Current Transits for August 2012 Current Transits for August 2012Here's some of the important astrological news this month ...
Full Moon 10Aq15, 8-1
Mercury Direct Station at 1Le25, 8-8
Chiron Semisextile Uranus, 8-11
New Moon at 25Le08, 8-17
Saturn Quintile Pluto, 8-19
Mars enters Scorpio, 8-23
Full Moon at 8Pi33, 8-31
An online ephemeris for the month is available.
First, the good news: August is definitely quieter and less intense than July was. There are also fewer aspects and other astrological news than last month, so the overall energies are operating at a slower pace. The question is whether this feels more like a let down in the energies than a calming down. Sometimes when a major storm breaks, the results here on earth can feel chaotic, scattered or draining. I suspect we'll still feel plenty busy, however. As we've seen for several months now, much of the action centers around the ongoing Uranus-Pluto square that checked in back on Jun 24. Both these planets are deeply transformative in nature, stirring up powerful currents for change and overhaul. So whenever a major storm kicks in, tension builds and emotions heat up. The Mercury retrograde cycle ends on the 8th, so our thinking minds will gradually come out of a fog the second half of the month. Pace yourself for the long haul...
August is a slow news month in traditional terms. We'll discuss 2 "big aspects", Mercury's direct station and Mars moving into Scorpio.
The first full moon of August is quite a spectacular chart. There's a large sextile fan (planets spread out every 60 degrees) in the 7-11 degree region that dominates the chart. This fan includes Uranus, Pallas in Aries, Vesta, Jupiter, Ceres in Gemini, Sun in Leo and Moon in Aquarius. I'd probably throw in Pluto and Chiron into this mix. Venus trine Saturn has some weak links to this fan. The remaining planets, Mercury, Mars and Neptune, appear to operate as a weak, separate system. If the aspects in the fan had been more exact, this would have certainly been an Alert waveform.
At first glance, this is an extremely positive looking chart. All those trines and sextiles sound like smooth sailing in any endeavor you face. And the benefic planets Jupiter and Venus are both in close aspect to the Sun and Moon, another indication that the universe is smiling on our actions. So far, so good. However, the Uranus-Chiron-Pluto group is a significant part of this fan pattern and the full moon is kicking them into overdrive once more. To be honest, this outer planet influence is waning in coming days, having peaked in the final days of July, but we're all growing a bit weary of this unrelenting energy. Change and transformation, often in an irritating key, sound good in the abstract ("we're all opening up to our higher selves!", etc.), but it's also very stressful and pushes us out of our comfort zones. Having a close connection to the Sun and Moon, the most intimate planets for understanding your own individual life, shows this growth process is affecting us at a more personal level than other times. Rather than fight this tendency for your private life to change in unexpected ways, a reaction that only produces resistance and makes matters more stressful, take a deep breath and relax into the process. Sun in Leo says the peskier parts of the conscious ego and its need to "look good" in the eyes of others is up for review. When you face up to your foibles more and drop the false front that you present to the world, life paradoxically becomes simpler and less demanding. Curiously, as the ego gives up the desire to be in control and on top of things, you learn to trust the universe more and allow greater powers than yourself to handle the details. The lower self builds a new relation to the higher self. The message of Sun in Leo is not, as most people assume, the rise of the ego, but rather finding your proper place in the world. As for the Moon in Aquarius, it's hard to imagine how the emotional Moon can feel at home in a zodiac sign that is so much in its head. Aquarius gives you the ability to step back from your feelings and become less involved and swayed by their powerful effects. The biggest resistance to the outer planets' story of deep metamorphosis is an emotional one -- what's going to happen to me if I let in these "foreign" influences? A person's knee jerk reaction to being challenged is a startle response, especially if you view the unknown as a threat. Perhaps this lunar placement is just giving you some breathing room between the challenge and the fear, a place to contemplate both of them in a dispassionate fashion. I must say that people rarely incorporate unconscious influences like Uranus and Pluto by wholeheartedly embracing them all at once. We assimilate them by turning them over and over in our minds until we get used to a new perspective and they slowly start to feel more comfortable. It often takes months or years for this to happen; for some people, it never happens at all. Approached in the right way, the weeks following this full moon are an excellent time for opening yourself up to the higher vision that is slowly and somewhat painfully emerging over the next few years. You just have to be willing (for now) to let down your guard. One last note on the Mercury, Mars and Neptune business. This has a somewhat mystical effect on our lives, but it also dulls the thinking mind and makes it harder to express what you're feeling inside to others. Mercury will be standing still in a week and is already entangled with fuzzy Neptune -- the thinking mind is truly missing a few cylinders now. While you may feel amazing shifts occurring on the Sun and Moon levels of your psyche, the ability to make sense of it or express it in words is lacking. Live with the confusion for a time. Things will fall into place down the road...
Mercury reaches his direct station of 1Le25 on the 8th, ending a 3 week retrograde period that began on Jul 14 with a station at 12Le32. Mercury is the verbal thinking, symbol using, story telling part of the psyche. He's the guy who narrates the story called "How the World Is" that constantly goes on in our heads, explaining what's happening, making sense of life. Usually, he's pretty good at this job and gets us through our days easily. He tends to fall down on the job during these retrograde cycles, however. Life doesn't match the expectations in our stories -- we start thinking the world is crazy. Communications get crossed when people use words differently. Grand plans and big ideas fall apart because the details don't work properly. And computers misbehave. Actually, this cycle takes place in the sign of Leo, so it's mainly ideas about yourself (self-image) that are out of touch. What type of image are you trying to project to others and how well does it match the reality of who you are? If people are responding to you in a funny, unexpected way, it may be you're projecting an image of yourself that you consciously don't intend to. It's hard to be honest with yourself in the best of times, but you might find it useful to take a good look in the mirror these days. The direct station is intimately tied in with Neptune via a close quincunx aspect that repeats on the 3rd and the 11th. Neptune is good at blurring out the details and putting a warm, fuzzy glow over everything, so this station will be more brain-impaired than usual. Just wait a week or so before you start making important decisions again. It's going to take awhile before our brains get back up to speed.
Chiron is semisextile Uranus yet again on the 11th. I'm going to have to rethink what I've been saying about this aspect the last few years. The astrology program I use to track down aspects has a tough time with Chiron for some reason. I caught one error in the list of contacts for this semisextile already. The program said this aspect goes into a 4 year gap from 2011 to 2016 with no contacts, so I was surprised to find another contact coming up this month when I checked things manually. In fact, the program mysteriously swallowed up 8 contacts during this "gap"! A major Uranus lesson: Don't trust computers! So by my revised count, this is the 8th of 31 contacts, stretching from 2009 to 2038. (The gap from 2021 to 2036 apparently remains.) When I discussed the 7th contact back on 2011-11-24, I mentioned that this is a good aspect for psychological exploration, especially of new and (hopefully) liberating ideas that emanate from the unconscious mind. The trouble with ideas and images that emerge like this is that they are often burdened with emotions and material of a bizarre or repellent nature. Most people are scared off from such information and simply don't go there. Such exploration is not for the faint of heart. What these insights are teaching us is that there's so much more to being human than we understand, but achieving such heights requires the courage to let go of being "normal" or mainstream. The explorers are a small minority and they have the unenviable task of explaining to other people (at least the receptive ones) what they find in this inner world, hopefully without sounding crazy. It's going to take a long time for such knowledge to percolate throughout the general culture. Fortunately, we've got 3 decades to assimilate this subtle aspect. It would have been nice to have those gap years to let it all seep in, but I guess there's no down time yet with these lessons. Carry on...
The new moon falls several days into the major planetary storm of the month. There have been several days of Koz Alerts already. Venus is opposite Pluto and square Uranus-Pallas during this time, a powerful T-square. Mercury and Chiron are also in this group. The second group in this chart consists of the Sun and Moon sextile Mars-Saturn (ouch!) and widely opposite Neptune (arguably the weakest planet in the chart). More importantly, the lunation forms difficult trioctiles to both Uranus and Pluto, upping the stress levels of the T-square. Jupiter-Vesta aren't in either of these groups, strictly speaking, but they have enough contacts to both groups to be considered players.
The Uranus-Pluto square that had its first contact back on Jun 24 and continues until 2015 or more is obviously front and center in this chart. Both planets are bringers of evolutionary change, disrupting the status quo of our lives in numerous ways. Both are also planets that operate at a mostly unconscious level, below the radar of our everyday awareness. Uranus tends to stir up the thinking-intuitive mind, introducing new ideas and points of view that are often surprising and at odds with the way you normally look at the world. It brings those moments of "aha!" that change everything in an instant, but take months to really figure out. Pluto operates at an even deeper level, loosening the bonds we maintain to parts of our lives that no longer serve a useful purpose. To put it bluntly, things break under a Pluto influence, things that make life comfortable or that we'd rather hold onto. But if your process of maturation and growth is being held back by your comfortable rut, the Dark Lord insists it must go -- and he never takes no for an answer! Because this is a square, this path of change is rough, demanding and full of challenges and conflict. While the tension is undeniable in our private lives, it is easiest to see on the grander societal level, especially in the political scene this year. Unlike the full moon two weeks ago, there are few sextiles and trines to soften the blow. Instead of relaxing into the changes, they feel more like an assault now. Emotions and feelings, the things Venus excels at, are particularly vulnerable to being upset or questioned. The basic likes and dislikes that quietly guide your choices during the day often lead you into unexpected consequences that make you take notice. Relationships with others can get testy at times or suffer from mixed up communications. Power issues with people can rise up without warning, requiring both parties to back away to avoid a bigger battle. As I said, outer planets don't take no for an answer when they call -- all these troubles are their way of pushing back when we don't listen. A little bit of quiet reflection might be in order. Step back from the "troubles" awhile and ask what the universe (actually, your higher nature) is demanding of you. The up side is if you get the message and align yourself with these larger influences and trends, you've got an incredible tailwind propelling your efforts. That sure beats trying to stubbornly buck the tide. This is a good month for letting go of old habits that hold you back -- a good "housecleaning" is in order. By simplifying and lightening your load, life gets easier. Don't resist...
Saturn is quintile Pluto on the 19th, the last of 3 such contacts. The previous contacts were on 11-11-11 and 12-3-28. Aspects between Saturn and Pluto are rarely fun, but the quintile is better than most. Saturn represents the forms and structures of our lives, the rules and limitations that tie us down to the physical plane. He's a teacher that helps us become wise and responsible players in life. Pluto is the power that tears down these structures when they've outlived their usefulness or are somehow holding us back from maturing to a new stage of life. When these two come together, it can feel like a train wreck as your life gets overhauled whether you're ready for it or not. At least this is a quintile, an aspect that works by widening your perspective and getting you to look your problems from a different point of view. Curiously, such a change in view point often redefines the issue so much it ceases to be a problem anymore. You don't work through a blockage, you simply transcend it. This is a good time to let go of parts of your life that are plainly obsolete and start operating at a more advanced level. It only takes a moment of insight that you could be doing things differently and the change starts happening. Of course, such change is easier to bring about in your personal life than in the broader culture. Society has too much inertia that limits the role of creative transformation on the scale of a year or two. This aspect has spanned the early political debates and primary season; the conventions are upon us. If anything, "change" is a dirty word and positions on both sides have hardened, not moved. This builds up a lot of tension in our political system that will only intensify in the future, when needed shifts are harder to bring about. The "system" hasn't reached a breaking point yet. Someday...
Mars moves from Libra into Scorpio on the 23rd. He'll be in this sign until Oct 6, when he shifts into Sagittarius. Our Warrior God is so happy to be leaving Libra and getting back to his home turf in Scorpio. Before his big brother Pluto came along, Mars was considered the traditional ruler of this sign; he still feels at home here. Mars is the power of the ego to cause desired changes in the material world, the physical energy you need to express your will power. What with the need to accommodate your actions to the needs of others while in Libra, that placement has been no fun for him. But Scorpio is a sign of passion and emotion, of wild energies, a sign where the ego is strong and determined. He feels fired up and ready for action. Ironically, the spiritual lesson of this placement is not to expand or inflate your egocentric tendencies, but to limit the role of ego to a smaller, more proportionate scale. Frankly, we just can't have everyone running around, insisting on having things their way. Such a collision of competing desires can only lead to conflict and short tempers. Be smart and self-aware about what you pursue and how you throw your power around. Above all, however, use this placement to get some work done. It can be a very productive time when your will power expresses itself smoothly.
August manages to squeeze off a second full moon on the 31st. This is the calmest of the 3 charts we've looked at, going back to another easy-going sextile fan. This fan consists of the Sun,Mars, Pluto, Chiron-Moon and Uranus-Pallas. There's a second weaker group of Ceres, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Juno. Jupiter and Neptune are rather isolated.
Despite the similarity of the two full moon charts, the moods are very different. There's a greater emphasis on the earth and water elements than before, a clue to slow down, get out of your head so much and learn to be more grounded. One of the problems with living life so quickly, mostly coping and adapting and little else, is that you get wrapped up in the soap opera of daily life and forget to really feel who you are. It's a big hint to us that the full moon is conjunct Chiron (and widely Neptune) in Pisces right now. Emotions, especially the old, nagging, negative ones that have kept you chained down for many years, are just below the surface now, hard to ignore. Considering how strong Pluto is in this chart, the need to let go of any "I'm not good enough..." stories represents one of the major stumbling blocks to getting your life in a new order. Remember that Pluto reaches his direct station of 6Cp57 on Sep 17 -- in fact, Pluto is pretty much standing still all September. This is the part of the story when the shit hits the fan. You let go, whether you want to or not, pick up the remaining pieces and move on. Fortunately, this is a sextile fan, easing the way to making progress now. Plus a Virgo Sun puts you in a practical mood to just get things done. As for the second group, it mostly revolves around Saturn, the buckle down planet of responsibility. There are a lot of emotional and relationship themes in this group. It's a good time for talking out and working through the misunderstandings and hurt feelings that trip up your relationships, even if you have to change your mind in the process. Saturn is "great" at reminding you to clean up your own messes -- gee, thanks. It doesn't sound like fun (Saturn's like that), but all this releasing lightens your load and makes life easier from here on. You're not doing yourself a favor if you don't do the work...