We have a busy 24 hours ahead- astrologically speaking.

Not only will the Sun move into the sign of Gemini (just after 7am tomorrow morning- Sydney time), but just two hours later the third of (I think) seven squares between Uranus and Pluto will be exact. For local times, check out the little time calendar widget on the side bar.

I haven’t written a lot about this one, but it is important.

The thing with these outer planet transits, is that they are generational and will affect each of us in some way.

Back in the mid 60’s the conjunction of these two planets in Virgo heralded a social revolution. Many of us born in that era have these planets joined in our charts and may struggle with the themes of control vs individuality.

This too is a generational struggle- the true nature of we won’t see clearly until Mr Hindsight does his work.

We are seeing an environmental revolution, we are also seeing a revolution of sorts with a growing body of politics taking us back to the values of the early 60s.

In any case, if you are interested in the mundane- or whole world- impact of this series of squares, there’s been a lot written about it on the web, so let your fingers do some googling.

On a personal level, have a think about what revolutions and evolutions are taking place in your life. With the Neptune influence in the air, still, you may have to look deeply. It could be subtle- although I suspect that if you have planets at or around 11 Cancer, Aries, Capricorn or Libra, you won’t need to look too hard.

Mine is one of follow through- I’m shithouse at it- and it’s holding me back. Of late I’ve been procrastineating, delaying, excusing, distracting and faffing rather than doing what I need to do.

So my Uranus/Pluto square moment is one of putting my money where my mouth is and backing myself. Coincidentally (although nothing is coincidental when it comes to the Universe), this weeks lunar eclipse (more on that later) is squaring that same Mercury that’s currently under siege by Neptune.

Oh, before I forget, the number 11 in numerology is a master number. It’s the enlightener, the master teacher and it represents transformation. According to one site I found, the number 11 has more potential than other numbers, but is also difficult to deal with, and requires, time and maturity to integrate. Sound familiar?

Related posts:

Words Don’t Come Easily to Me

Where is it written that one should live in the real world? Since when is reality more fun than daydreaming? Who says that romance is dead? Why do people want to encourage you to throw away your fantasies?

Venus square Neptune presents questions like these. Sure you may be just a tad idealistic and unrealistic in your romantic dealings. Sure you may put the object of your affection up on a pedestal that no mortal can possibly stand on for long. But you know what? Everyone has the right to live like a Piscean for 24 hours or so, or more specifically like someone with Venus in Pisces, or someone with a 12^th house Venus…or both.

This transit brings out the unattainable, the short term and the impossible- rose coloured glasses, little cafes where someone is playing La Vie en Rose and smooching along the Left Bank of the Seine (or whatever side it is that you are supposed to smooch along). A weekend in a luxury hotel or an island resort with someone you have fantasised about for too long that you know you can never have and should never have.

Very often the boundaries that break down now weren’t real to start with- so it is with relationships that are formed now. Enjoy them, but be aware that love affairs now will be romanticized.

At the very least this aspect stimulates the imagination, sends of sparks of creativity, inspiration and artistic temperament.

And, it’s happening in the sky…now.

Absolutely Fabulous, Series 4- the Detox episode.

On a girls night out, which is every night frankly, because no one has a man, the girls are talking about how every racehorse needs a donkey (symbolically speaking) as 2 racehorses in the same stable would, as Patsy so eloquently put it, “kick the shit out of each other”. The discussion moves onto attachments:

Magazine Girl to Katy Grin: Everyone has their crutches, their security blanket- being mean is yours.

Eddie: I haven’t got one

(all the girls laugh)

Katy: You’re fat. Surely you can see that, we certainly can’t miss it!

Katy: What’s yours Patsy?… Its obvious… the 60’s forelock. Put it back, lets see what you look like  under there….at least you can pin your fringe back whereas you (turning to Eddy) you can’t pin your fat back.

Eddy has an epiphany and decides to reinvent herself into a luggage-less version of herself. Her fat is her excess baggage. She embarks on a detox (nobody diets these days, darling) with the aim that in 3 weeks time she wants to be on the cusp of organ failure, an x-ray with a pulse…

Eddy for all her “out there” behaviour and spotlight hogging, swallows her real feelings and accumulates things around her to guard against tomorrow. When Pats says “your stomach is like a dog that doesn’t know when it is going to be fed next and just hangs around until you want to kick it,” she is talking about a reluctance to trust that abundance will continue. (Patsy, on the other hand, hasn’t eaten since 1974.)

Materialism, attachment, accumulation, fear of letting go- all of these are words associated with Taurus. It is no coincidence that the RSS feed on my personal email has lately been filled with other peoples blogs on materialism, living the minimalist way or getting rid of attachments.

Like Eddie and Pats, our attachments don’t necessarily need to be materialistic. It can be anything that makes us feel safe, anything that makes us feel secure. I can totally identify with Eddie’s fat as security- those extra layers can definitely provide protection- they stop people from seeing the person under the layers, in a way they provide protection from temptation or exposure. They provide an excuse for staying with the status quo.

We can be attached to feelings, to goods, to a hair style, to the past. We can be attached to the way things are, the way things were or the way that we think they might be. We can be attached to a dream, a hope, or a vision. We can be attached to a lost love, the idea of love, the fantasy of a love.

Not everything that we hang onto is, by definition, good. How many people do you know of in unhealthy relationships for whatever reason? How many people do you know who will listen to good advice and then pop their own roadblocks or excuses up? I’ll be the 1^st to put my own hand up for that one- on a number of different levels.

Getting rid or letting go of what we are attached to can be scary as it removes an excuse for moving forward. Holding onto that clutter or baggage can weigh you down physically or symbolically. It is there in the friend who insists on closure from her ex before saying yes to the guy standing in front of her.  It is there when we hold onto a job long past its use by date because the current one, for all its faults, makes us feel safe. It’s there when we hold onto a pair of jeans that are 2 sizes too small because throwing them out is almost like abandoning the idea that we will ever fit into them again. I still have a bra in my undies drawer that’s a 12B- yes a B cup. I used to fit into it…20 years ago…

At the end of the day, those jeans really are just jeans (no pun or inadvertent advertising intended) and getting rid of them is not an admission of failure. It is acknowledging that they are taking up valuable room in your wardrobe that can be filled with something fabulous and new when you do drop those 2 sizes.

I am doing it at present- holding onto fears. Old fears. Fears of change in a close relationship, fear of finishing a project that I know will expose me, fears of completion.

Given that Saturn is in the 8^th for me at present, this makes sense. It’s also why here in Chez Tracey we’ve been doing some hard work around finances and budgets.

Speaking of Saturn, he’s involved in this New Moon- as are the nodes, Mercury and Mars. There’s no getting away from that.

Wherever 19 Taurus is in your chart will give you an idea about where you have problems letting go- and a clue to what you need to actively eliminate or get rid of. When Saturn is involved, if you don’t do the hard work, he will find some way of doing it for you- and that is rarely pleasant.

19 Taurus also shows where you need to just “be”- in the present, in the moment, in the pleasure. Where you need to take the time to smell the roses, reconnect with your body and indulge your senses. It will show you what you are really hungry for- and it isn’t the pumpkin mac I baked last night.

With Mars also in Taurus, once you get started, the potential for success is great- Mars in Taurus rarely changes course. That’s a good thing when it comes replacing old worn out habits with something more appropriate- the most annoying thing about starting new habits is that you have to do it more than once…

Anyway, back to Eddy… after 3 weeks on detox without so much as a sniff of alcohol, she has lost some weight and is feeling well chuffed with herself. The same group of girls in the same restaurant, but this time they are discussing Sex & the City.

“I’ll be Sarah Jessica Parker,” volunteers Eddy.

The others laugh and Katy Grin says “you’re still too fat!”

No one notices Eddy’s weight loss- that particular baggage was more important to her than it was to anyone else… as all good baggage usually is.

Taurus New Moon and Solar Eclipse 19 Taurus 31′, 10.28am (Sydney time) 10 May, 2013

I have a new addiction- Candy Crush.

I wasn’t going to go there. I’m well aware of my own shortcomings. I’m well aware of my tendency to obsess (in case you’re interested, I blame Pluto inconjunct Venus…or any of my other Pluto aspects).

Anyways, I’m having problems letting go of stuff at the moment.

There’s habits, fears, excuses, and memories that are hanging around. I know that I need to let them go. It’s somehow easier to hold onto them though. As unhelpful as these all are, they are familiar. In some way, I’m attached.

This type of theme comes up whenever we talk about Taurus or Scorpio. It’s the whole idea of holding on vs eliminating, bingeing vs purging.

Think about that cupboard that you know needs to be cleaned out. You haven’t worn the clothes for many years, the sizes are wrong, the fashion is outdated and many of the clothes are definitely showing their age.

The thing is, until you clean it out, you know that there’s no room for anything new, for the things that you really want.

You use the usual excuses:

• I don’t have time,
• What if I get back to that size?
• What if it comes back in fashion?
• It cost me a lot…

Sure the excuses are valid, but the real reason you don’t clean it out is because it’s easier not to. The emptiness of a cleaned out closet is scary, a full closet gives an impression of abundance- even if it isn’t fit for purpose.

What if you throw something out by mistake? What if you no longer have enough?

The same rationale applies to the other things we’re hanging on to:

If I let go of that dream, what if there isn’t another?

If I let that relationship/crush go, what happens if I never fall in love again?

If I let go of the habit that’s holding me back, what happens if I still don’t make it? What excuse will I use then?

In a really strange upside downy way, the things that hold us back are comfortable. We know them. The alternative is not.

With all of these planets in Taurus, many of us are facing these questions at present. With the Sun conjunct the South node (and opposite the North node), we are being asked to look at this issues now.

As my friend Clementine said in her blog post yesterday:

Let’s remember Taurus likes life to be uncomplicated – Scorpio on the other hand has us delve into the depths.  Taurus takes two aspirin – Scorpio FEELS the pain and goes on the journey.

I wrote on the Facebook page today:

With a New Moon in just a few days (& eclipse- more on that later), we’re in the balsamic or dark phase of the Moon. I always see this as a great big empty blackboard in the sky just waiting to be written on. In order to make room for writing, you have to first get rid of the old stuff that’s already there. Todays Sun/South node conjunction could just help you with that… So, think about it, what from your past is holding you back? Really? Honestly? Then find it on that blackboard & rub it out. There. Gone.

It sounds easy in theory. We know that it isn’t. I know that it isn’t- but there’s no way that I’m going to dwell on the negative what ifs with you.

But what if you never try? What if you never grab the charity bags, open the closet doors and clean it out? What if you never wipe that blackboard clean so you can write something else on it? I guess that’s the equivalent of taking the aspirins.

I’ll leave that with you.

Sydneysiders- if you’re cleaning out your linen closet, Massage on Carrington in Castle Hill are taking collections of blankets, towels & sheets (no feather quilts please) for the animal shelter at Kemps Creek. Check them out on Facebook for more details…

So anyways, if Saturday was about inspiration, Sunday about serious thinking and a touch of the grey and gloomies, today has to be about all engines primed, all systems go.

Later this morning (Sydney time) the Moon will move into Aries, and the engine that’s been idling on the starting line will thrum into serious V8, sex on wheels territory…yes, I’m a girl who likes the rumble of a decent engine- I think it’s the Venus in Aries. Too much information? Or maybe it’s my 12th house Pisces Mercury being particularly fanciful.

Anyways, the aspect that’s providing this background rumble is Mars trine Pluto.

With both Mars and Pluto in earth signs the key words we can use here are effective, practical and ambitious.

This isn’t one of those difficult Mars/Pluto contacts where there are the potential for egos to clash in a mighty noisy and potentially painful and explosive way, but rather something a lot more subtle than that. This one, despite the Aries Moon influence, is more about long range planning, long range ambitions, long range strategies.

Overlaying it all, or underlining it all…or something…is the applying square between Uranus and Pluto. While this won’t be exact for another couple of weeks (we’ll talk more about it as we get closer), the Moon in Aries crossing that point On Tuesday morning will bring some of this energy into play- a little like turning the key in that V8 engine.

For now, enjoy the oomph that Moon in Aries brings to your Monday and use the energy wisely.