In the first minutes of this morning, long before dawn, Saturn stations retrograde in Aquarius, starting its final journey this year back to Capricorn. Whereas Saturn in Aquarius insists on the development of new structures and systems, the turn back toward Capricorn can describe a return to established traditions and the regulatory histories that we inherit. This station could easily describe a return to old ways of doing things, but what if instead we used this time to examine, consider, and critique the histories that brought us to this moment, developing more awareness that the struggles of today emerge from longtime practices the continue to organize us today? It is not possible to respond to the systemic oppressions of racism and white supremacy; colonialism and Indigenous erasure; sexism, misogyny and patriarchy; poverty and capitalism; homophobia and transphobia; and the persistence of ableism without understanding the generations of ways in which these operations of power have functioned. Saturn will remain retrograde until September 28, allowing for a substantial review. Mercury in Taurus makes a square to Mars in Aquarius, a condition of maltreatment as Mars overcomes Mercury. Difficult conversations, arguments, and conflict may come out in our words today. Then Mercury ingresses into Gemini, finding shelter in its own domicile. The Moon in Capricorn makes a sextile to Neptune in Pisces and a trine to the Sun in Taurus. While potentially struggling in the sign of its antithesis, the sextile with Neptune may describe meaningful escapism or the relief that can come from acquiescing to altered states. The light from the Sun invites us to see things from a perspective that reaffirms our own brilliance, illumination, importance, and worth.
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Today the Moon in Sagittarius makes a sextile to Mars in Aquarius. When you are in alignment with what you believe to be most true, what actions do such beliefs inspire? The Moon then ingresses into Capricorn, the sign of its antithesis or detriment, without reception from Saturn. Comfort and care may feel like scarce resources amidst all that needs to be accomplished or demands for productivity. It is under such conditions that the labor of care often goes unrecognized, uncompensated, and disproportionately distributed to femme and feminine people—particularly women and femmes of color. Synthesizing the genius of disabled, femme of color, working-class and poor communities, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes in Care Work, “In a fair trade femme care emotional labor economy, there would be no unconsensual expectations of automatic caretaking/mommying. People would ask first and be prepared to receive a yes, no, or maybe … The more there are a lot of different kinds of folks giving and receiving different kinds of care, the more there’s room for boundaries, ebbs and flows, people tapping out, and people moving up … Imagine how much we could win if there was more than enough care to go around.” When the resources of care seem scare or in too high of demand, this is a signal for more people to learn the skills of care and provide this labor in ways that are consensual and reciprocal. Mercury in Taurus makes a trine to Jupiter in Capricorn, encouraging wise and generous words as well as expressions of gratitude. The Sun in Taurus makes a sextile to Neptune in Pisces, a dazzling aspect for shedding light on the ways in which we are not so separate from one another, for illuminating dreams and fantasies for collective futures sustained by compassion. Finally, the Moon in Capricorn makes a trine to Uranus in Taurus. In the midst of scarcity, Uranus excites innovative solutions for making sure that all of our needs can be met.
Today Mercury in Taurus makes a trine to Pluto moving retrograde in Capricorn. This is a time for analysis of the material operations of power, how our present moment is shaped by misuses and abuses of power that are both in the past and continuing to operate within the present. For example, Denise Ferreira da Silva writes, “I make a case for the acknowledgement that the total value produced by slave labor continues to sustain global capital … because racial knowledge transubstantiates (shifts [occupied lands and enslaved bodies] from the living to the formal register) what emerges in political relations into effects of efficient (scientific reason’s) causality, its critical tools fail to register how the total (past, present, and future) value expropriated is in the very structures (in blood and flesh) of global capital.” When the critical tools fail to account for the ways in which centuries of abuse and violence against Black and Brown people saturate the total value of the world in which we are living, it is time for another analysis. The Moon in Sagittarius then moves into a square to Neptune in Pisces and an opposition to Venus in Gemini—reactivating the T-square from May 3. Now is the time for allowing our imaginations to fuel the actions that we take together on behalf of one another and the collective. As adrienne maree brown writes, “We are in an imagination battle.” We must imagine different worlds and put those imagined worlds into practice in order to create conditions that are capable of supporting us all. “The more people collaborate on that ideation,” brown write, “the more that people will be served by the resulting world(s).”
Today the Moon ingresses into Sagittarius, offering some relief and elevation from the depths of Scorpio, but without reception from Jupiter currently fallen in Capricorn. Sagittarius invites us to consider perspectives behind our own horizons, to set out on journeys that move us beyond our own borders in order to expand our experience of the world. With Jupiter in aversion to the Moon—unable to witness its explorations—this journeying may feel more like wandering without much direction into wide open spaces. But as adrienne maree brown writes in Emergent Strategy, “Nothing is wasted, or a failure. Emergence is a system that makes use of everything in the iterative process … In a non-linear process, everything is part of the learning, every step.” It may not be clear what role the journeys of these days will play, but remember that nothing is wasted—even wandering—and if you follow your curiosity, every step will be part of the learning. The Moon makes a sextile to Saturn in Aquarius, a reminder that sometimes when the structures of our paths are not imposed for the outside, it is up to us to create the structures or supportive boundaries that we need to make our movements meaningful.
Today is the Full Moon in Scorpio, reaching its culmination just as Mercury in Taurus forms a sextile to Neptune in Pisces. This Full Moon follows the New Moon in Taurus which invited us into processes of bringing our experiences of pleasure into alignment with our values and decolonizing our bodies and desires. We now find ourselves brought into the extremely vulnerable question: how do we face and feel the ways in which our desires and pleasures have been colonized by systems that are not in alignment with our values? Whereas the Full Moon may ask us to show up more fully in our vulnerabilities, Mercury sextile Neptune is a poetic aspect of fantastic inspiration and messages from the numinous. This could be a day for divination or creative expression that makes articulate what might otherwise feel difficult to reveal. Listen to music that unlocks you, spend time with art that disarms you, soften your edges in meditation, be in a practice of conversing with your ancestors. There are hidden feelings that need to be shared, so find what allows you to be in flow. The Moon collects these themes as it forms a trine to Neptune and an opposition to Mercury following its opposition to the Sun. Then the Moon forms a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn, a square to its ruler Mars in Aquarius, and a sextile to Jupiter in Capricorn. Pluto shows us the power that becomes available to us when we dare to move courageously with our own vulnerabilities. The square from Mars may describe that courage, or it could also describe experiences of conflict with the social conditioning that would have us believe that vulnerability is weakness. Finally, the sextile to Jupiter gives us an opportunity to experience our own cohesion and integration in the recognition that we were already more than enough.
Today the Moon ingresses into Scorpio, the sign of its fall, with reception from Mars in Aquarius. We may feel the density and resistance of moving through the discomfort of our own vulnerabilities. We may feel the deeply instinctive impulse of armor up, conceal our hearts, and retreat. But as Brené Brown writes, “… regardless of our willingness to do vulnerability, it does us.When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability, we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be. Experiencing vulnerability isn’t a choice—the only choice we have is how we’re going to respond when we are confronted with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” As the Moon perfects a square to Saturn in Aquarius—a condition of maltreatment in Hellenistic astrology, with Saturn hurling its rays back to the Moon—we may find ourselves crashing into our fears of scarcity and “not enough.” Then the Moon opposes Uranus in Taurus, which propels us into potentially radical new ways of relating to our own depths as well as how we make our most sensitive selves available to others. Breaking through or breaking down our own armor and arsenals can leave us feeling deeply uncertain, but that is also the moment in which we can be most held by those we love and trust.
Today the Moon in Libra makes a trine to its ruler Venus in Gemini. This aspect encourages solidarity and intimacy through sharing ideas and perspectives, especially those that allow us to connect across our differences. The Moon then makes a square to Pluto moving retrograde through Capricorn. Pluto’s retrograde cycle steers our focus toward reviewing the ways in which power operates in and through our lives, the old wounds that we carry that have not yet been transformed into sources of strength or liberation. The square to the Moon in Libra asks us to examine how power functions in our relationships. bell hooks writes, “Love in patriarchal culture was linked to notions of possession, to paradigms of domination and submission … Love can never take root in a relationship based on domination and coercion … there can be no love where there is domination.” As the Moon moves through this square to Pluto, we may be challenged to examine our own relationships and to recognize and remedy the places where we see ourselves or those with whom we are in relation acting out paradigms of domination and coercion. The Moon then makes a trine to Mars in Aquarius, offering us the energy and direction to struggle for what we believe in, perhaps the possibility of love without domination. Finally, the Moon makes a square to Jupiter in Capricorn, indicating that these processes—while challenging or uncomfortable—are part of a longer process of careful, deliberate growth.
Today the Moon ingresses into Libra with reception from Venus in Gemini. These are days for connection, cooperation, sharing ideas, and building pathways forward that can meet all of our needs. The Moon makes a trine to Saturn in Aquarius, inviting us to commit to the work of building structure that support and sustain us in futures yet to come. adrienne maree brown writes in Emergent Strategy, “The idea of interdependence is that we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways, that we can truly lean on others and they can lean on us … Are you actively practicing generosity and vulnerability in order to make connections between you and others clear, open, available, and durable? Generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached. Vulnerability means showing your needs.” In order to cultivate interdependence futures and devise the systems we need to sustain them, we must be practicing generosity and vulnerability, leaning on others as they also lean on us. Mercury makes a conjunction to the Sun in Taurus, a condition of cazimi or “in the heart of the Sun.” This is a moment of intense clarification and purification in Mercury’s cycle, burning away distraction and misunderstanding, and bringing what we can know into the sharpest focus. In Taurus, this may describe what we can know about our physical resources and materials supports, our relationship to the Earth and to our own bodies.
Today the Moon in Virgo forms a T-square—opposing Neptune in Pisces, both squaring Venus in Gemini. What are our fantasies of ideal love and what is the practical implementation of steps that are in alignment with such ideals? This T-square is a configuration of hard aspects between mutable signs, but the squares from Venus—overcoming the Moon and hurling rays back to Neptune—are a condition of bonification in Hellenistic astrology. What are our ideals for love, and how might they be pushing us toward practical change? bell hooks writes, “A love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well. To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change … We do this by choosing to work with individuals we admire and respect; by committing to give our all to relationships; by embracing a global vision wherein we see our lives and our fate as intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet.” The Moon then moves through trines to Pluto and Jupiter in Capricorn. When we take the steps to live in accordance with our ethical ideals of love, we commit ourselves to transformation that requires the undoing of so many ways that power operates on our intimate and global scales, but doing so is also necessary for the deliberate, incremental growth toward the kinds of worlds in which we want to live. In order to enact change at the largescale, we must be willing to practice living in ways that align with our love ethic in those relationships most immediately at hand.
Today the Moon ingresses into Virgo with reception from Mercury in Taurus. In Virgo, our attention shifts toward practical matters, efficiency, and optimizing the tangible processes through which we carry out our daily lives. The Moon makes a trine to both Uranus and its ruler Mercury in Taurus. Uranus provide the force and momentum break away from established protocols and invent new practices for supporting ourselves. Mercury in Taurus is an expert manager of goods and services, potentially either connecting us to the material resources that we need in order to accomplish the tasks at hand or putting us into contact with people who can. The Moon then makes a trine to the Sun in Taurus, extending illumination and recognition to what might otherwise seem like mundane or menial tasks. If the last six weeks have taught us anything, it is that work we previously took for granted can very suddenly become essential. Jobs that we considered undistinguished can quickly become clarified as necessary for life and livability. What work are you or those around you doing that you are still taking for granted? Can you take some time today to offer acknowledgement and gratitude for all the seemingly small things that are necessary for our lives to function well?
Today is Beltane, the witches’ cross-quarter sabbat that celebrates the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Today the Moon in Leo makes a sextile to Venus in Gemini—with both their rulers in Taurus. Today we stoke the fires of enduring love and pleasure, celebrating connection, union, and allowing ourselves to be seen and known in our own radiance. The Moon then makes an opposition to Mars in Aquarius, a condition of maltreatment in Hellenistic astrology. Mars can describe aggression, conflict, estrangement, and dispossession. The Moon describes the body and the emotional life. Notice if you find yourself disassociating. Notice if you feel yourself cut off from feeling. If you find yourself facing off in anger or confrontation, take a deep breath. Slow down. On the topic of women responding to racism, Audre Lorde writes, “The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves against the manner of saying … The angers of women can transform difference through insight into power. For anger between peers births change, not destruction, and the discomfort and sense of loss it often causes it not fatal, but a sign of growth.” How can you meet this anger with precision and intense listening in order to birth change and growth? Anger need not separate or kill us. If we allow our anger to be held with care, it can become fuel for change.
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AuthorMichael J. Morris is a witch, an astrologer, a tarot reader, an artist, a writer, and a teacher. Categories
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April 2024
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