The beginning of this week might prove to be an ideal time to get centered ahead of incoming aspects and events. After all, we’re in the midst of two powerful eclipses and under a Mercury retrograde. Helping us navigate inner planes, on Monday the Moon will move into nurturing Cancer. Symbolized by the crab, with its shell for retreat and protection, sensitive Cancer instinctively recognizes when self-care is required. From its highly intuitive home sign, the Moon will immediately form a productive sextile with the grounding Taurus Sun, before making a cooperative trine to sensible Saturn. On Tuesday that early degree Taurus Sun will also sextile Saturn, as the Moon meets up with action-oriented Mars. Before heading into outgoing Leo on Wednesday, the Moon will trine Neptune at a super psychic 26°. If the practical advice that the Saturn contacts offer is ignored, Neptune will light up sixth sense prompts. Those hunches may prove important, if not indispensable.
Regal, generous Leo loves to play, to entertain and to live lavishly. In this respect, the Lion and Bull share an affinity for pleasure and luxury. However, this Leo Moon will find itself at odds with Pluto, Mercury, the Sun and Uranus. Being the namesake of the Lord of the Underworld, the planet Pluto is also associated with wealth and underground riches. Despite Leo’s sunny disposition, this Moon will find itself opposed immediately by Pluto and then squared by the Sun, Uranus and a reluctant retrograde Mercury. Pluto will also be turning retrograde during this cycle, on May 1st, the day when the Sun and informative Mercury conjoin. Financial news reports are already awash in terms like banking crisis, credit tightening and de-dollarization. Global debates about natural resources and financial systems were bound to escalate after Uranus entered the fixed earth sign under the Taurus Sun in 2018. In 2023, the gloves are off. Arguments over territory, food security and money are now out in the open, from the battlefields in Ukraine, to the halls of the US Congress, to the streets of Paris and Chicago. Whilst there’s nothing new about war, bureaucratic disputes over the pursestrings or civil unrest, current aspects will put greater pressure on existing tensions. This Leo Moon is a prelude to the following week’s lunar eclipse and this summer’s Venus retrograde in Leo.
May 5th’s full Scorpio Moon will find itself opposite of a 14° Sun, 4° away from erratic Uranus and roughly 6° from that strenuous Mercury Rx. The Moon’s nodes will also be on the Scorpio Taurus axis. Ancient astrologers considered Mars, the planet of war, to be the ruler of Scorpio, while modern astrologers have assigned the rulership to Pluto, the planet of trauma and transformation. In either case, the force we call Scorpio will collide with a Taurus stellium. This may be the point at which Europeans and Americans begin to fully comprehend, and question, the domestic cost of the war in Ukraine, or when the mathematics of the fractional reserve currency system stop adding up. Venus’s retrograde will take place from July 22nd to September 3rd. For now, the eclipses and Mercury, with a sizable assist from disruptive Uranus, are making a wake up call.
