"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing."

— August Wilson

Mercury emerged from the retrograde shadow last week with an exciting trine to Uranus that stirred us up with new ideas and insights. But the transit of Mars through Libra has seemed to keep us from directly expressing — and following through on — our individual ideas and perspectives. Martian energy is further 'stalled' this week by a conjunction with the Lunar South Node. The forward motion of Venus in Leo only seems to increase the ego-based desire to show off some successes despite the slowdowns. Further increasing the pressure is the forming Mars-Pluto square, which will 'complete' next Monday. The square is intensified by [...]

"You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion."

— Julian Assange

The fog and confusion of the past few weeks begins to clear this week, despite the Sun's opposition to Neptune. The uncertainty and self-doubt of the mutable Virgo-Pisces axis (the Sun-Neptune opposition) begins to give way to the increasing focus on the action oriented Cardinal Lunar Node Axis — Aries-Libra. The Sun's arrival in Libra (the Autumnal Equinox) on Friday evening, following the Moon's arrival in Cardinal Capricorn, marks the powerful shift towards attempts at decisive action. But the shift isn't easy and is full of questions, skepticism, self-doubt, and varied perspectives — all of which need to be sorted through, analyzed and dispatched in some way this week. Although the obstacles may [...]

"Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence."

— Faith Baldwin

There is a significant amount of confusion this week, carried over from last week, but without the generally altruistic focus. Venus finally turns direct this week but Jupiter turns retrograde the following day. The end of Venus' '40 days & 40 nights' retrograde period will slowly allow the glow of Venusian beauty to begin to once more filter into our perspective. Venus' direct station is square Jupiter and the effect may increase laziness, self-indulgence or just encourage us to slow the pace significantly. However, the retrograding Mercury may produce a significant amount of self-recrimination and self-criticism. We are prone to being a bit too [...]