history repeats itself or at least rhymes. The soul has a past too, and our lives are the cutting edge of our souls’ evolution. This form of astrology is therapeutic and electrifying because it is a bridge to what we know inside at such a deep level but have likely not been given the language or mapping for it.
Making sense of my life through this profound wisdom school Evolutionary Astrology has been one of my deepest and most unrelenting adventures and I’m excited to share it again. Learn more and enroll here,
New episode of Magic of the Spheres! Aliza Rood and I discuss the nature of dreams, sharing dreams (whether having the same dream as others or circulating dreams by telling people about them), potentiating dreams, and sourcing dreams as inspiration for writing. Throughout our conversation we some creative writing in this episode that came from dream images. Tune in where you listen to podcasts or on your browser here.
Here’s our week:
April 27, 2022
Venus in 24 Pisces conjunct Neptune in 24 Pisces: 12:11 PM PDT
With Venus in Pisces joining the transpersonal, boundary-blurring, spiritualizing planet Neptune, some themes:
- The heart’s fantasies can be heightened and active right now, which can be inspiring for art, poetics, acts of romance, and gifting and relating from an inspired place. A deeper blending of love and fantasy can be sublime, however, there can also be challenges around its integration. If a situation or relationship cannot actually hold the fantasies projected onto it, the natural fallout is disillusionment.
- Venus-Neptune in Pisces could also relate to heart healing – restorative connection, forgiveness, clarity where we have previously been confused, grief that feels purifying or even intoxicating (grief and praise), pleasure that brings us closer to God, softening the heart in places we have been rigid or closed, etc.
- Speaking of generosity in art-making (not hoarding one’s thoughts or art), Anais Nin writes “I agree with you that a dream given is no longer yours, but it is also true that the more dreams you give, the more you exercise the production of dreams to fill the void, and this faculty grows stronger as you make demands upon it. It is like love. The more you spend of it, the more you stir new sources, new energies. To hold back is an activity which withers, inhibits, and ultimately kills the seeds. When you first surrender your dream, you may feel poor. But the instinct, like that of nature, is to replenish, to refecundate. I have found this to be true. The more I write, the more I give, the more I love, the stronger grows the source. The writer is exposing himself in any form, ultimately, as we do in love, but it is a risk we must take.”
- This quote speaks of the way that when we share, give and create more freely (Venus-Neptune has less boundaries than normal) a mysterious source replenishes us. Overgiving can be a real issue, such as when we give to get, or overload one person (mistaking them, in a sense, for the whole sea, and offering them more than what is true or desired). Yet, where in life are we actually holding back the flow, and what would happen if we stopped holding back?
- This transit can relate to oceanic sensations – such as the tidal wave of ‘falling’ in love, and the grief on the other end that is equal in depth to how much we loved. For support with grief, consider “The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise” by Martin Prechtel.
April 28, 2022
Mercury in 28 Taurus trine Pluto in 28 Capricorn: 5:04 AM PDT
(See last week’s forecast for tons of Mercury in Taurus delineations, which were in the spotlight last week.)
- What we are processing, communicating, taking in, may feel especially dense, compact, rich, or some of this density may have gotten lodged somewhere at some point because we resisted the material or resisted processing it.
- If we are coming to a part of our interior world or inner process that feels full of compact, rich, sediment, thick layers – consider being authentic with pace. We do not have to untie karmic knots dramatically all in a day. Processes have a natural time of their own. What is the middle path between an excess of tamas/sloth/stagnancy versus forcing momentum and speed?
- Where we are creating change in a place that has been densely locked in some kind of freeze or stagnancy, what are we introducing to the ecosystem of our lives to support change?
April 29, 2022
Pluto stations retrograde in 28 Capricorn: 11:36 AM PDT
A stationing planet becomes an emphasized or sharpened energy in the sky and our experience. Some thoughts about Pluto in Capricorn:
- At a most distilled level, we might consider the idea of cultural complexes – with Capricorn relating to things like: the world, society, the superego (“should” consciousness based on cultural values), institutions, conventions and normalcy, social power – and Pluto relating to the unconscious and depth psychology.
- Cultures can be possessed by complexes, and individuals can be possessed by cultural complexes. At a depth psychological level, responsibility in Pluto in Capricorn looks like unhooking from cultural complexes and the internal places of shame or unworthiness that make us receptive to cultural complexes. This kind of interior deconstructive work makes for more choice, opportunity, and creativity in terms of how we contribute to society and the world. It’s similar to how we unhook from damaging relational patterns to create healthier relationships, but we’re speaking of our relationship with the colossus of “the world” and what it means to be a member of society.
Mercury enters Gemini: 3:23 PM PDT
Mercury enters the sign of its domicile (home) and will station retrograde May 10, re-entering Taurus on May 22. Mercury will station direct June 3 and re-enter Gemini on June 13.
- Mercury in Taurus is methodical and plods, is very grounded, tactile, lands with heavy feet. Mercury in Gemini brings Mercury into an air sign, so the mental/communicative field may feel a little lighter, quicker, spacious while Mercury is in Gemini.
- If Mercury in Taurus was collecting beauty or treasure, Mercury in Gemini is collecting curiosity, interesting facts, and making connections. Mercury in Gemini wants to be fascinated, intrigued, stimulated.
- I am getting an image of two people in conversation and their words forming a cloud that animates and morphs reality – like when you hear a new word or learn of a specific niche concept and it appears in your reality the next day, like a synchronicity. Mercury in Gemini experiences expansion of the world, of the map, by gaining new data points. It’s not just new information, but new magical openings in the reality itself.
- If we are struggling to be open or curious (have a place we do not feel particularly receptive to novelty), this transit could be supportive for leaning into cultivating interest and curiosity, for no other reason than the act itself. We never know what that opening will lead to.
April 30, 2022
New Moon solar eclipse in 10 Taurus: 1:28 PM PDT
(Image source: not sure)
The new moon will be conjunct asteroid Eros in 11 degrees Taurus, Uranus in 14 degrees Taurus, and sextile Mars in 12 degrees Pisces. By the full moon lunar eclipse in Scorpio, the Sun in 25 degrees Taurus will again be conjunct asteroid Eros in 23 degrees Taurus – so we have an Erotic eclipse season.
- Eclipses are like wormholes, times of chapters ending or chapters beginning – eclipses carry a somewhat unstable/chaotic frequency, where we have an opportunity to be more instinctually and soulfully creative. Novel or surprising impulses may be present. It is also a time of heightened reactivity, which we can temper with awareness (seeing the activation/trigger as opposed to simply going on the ride).
- Eros (also Cupid) is about the deepest feelings of aliveness, and the full range of feeling. So an erotic eclipse season may be offering us change in how we relate to the erotic in life and within ourselves.
- Eros is about the deepest feelings of aliveness, but there is a necessary degree of permission, surrender, and allowance that goes into being with the erotic. Another co-existing impulse within individuals and within society is to suppress the erotic.
- Our deepest feelings of aliveness are not just speaking to ecstasy/pleasure, but also heartbreak, grief, and the full range of feelings. We judge or repress some of these feelings as ugly, messy, too much, inappropriate, too painful to feel, too vulnerable to feel, wrong even. And yet, as we cut ourselves off to these feelings, we cut ourselves off from life.
- Repression and constriction is archetypally connected to Saturn, but Saturn also relates to inner-authority, the ways we give ourselves permission, the foundation or grounding or capacity we have – including for the erotic.
- An evolutionary intention with the Taurus archetype is to develop a deep relationship with one’s self and to cultivate self-esteem. If we think about this erotically, it is about intimacy with the full range of our feelings and inner experience and finding the ways we become fertile/potent in our own essence as a result.
Venus in 27 Pisces conjunct Jupiter in 27 Pisces: 2:14 PM PDT
Venus, the ruler of the new moon, in her exaltation conjunct Jupiter in domicile – feels lovely!!
- In combination with the eclipse, this conjunction feels like an upwelling of desire for the good things in life: the desire for beauty, the desire for love, the desire for fun, the desire for play. The erotic quality of the eclipse suggests we have the opportunity to be ‘eclipsed’ by the erotic – to be surprised at how we find the entrance into this magical state of being.
- Venus and Jupiter come together for a kind of generous, jovial, down to go to excess, down to live a little, down to imagine, kind of frequency. Even a kind of boldness.
- This transit may express as a return of faith that we are capable of receiving, generating, and creating experiences that uplift our hearts and have us feeling joyful, grateful, abundant. It may not be the first thing that appears (or it may! But I want to emphasize participation), but it may be available once we drop into our own way of cultivating the erotic.
May 1, 2022
Venus in 28 Pisces sextile Pluto retrograde in 28 Capricorn: 3:37 AM PDT
(Image: Marie Lambrexhe)
- Venus in Pisces is in of itself a very opening transit, and Venus has just contacted Neptune and Jupiter. Such expansion may invite revisions of the unconscious – such as how when opening to greater levels of self-intimacy or love with life or another, we find ourselves having to soothe or settle down the inner-protector who is on alert, vigilant, not trusting, assuming that something bad is about to happen at any moment. Opening to the good in life can be a challenge, too. Many people have high pain tolerance. What about the capacity to be with the good without feeling shut down or threatened?
May 2, 2022
Venus enters Aries: 9:10 AM PDT
Venus will stay in Aries until May 28.
- Venus in Aries is 🌹🔥PASSION 🔥🌹
- Venus in Aries can relate to the ways we come to understand what we value through anger (the no informs a yes), as well as the ways that we relationally engage anger with an open/noble heart.
- Turbulence in relationship can create mutual closure and defensiveness, or be channeled into expression, play, and change.
May 3, 2022
Jupiter in 28 Pisces sextile Pluto retrograde in 28 Capricorn: 3:33 PM PDT
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like further guidance, I have been increasingly focused on longer-term experiences in the form of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive, higher level course METEORITE for alumni, and 1:1 mentorship (mentorship re-opening at a future time) – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to be in their power, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. I would love to support you in building your relationship with astrology. The intensive is currently open for enrollment and METEORITE 2022 is currently in session.
Find me on Instagram @sabrinamonarch, get on my mailing list to stay apprised of all upcoming offerings and events, and I’ll see you next week!
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
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