"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand."

— Colin Powell

Challenges produce a significant test of our character this week. We are prone to seeing more than we feel capable of handling — we can see the problems, challenges, and obstacles clearly but the solutions are 'obscured'. But there is as much to learn from our failures as from our successes this week. Responsibility is required in order to achieve at least some control over the extraordinary emotion and confusion stirred by last Thursday's Pisces New Moon (4:44 PM PST 9° Pisces). The direct station of Mars suggests [...]

"Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does."

— Margaret Atwood
The Penelopiad

The Moon wanes in light all week but there is an unusually high level of energy to distribute coming off of last Wednesday's Leo Full Moon (5:53 AM PST 24° Leo/Aquarius). Mars is slowing down all week, adding extra 'fuel to the fire', as it prepares to turn direct next Monday. We face a number of emotional 'squalls of impatience' throughout the week. Frustrated energy is one of the significant 'hallmarks' of a retrograding Mars. Once direct next week, the forward motion of Mars will bring [...]

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."

— Steve Jobs

This week's challenge is to find our way to forward thinking by tidying up discarded and irrelevant elements from the past. We can begin to see hints of creative inspiration and an erratic 'genius quality' emerging from last Wednesday's Aquarius New Moon (4:35 AM PST 9° Aquarius). Neptune stays tightly conjunct the North Node in Pisces all week, helping us to find an intuitive plumb line to guide us as we try to look ahead. Venus has moved on from the conjunction with Neptune and arrives in Aries on Monday, stirring a restless energy that is difficult to manage. Mars is heading into an extended trine to Saturn [...]