Trines and Sextiles Galore: Potentially Too Much of a Good Thing

We have two trines dominating the astro atmosphere currently, an air trine and a fire trine, along with multiple sextiles. This is a combination of creative/inspirational and social/communicative.

Almost every planet and body is connecting to another planet or body at the moment, and with this many contacts going on in the zodiac, we have an equally complex number of contacts going on in our lives and societies.

Things are busy, particularly on the mental, communicative fronts, and this can be challenging, even when easy, flowing aspects like sextiles and trines are involved.

Fire Trine: Mercury in Leo and Uranus in Aries

The fire trine we're experiencing involves Mercury in Leo and Uranus in Aries. These two formed their first exact trine July 4 and are currently stationing retrograde together, still in trine formation.

Uranus stations in the early morning of July 13 and will be retrograde until December 12, 2012. Mercury stations on the night of July 14 and will be retrograde until August 8. Mercury will remain within range of the trine to Uranus into late August with a second exact trine July 25, and the final one August 18.

This is great, right? An easy, flowing trine between the planet of brilliant, lightning-fast insight and vision (Uranus) and the planet that rules the conscious human mind, intellect, and communication (Mercury). The genius is going to be flowing!

There's such thing as too much brilliance, too much insight, and too many ideas popping around in our brains like popcorn kernels, however, and an almost six-week Mercury-Uranus contact, colouring the entire Mercury retrograde process, could prove too much unless we're careful.

Mercury-Uranus contacts can be a challenge, even with genial aspects.

The dual retrograde stations add to that challenge, creating an intense concentration of focus and insight that can leave our mental circuitry overwhelmed.

Uranus adds an excitable, edgy, electric, and even manic charge to anything it touches. In this case, it is our mental function, thought processes, and communication patterns that are being so touched.

Uranus has a tendency to run us - even to overrun us - with its electric, hypercharged current, and we will need to periodically wrestle ourselves away from whatever holds our mental focus in order to cool things off.

With both planets in fire signs, this is a hot brain, a hot mind. Sizzling circuitry. Blinding flashes of insight that leave you frazzled and on edge. Racing minds and erratic thought processes leading to mental fatigue, headaches, stiff necks, and burnout.

Mental exhaustion is a definite possibility with this long-term contact, and awareness during the tight and concentrated points can help to avoid any electrical fires over the next month.

We have to be firm in our refusal to push things too far, even when we feel we're on a roll. This is an intensely creative, charged, and exciting fire trine, and with all the easy aspects supporting each other in the zodiac over the next weeks, we will certainly be on a roll at times.

Remember though: Mercury retrogrades require that we slow things down, that we become a little more pensive, that we listen a little more carefully, that we think before we speak, and that we choose just the right moment to interact.

Uranus would pump things up to the manic, electrified point if it had its druthers, so it will take a conscious awareness of the dynamics, and continual reminders to take a time-out, to slow things down.

Air Trine: Mars in Libra and Jupiter in Gemini

The second trine formation we're experiencing is an air trine involving Mars in Libra and Jupiter in Gemini, and this increases even further the social, communicative themes. The Mars-Jupiter trine is exact July 17 and loosens in influence from there.

This genial contact with the planet of luck and expansion provides a much-needed boost to a beleaguered and pressurized Mars. Mars, in detriment in Libra, simultaneously moves into tense cardinal t-square formation with Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn July 17/18 on its way to a stern and restricting conjunction to Saturn August 15.

Considering how important this transit of Mars in Libra is - setting us up for success or failure during the Cardinal Grand Crosses of 2013-14 - a little help from our networks, our associations, our neighborhoods, and our siblings (soul or physical) is coming our way via the trine to Jupiter in Gemini. Social cross-pollination is beneficial now, and we will particularly be assisted in achieving goals with long-range view and social relevance.

Mars-Jupiter trines have the possbility of being a little too easy, leading to laziness, recklessness, overindulgence, and resting on one's laurels, but with the pressure of the cardinal t-square and mid-August conjunction to Saturn, there will be little tolerance of those things.

Mars in Libra is also within range of a trine to the South Node in Gemini for the next week. The wrong track is definitely available and potentially attractive at points of acute stress. Gossip, talking crap, duplicity, choosing social acceptance over what is morally right, "small-town" mentality and ignorance of anything beyond the local realm, dealing too superficially or glibly with the issues at hand, and talking out of both sides of one's mouth in order to keep things socially smooth are all detrimental South Node possibilities here.

Luckily, retrograding Mercury in Leo will sextile both Mars in Libra (July 22) and Jupiter in Gemini (July 24), providing a sort of anchoring foothold that can keep things productive and on-course.

Multiple Sextiles Make for Snap, Crackle, Pop - Air to Fire, Fire to Air

Adding to all the mental/communicative focus is a conglomeration of energy in Gemini, falling smack dab in the middle of Mercury in Leo and Uranus in Aries. Both Uranus and Mercury are sextile Venus, Jupiter, Ceres, the North Node, and Vesta in Gemini, and these sextiles remain influential throughout the Mercury retrograde.

This increases the complexity of the connections going on exponentially as well as the potential "smoke coming out of ears" effect. A lot of juggling.

The air-fire sextiles provide the friction and reaction necessary to make the Mercury-Uranus trine highly productive, particularly as it relates to creative communication and networking. Air feeds fire, and fire reacts with air, keeping things crackling into late August.

But, again, all this sextile stimulation (that sort of sounds sexual, but isn't) increases the possibility of overloaded circuitry that much more. This much air interacting with this much fire can create supercharged interactions that turn into out-of-control brushfires.

Enjoy the bright, creative energy and eased retrograde communications and use them to your benefit, but keep things balanced with a tight rein on the fuel.

With Mercury retrograding in Leo trine Uranus in Aries, our creative contributions are on our minds. Mercury stations retrograde exactly sextile Venus in Gemini, adding to the artful vibe, just as Venus moves over the degree of the Venus Transit July 18/19. Social cross-pollination is potent.

The directions things are taking, the connections happening, and the networks forming have broader-reaching effects than we can imagine, and this increases the complexity we are required to process and communicate.

New networks are being put in place under these aspects, with creative pathways finding their routes.

Aquarian Era Social Organization - New Rules Apply

The most dynamic and influential creative networks coming onto the grid now are organizing according to stronger Aquarian principles.

Aquarius is the egalitarian win-win, and if associations and social arrangements don't benefit mutually - with no strings attached or hidden clauses - they aren't right. If people are having to fundamentally compromise who they are, what they think, and how they feel in order to fit into a group, they aren't in the right group. Plain and simple.

People are looking to involve themselves in groups where they can be soul-sovereign and independent, where their creative contributions can be freely offered.

Most power structures on Planet Earth have been set up as pyramid schemes with energy, effort, work, talent, skills, money, and time drawn up from the majority on the bottom rungs in order to support and reinforce the privilege and status of the few on the upper rungs.

With the help of all the trines and sextiles over the next six weeks, a levelling of the pyramid scheme power structure paradigm can be undertaken by those who desire it.

Set the vision, and move toward it.

With Uranus in Aries colouring the Aquarian era themes for the next six years, we're working with new rules for social organizations. Aries is a sign that breaks trail, and Uranus is a planet related to following a vision of the future not yet in existence. As a result, the new rules for social organization are a constantly updating work-in-progress.

Rather than the same-old structural hierarchies, positions of leadership and authority will be filled naturally, freely, according to proven areas of skill, talent, and responsibility.

Continuing to set social or professional organizations up according to your standard President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer isn't really going to cut it, particularly when all the top spots are held by dudes with the females stuck taking the minutes of their meetings.

An ever-adjusting, ever-equalizing, ever-checking balance of power between men and women and masculine and feminine is mandatory.

The structures of groups need to be fluid enough to comfortably contain the individuals within them, but we must also be crystal clear about the true identity and motivations of the group before becoming deeply involved.

Interactions among groups of differing identities follow the detached, Aquarian win-win model rather than the "we are one," boundary-less Piscean model.  

The real players on this planet will continue to shift power structures to egalitarianism, meaning positions of authority and responsibility still exist, but each individual successfully fulfilling his or her place counts as much as any other. There is no low man/woman on the totem pole because there is no totem pole. Anyone who believes he/she is above the fray can be mocked and laughed at relentlessly.

The days of supporting bloated personalities and egos in positions of crystallized pseudo-authority are over - if we make it so.

With Mercury retrograding in Leo, whatever we're involved in, wherever we're directing our creative energy, our hearts have to be in it. There's a lot going on on this planet and will be for the foreseeable future, and there isn't time or energy to devote to anything we're only half interested in.

If our hearts aren't in it, this is the time to make a break. With the flowing trine between Mercury Rx in Leo and Uranus Rx in Aries, people will be supported to make these moves with a minimum of disturbance.

People who find they've been supporting something they can no longer get behind can make the shift now - at least by inner principle. We will be supported to make heart-guided moves, as long as we have the courage to move in new directions, into still-developing places.

Jupiter Enters its Retrograde Shadow in Gemini

Jupiter entered its retrograde shadow July 10 at 6 degrees Gemini. What this means is that the planet of expansion, enlargement, benefits, luck, and cosmic grace will be returning to this point at the end of its retrograde period in January/February 2013, stationing there January 30.

There is some buzz on this particular degree, to be sure.

A complex expansion is going on in our lives, a broadening of horizons in creative communication, perspective, networks, local society and neighbourhoods, and relationships with siblings and soul brothers and sisters.

Perspective is absolutely key to successfully navigating the accelerated changes we are going through in our bodies and on our planet, but we will not gain full perspective on this highly complex summer until the first quarter of 2013. At that point, Jupiter will have backtracked, going over it all again so that we can fully comprehend and reap the benefits of what is opening now in our lives.

Whatever house Jupiter is currently transiting in your natal chart is the area experiencing this broadening and expansion.

We're looking off into the horizon at this potent degree - 6 degrees Gemini - excited about the possibilities we believe are there, but it will take until early 2013 to reach the point we now hold in our mind's eyes.