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On March 16, 2015 Uranus and Pluto form a square aspect in the signs Aries and Capricorn. This is the final exact square in the long series of seven, which began on June 24, 2012. Interestingly, it is the first time both planets have been direct at the moment of the exact square. Thus, over a period of about three years, the furious, violent “Lord of Earthquakes and Lightning Bolts” has been squaring off against the uber-controlling “Lord of the Underworld”—also known as the “God of Hell.”
We are proud to offer our newest instructional program this month: “Working Consciously With Mercury, Venus, and Mars.”
I love the immediacy and liveliness of teaching a room full of astrologers, and I am never so happy in that department as I am sitting with my apprentices. With serious, informed students and four or five days to work, we are able to probe deeply into the heart of evolutionary astrology.
Stored deep in the antiquarian depths of my memory banks is an old giggle about the dance that heterosexual people do: “She ran away from him until she caught him.” Are the times gone when people believed that script? Is it extinct? I guess that is an essay question nowadays as the old gender assumptions pass through the wringer of cultural change.
In any case, the saying came to mind as I watched Venus chase Mars around the Zodiac this month. At the beginning of January, Venus is speeding through the last degrees of Capricorn while Mars lies safely ahead, deep in Aquarius. Venus joins “him” there on the 3rd, but “he” quickly escapes into Pisces on January 12th. Venus tracks Mars down and enters Pisces “herself” at the end of the month, on the 28th. Mars nearly makes his getaway yet again—he just manages to cross the line into Aries in mid-February, but Venus finally catches up with him there on February 22nd.
by Steven Forrest
The sun just started to blaze over the Anza-Borrego desert where I live. I am writing these words in haste since I need to pack my bags and head for the Palm Springs airport in four hours. From there, I have to make my way up to San Francisco and points north to teach one of my Apprenticeship Programs. Michelle and I just arrived here in the desert a week ago, so it hurts to leave home again so soon. We live part of the time in New Orleans and we just completed the endless, three-day cross-country drive to get here from there. When I close my eyes, I’m still hallucinating the white lines of the highway stretching out before me.
When I get back from this teaching trip, I’ll only have about ten days at home again before leaving to teach seminars in Beijing and Shanghai. When I get back from Asia, I will once more only have about ten days at home before I leave to teach the southern California edition of my Apprenticeship Program. That one is easier—just a 90 minute drive and a five-day trip.
The quincunx aspect in astrology—two planets separated by 150 degrees; one sign more than a trine, one less than an opposition—what does it signify? It is usually called a minor aspect, but many astrologers argue for its power. Throughout the month of July, we will all have a window on assessing the strength of this configuration. Saturn will spend the entire month in the 17th degree of Scorpio while Uranus will spend the month in the 17th degree of Aries. That geometry provides a classic experience of this aspect. Everyone one of us will be feeling it.
In this newsletter, let’s use the month-long dance between these two heavyweight planets as our laboratory as we absorb the first principles that underlie this often-misunderstood astrological aspect.
