The World Outside

Two very important events occur today; the Saturn-Uranus trine goes partile and Venus at last exits the shadow of her retrograde and progresses into altogether new territory in the ecliptic, passing the minute she turned retrograde on March 4th. We’ll begin with Venus: whatever illusions of churning desire that might have gathered from the week between February 26th’s eclipse and March 4th’s Venus standing retrograde (in which span Mercury, Neptune and the Sun had come conjunct, and Mars transited past Uranus opposite Jupiter), the hallucinations of caustic fancy are now seeming threadbare ghosts, except the ones that were either vehemently or somnambulistly pursued, whether through licentious folly, or robust and honest lust, their eyes and/or breasts and/or phalli dangling with summer’s promised berries, even if they be the ornaments of creeping nightshade that looked once like bachic grapes. A retrograde that began amidst hot heads and violent hearts came to a close in romantic crypts, amongst angelic funerary statues and thorny roses, its apex desires whorled and forgotten, like lost threads of discourse or conversational caesura, maybe hidden in the collyrium, when speaking suddenly ceases in the throes of a garden party, the sun highlighting the play of birds and sway of boughs, and diving to the nadir, the celebration breaks up. It had been a bittersweet wake, and the attendees, an afternoon drunk swarm, wander separately through the cemetery to commune with some interior mortality, touching stone that remains cool despite the warmth of the day. From thence, a shadow extends, the long afternoon overwhelmed by the evening, the gravestone shadows extending, scissoring the hill flanks and pathways, until dew damp soles reach the lower road, a gravelly meander with a pleasant stone crunch under step, and the cemetery recedes, shadows and all, leaving only the heat of the spirit installed in the arid air. Although, there is a smell of swamp and dung somewhere, and it swings on nostril hairs, imbuing slow, rotational urgency to the outer lining of the mind. Some semblance of chores are plotted as we plod along toward Geminiic Solarity, irritating mosquitos making us swear out loud as they tap our temples and napes.

Venus exits the shadow into an opposition with Jupiter. The two benefics lock eyes, and the much healed but still panting and overheated Venus tells us she has she has made it out of the darkness; art can now begin again; and in sight of jupiter, it sinks in and is incorporated into the rest of what we know of the world and ourselves. She must make it to Taurus to finally rest and recreate, and by then Mars will be entering Cancer; the world becoming, temporarily, a kind of artist’s retreat at a lagoon resort, much needed in this excessively fiery year. But not a year of conflagration, but instead the kind of fire that slowly seeps into our chemical latticeworks and breaks us apart. At least for now. We are reduced to calcinated states, readying for Jupiter to enter Scorpio later this fall, beginning the long process of colloidal/emotional coagulation in that Mars heated solution, a mineral rich and sulfur stench hot spring.

For now, and until nearly the end of June, the slow burn of interior fire (infernus, say your prayers of Salamanders) hangs on a triangular wreath, connecting the traditional seven, to the outer three, to the mathematically fixed: a Grand Fire Trine between Saturn, Uranus and the North Node persists throughout the next month. This can perhaps be seen as the fire of spirit rising up into the square of matter. May 18th marks the zero degree of the Saturn Uranus leg of the triangular circuit, and defines much of this hyper-dynamic year’s life-path altering potential that is playing out in most people you talk to. The combination of Venus retrograde’s complete cycle beginning an entirely new star pattern of desires and the pulses of electricity to Kronos’s railroads literally like the track change levers being triggered, is visibly manifesting in people personally as well as on the world as a whole. The Dragon’s Head swirling with flaming breath, gets picked up in the gears of time and circulates through the lay-lines of kairotic neurotransmission. This is an odd formation, and indeed, its lengthy duration allows us some time to meditate on it. I imagine this is the burning torture of Prometheus bound, simultaneously, the bells tolling his sudden release, chains shattering, but nevertheless, centers reflection on the stolen fire of heaven, which exists as a fixed form of consciousness in the ambient aether. The lava veins that extend from beneath your house to the one you will inhabit in your next life, and all you need to pry open the floor boards and find the passage is the leverage of a few Salamander’s blessings. That doesn’t mean you can plunge into the magma and swim up into your next incarnation; to do that you would still have to incinerate; although, something must be able to be done with the sheer knowledge that the lava in your basement connects to the after-death you. This is maybe an extra exponent added into the equation that wasn’t there before. A minute added to the clock at the end of the chessmatch. Perhaps, similar to the experience of learning a new word that you feel must not have existed before you heard it, but sure enough it’s in the dictionary when you open it, even though you know in your gut it was probably added into reality only moments before you looked— but in this case that word is your own name. Or perhaps it is a sudden stress to the manacles of fate, breaks in the fence that might occur within the next month (especially today), opportunities to slip through rent links awarded to those that lurk the perimeter being lucky enough to stumble across, for Mercury has entered Taurus, so the messenger might be sent steadily wandering looking for a way through. Inside may be like The Zone in Tartovsky’s Stalker, a twistings of fate but not necessarily the fixed casino game you were anticipating, although for most magically inclined folks, this is worth the gamble nonetheless. To get used to what might be possible here, I’d suggest investigative meditations, no matter how brief, on every Saturn day or Saturn hour you can manage. Grand Trines can contain massive amounts of harmonic potential, and with Uranus involved in this one, there will certainly be wattage in the cottage, but it takes active participation to enable it. I’m guessing the week long opposition between Mars and Saturn (going live on the New Moon- May 25th, but beginning to gather even now) is going to push us all up against the electric fence whether we like it or not, but if you want to gain from the grid, I’d start looking at it now before the action sweeps us up.

As we saw before the retrograde, Mercury in Taurus is highly organizational, wonderful for getting your ducks in a row, and this applies to magical operation as much as planting gardens and organizing the office. Last time Hermes was in Taurus I encouraged people to get their magical calendars filled in, and that goes for now as much as then, but since Mercury will be steadily moving forward through most of the summer (going retrograde again on August 12th) you can begin to steadily set your pieces up for extended play. I’d not neglect the short term while your rolling through the calendar pages. Next week’s Mars/Saturn opposition is going to put us into a week straight of forced industry. Before we are put to task in earnest it might be wise to decide what grindstone you want your nose applied to. The choices might be slimmer than you wish them, but at least you can get your petitions in by the New Moon so you don’t end up being assigned to someone else’s chores. There is major potential to get a lot done here, and with Mars in Gemini multitasking is still a theme, although, some division between what you can get done physically in this time and what might be better to devote to magical means should be made prior to the 25th. The New Moon and the Mars Saturn opposition do not share aspect, so they are two separate issues, we must remember to treat them as such, but not polarize our minds to the extremes and suffer from the split, as so much Gemini energy is wont to do. I’d get your magical operations ready for the New Moon in advance, whether you work by sacrifice, Saint orisons or chaos sigils, let them sail off as the Moon begins to wax, and letting the inertia of that inevitable cycle sweep them up, the Sun and Moon come conjunct in Mercury’s sign, Hermes riding the unyielding bull through the pasture scattering seeds; take advantage of this magical crock pot, slow cooking your more long term desires and spend the week between the 25th and the first of June accomplishing something concrete in the short term, something you’d rather get out of the way, because by June 7th both Venus and Mercury will be in the first degree of their rulerships, and Mars will be disarmed in the Moon’s sign, his gunpowder soaked from the plunge, and believe me, you will not be wanting to waste that period at war, fixing your flat tires and leaky roofs.

Luckily, the Sun enters Gemini on May 21st, adding some directional governing to Mars. Our AWOL soldier receives his orders in the presence of the King, and Helios reminding him that he has an orbit, no matter how chaotic it may seem. The Mars that has spent his time in Gemini trying to convince you to engage in too many activities at once gets the reigns thrown on him, and a heavy dose of illuminating intellect keeps an eye on at least two projects simultaneously, or at best, both eyes on one. This will definitely be a blessing when the the opposition fires up. Gemini Sun’s split single realities into dualities, reflections animate and become separate, the two form a relationship as twins, opposites combine, pandrogyny and paradox reign, then cleavers inevitably drop, making summer solstice sacrifices in the blink of short night or in the depths of longest light. There is certainly a sparkly quality to this period, a kind of enchantment, as the world wafts of pollens and perfumes of abundant blossoms, swimming beneath shapeshifting clouds or skyclad bodies under bristling firmaments; its no wonder everything blends in the dreamy qualities of the season, but the chant of locusts and cicadas remind us that the flowers turn to seeds, that the warm breezes to stiff heat and oppressive humidity. Much magic transpires in sweltering climates, but it certainly hosts a different personality than pastoral impressionism and romance. As fruits ready to burst we rush forward with our cups, new thistles thrusting from the brush, we enter the circle of earth ordained to collect, and in a continuum of fountainfoam, our nudity is celestially refreshed, the elements and essences revealed as what they are. This is now, and NOW and NOW is GOD.