Friday 7/7/2017 & the Weekend: Full Moon in Capricorn; Mars Mash-Up Makes News

Greetings from Los Angeles! Yes, I still have appointments available after July 13th  if you would like to meet in-person and you live in the Southland.

Moon has been in Sagittarius since 1:08AM ET on WEDNESDAY — fulfilling its need to push boundaries in matters of opinion — and hopefully lift spirits after the controlling moodiness of the Moon’s sojourn through Scorpio on July 2-4.  Moon went void at 10:12 AM ET, suggesting an opportunity to focus on routine concerns, rolling with twists and flakes that upset your efforts to move forward in a straight line. What kind of twist? Oh, I dunno…maybe your meeting with Vladimir Putin goes on way longer than expected.

At 9:19AM ET, Mercury (mindset) and Venus (social expression) were in harmony, suggesting an idealistic and cooperative communication effort that started the day. Lo and behold, there was no apparent wrestling match in the alleged first handshake of the alleged first meeting of P45 and Vladimir Putin. Coincidence or conspiracy?

FYI, Mercury and Venus  recently changed signs. Venus left Taurus for double-talking Gemini at 8:12 PM ET on TUESDAY, seeking flexibility and diversity in social engagement. Double-booked this month, perhaps? Mercury left Cancer for regal Leo at 8:20 PM ET on WEDNESDAY, ditching its prior thinking in terms of homeland security for a much simpler “because I said so.”

Meanwhile, Moon enters  Capricorn at 1:45 PM ET, and takes on a get down to business drive that carries us through the weekend, with no voids to discourage your impulse shopping splurges. On SATURDAY, emotions are likely to be running high, building to a release on the Full Moon at 12:07AM ET on SUNDAY.  Fallout from Sunday’s Full Moon may be volatile, as the Moon makes its weekly clash with Pluto and Uranus, at 2:05 AM ET and 10:12 PM ET, respectively. Oh — and around noon ET, Mars opposes the Moon. Thus, do be  careful on the roads and around sharp objects, including wit.

Adding to the potency of Sunday’s Full Moon is the annual opposition between the Sun (life force; leaders) and  Pluto (power, corruption exposed). That pattern will be exact on MONDAY at 12:07 AM ET.  What seeds were planted around January 7th, when the Sun and Pluto were conjoined?  Here’s the post for that day to refresh your memory.  How will they be illuminated now?   You are more personally affected by the Sun-Pluto opposition if you have a planet or point around 18 degrees of Cancer, Capricorn, Libra and Aries…consult your local astrologer for details.

The Sabian Symbols for this Full Moon are “the Union Jack” (for the Capricorn Moon) and “a hen scratching for her chicks” (for the Cancer Sun). Instantly we see a typical tension between Cancer’s priority on  family vs. Capricorn’s priority on a government/state. Cancer needs to put food on the table. Capricorn needs structure and status — ooh, look, there’s a glorious flag! Sabian Symbol Guru Blain Bovee notes another intriguing tension between these two symbols: uncovering vs. covering.

In terms of human behavior, watch for the tendency to cover oneself in a general disguise of group identity as if one is just too shy or careful to reveal too much of oneself too quickly.

Let’s watch to see how these themes play out in the headlines next week.

And now, the news.

On Wednesday the Cancer Sun got an expansive hit — for better or for worse — from Jupiter. Two hours earlier, at 8:47PM ET, the Sun harmonized with Neptune. Hmm….an overblown (Jupiter) reaction to a visionary ideal (Neptune), perhaps — likely involving home/homeland concerns?  Add the sudden jolt suggested in matters of communication, as Mercury was challenged by eccentric Uranus the night before. Thus, on the U.S. Independence Day, papers around the country might be compelled to print  headlines like this:  NPR tweets the Declaration of Independence, and people freak out about a ‘revolution’. Would you recognize the Declaration of Indepence if it flashed across your Twitter feed? How about the Constitution? Over the weekend, the NYT ran a piece in which people described what it was like to handwrite the latter, with intriguing observations.

This story reflects the scandal/deception/spirituality potential of the Sun’s contact with Jupiter and Neptune:  “Hobby Lobby Fined Overr $3 Million Over Smuggled  Iraqi Artifacts.”

Meanwhile, while many were distracted by P45’s malicious Mika tweets, in the wake of last week’s ruthless, information-grabbing Mercury-Pluto opposition, letters were sent to all states from a White House panel “investigating” bogus allegations of voter fraud. The request: give Kris Kobach all “publicly available” information on state  voter rolls, including  names, addresses, birthdates, political party (if recorded), last four digits of the voter’s Social Security Number and which elections the voter has participated in since 2006, for every registered voter in the country.   Kris Kobach is the Secretary of State in Kansas. He is credited with the creation of an interstate database called Crosscheck, which has been used by Kansas and over a dozen other states to deny citizens their right to vote. What does this have to do with astrology? Looking ahead a few years we see planetary patterns suggesting strong potential for governments to become even more authoritarian. How did your state respond to Kobach’s request? Mississippi’ s Republican Secretary of State told the commission to go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, while Missouri’s thinks OK, this is fine.

In other news,  I’d say the weekend’s headlines lived up to the wretched potential of Saturday’s face-off between Mars and Pluto. Exhibit A:  On July 4th, North Korea appears to have successfully tested a long-range missile — one not seen before.  I believe I’ve mentioned before that the Mars line on P45’s horoscope runs through Washington DC and Pyongyang. When you have a Mars line running through a geographical location, this is where you are likely to encounter or expression aggression. Jim Lewis, an astrologer who wrote the book on this subject, has observed that numerous past U.S. presidents have literally gone to war along a Mars line. I believe I have also mentioned that North Korea’s Saturn is at 28 Leo, on P45’s Leo Ascendant and Leo Mars. This suggests a potentially militant connection — frustrating, at the very least. Keep an eye on this relationship in the aftermath of the August 21st eclipse, especially the first week of September. The eclipse will be at 28 Leo, and Mars and Mercury will hit that degree of Leo in early September.

Exhibit B: P45’s toxic tweet of a mash-up of him pummeling a man with a pixilated CNN logo covering his entire head. Inspired no doubt by Tuesday’s quirky Mercury-Uranus square, the good folks at Australian TV station SBS produced a CNN “response.”  Because comedy is a coping mechanism for pain. No wonder comics are doing so well these days, including New York’s own Randy Rainbow.    Exhibit C: Even news about the Red Planet was toxic: “Mars covered in toxic chemicals that can wipe out living organisms, tests reveal”

Meanwhile, in the category of Plutonian “news from underground,” some are saying that  an old photograph found buried in the National Archives is of Amelia Earhart, the aviator who famously disappeared in 1937, while attempting to fly around the world. Does this photo mean Ms. Earhart survived a crash landing in the Pacific? I don’t know, but we see transiting Pluto right at the top of her horoscope into 2018. This suggests her public status will become prominent and possibly empowered — and at the very least, transformed. It doesn’t matter that Ms. Earhart is no longer among the living. The horoscope lives forever, as I wrote in an article published last year in The Mountain Astrologer. I’m pleased to report that I’ve written another piece for TMA and you can find it in the Aug/Sep issue — available now at Barnes & Noble. The article is called “Stop Talking About the Planets!” I hope you will enjoy it.

Thank you for reading this forecast.