The Aries Stellium Completes Under a Full Moon in Scorpio

The Aries stellium we've been experiencing for two months finally burns itself out this evening as Mercury and Venus ingress Taurus, joining Mars and the Sun in the fixed sign of the bull.

As the moon grows full in Scorpio (exact in the early morning of May 17) and opposes the Sun in Taurus, the super-charged, full-blast initiating energy of the Aries stellium shifts. The last of the embers of the blazing, initiating fires wink out and we enter quieter territory. The green, green grass of Taurus may take a while to fully soothe our singed selves after two full months of blazing, fiery, Arien roar, but by this evening, our toes touch down, and we can take a breath on solid ground.

Venus enters very comfortable territory in its domicile of Taurus at 5:12 p.m. Central this afternoon until ingressing Gemini June 9. Mercury enters Taurus just an hour later at 6:18 p.m. until ingressing its domicile Gemini June 2.

Mercury and Venus are heading to a second conjunction at 0 degrees Taurus at 4:25 a.m. tomorrow morning, creating a cementing and solidifying touchpoint for the new directions coming out of the Aries stellium trine Sagittarius North Node. Work to ground what you like in your life. Things start to dig in.

Mercury and Venus were also exactly conjunct May 9 in Aries before Venus pulled ahead a little. Mercury was still slow at that point, gaining speed direct after its retrograde in Aries (March 29 - April 22). It has now regained full speed and catches up to and passes Venus in the zodiac, giving us a bonus conjunction, this time in Taurus.

Jupiter has also almost had its fill of ram, ram, ramming into new territory and moves into Taurus for its year-long stay June 4 until ingressing Gemini June 11, 2012. As of June 4, the dispositor of our path-guiding Sagittarius North Node becomes earthy, sensual, organically-timed Taurus, which we will need to keep us grounded during this summer's Cardinal Grand Cross and triple eclipse season.

We're hurtling toward this time frame, which begins with the Gemini New Moon partial solar eclipse June 1. The two-month Cardinal Grand Cross is first triggered June 3 - 5 with the Moon in Cancer and then June 16 as Mercury enters Cancer.

Mercury, the Sun, Venus and then Mars transiting Cancer keep the Cardinal Grand Cross hot, triggering Saturn in Libra, Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn in waves until late August. Shattering changes spurring new initiatives and new leadership - a continuation and furthering of what was initiated last summer under similar configurations.

Two of the major Cardinal Grand Cross players station over the next while, increasing the potency and permeating the astro atmosphere further. Saturn stations direct at 10 degrees Libra June 12 and moves forward in the zodiac until stationing retrograde on the anaretic (29th) degree of Libra February 6, 2012. Uranus stations retrograde at 4 degrees Aries July 9 until stationing direct December 9, 2011. This is in addition to a Neptune retrograde station at 0 degrees Pisces June 3. Neptune dipped into its domicile of Pisces and now heads back into tail-end Aquarius for a bit of unfinished Pisces-to-Aquarius-related business.

The Aries stellium of planets trine the Sagittarius North Node definitely fired people up as far as socio-political ideas and personal beliefs. From a previous post:

"The North Node is in Sagittarius now disposited by Jupiter in Aries. Getting clear on our personal beliefs (and maybe more importantly, on what we don't believe), speaking up about it when necessary and directing ourselves accordingly are the keys to our successful progress here."

This energy was meant to get that Sagittarius North Node humming, with people directing themselves by their own guiding personal beliefs and truths, beyond culturally dogmatic or socially artifical constructs that were not getting to the heart of the matter.

Coming out of these trines, we should know exactly where we stand and where the people around us stand.

With the Uranus ingress of Aries March 11, we tipped the scales toward a stronger Aquarian overlay, out of tail-end Pisces. The lazy, hazy, glossed-over version of unity coming out of tail-end Pisces no longer gets the job done. It never really did. Under a stronger Aquarian overlay, our individuality and our true, raw personal perspectives and beliefs matter.

I've written about this before as it pertains to astrology:

"Astrology blogs, astrologers and astrology audiences are differentiating rapidly. Stronger astrological identities are being forged, and the distinctions of politics, perspective, beliefs and motivation are becoming more important."

So it was interesting to see how these themes came up during this period of time.

My most recent post on the Canada Day eclipse, Cardinal Grand Cross and Canadian uranium industry was censored on AstroDispatch. This is the problem that arises when another professional astrologer (a quite competitive one) is in charge of a situation that involves group effort and a range of perspectives.

I don't appreciate being censored. I don't think there was anything so inflammatory in that post that it needed to be censored. And I don't think one individual's personal politics should reign supreme over all others on that site. I'm guided to do the work that I do and to the topics and information I cover. It pertains to issues that need to come up into the public's awareness, and believe me, doing a post like that one takes a lot out of me energetically. I'm not doing it for fun or for blog hits or for popularity. And I don't believe it's the right of any other individual to cut that or any other post off at the knees in a public arena.

Coincidentally (or not), this censorship happened a few days after I was drawn to the comments section of another astrologer's post on the Osama death announcement. A commenter had written that he/she did not think astrology and politics should be mixed and was quite indignant about that post "crossing the line." I replied to the comment, writing that nowhere does it say astrology and politics should be separate and that I actually thought the most potent astrology of the day did take on the pertinent socio-political issues.

I think it's important to realize that the personal is political. People's decisions about what to do, what to say and how to live their lives are political. One astrologer's decision to write a post about uranium mining and the nuclear industry is political, just as another astrologer's decision to censor that post is political. This takes on even more relevance considering the media black-out on the nuclear diaster going on in Japan.

In other words, an astrologer who chooses not to touch the controversial socio-political issues of the time for whatever reason is making a personal political choice just as an astrologer who chooses to write and speak about them is.

There is a lot of hiding and glossing over of personal politics and true personal perspectives going on in the astrology of the day. A lot of astrologers choose not to say how they really feel about things so as not to alienate their followers, supporters or paid customers.

This is fine as long as people are aware that it's going on, but unfortunately, it's mostly hidden.

No one is completely neutral or objective. That doesn't mean personal politics enter heavily into paid readings - I'm sure most pro astrologers, like me, are careful along those lines.

But in the case of a site like AstroDispatch where astrologers' work is grouped together and lip service is paid to its diversity, a single astrologer's personal politics arbitrarily dictating what posts "cross the line" and where that line even is is not something I can personally support.