On Thursday, Venus in Taurus opposes Saturn in Scorpio moments before the moon in Sagittarius opposes the sun in Gemini (creating a full moon at 9:11 pm PST). It’s kind of like two full moons in one. Oh. Joy.
A Venus/Saturn opposition in and of itself is asking us to deal simply and efficiently with our feelings, but feelings are anything but simple. This combination can create experiences of isolation, loneliness and despair or we can use the energy to work on relationship commitments, containers and contracts. Mars, now moving direct, will square Pluto on Saturday for the last time during its current transit through Libra. This echoes the cardinal grand cross action that dominated April.
There is a tremendous amount of power that we can access with such a square but there is also the propensity for violence, power trips, domination and all out aggression. Mars is also approaching its last opposition to Uranus (coming to fruition on June 25th) making this week full of polarity, duality, tension, opposition and a need for balance and integration. However, the sacred union of two always gives birth to a third creation and I suggest sticking around long enough to see what that might be.
It’s better when things connect than when they just stay floating—untouched and unintegrated. We need the experience of polarity and friction in order to better understand the place that we come from. Saturn’s influence here suggests that we move slowly, taking deliberate steps; Mercury is still retrograde after all, no need to rush past the obvious and fumble into a mistake you are far too wise to make.
Aries & Aries Rising
Thursday’s full moon occurs in your Ninth House of travel, adventure, philosophy and exploration. It’s the part of our lives that wishes to draw us into the world to face the bigger questions, notice the details and all the ways that God lives in them. In fact this place is entirely about God/dess, Creator, Creatrix, Universe or any other name you wish to give the experience of oneness.
Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this week will be a lofty experience or that you’ll feel altogether connected. Most time on the way to connection we have to feel all the places that we are resistant to it. All the places we feel stuck, stagnant and even morose. For you this has something to do with feeling valued, loved and received. For you this is very connected to your experience of being connected to the humans and beings you share space with. For you this has everything to do with seeing how any one of your relationships is emblematic of the relationship that you cultivate with yourself and with a source bigger than you.
The Eternal Life Source never moves. It’s always there saying, “Whenever you are ready, I’m here. Waiting.”It’s only us that can move towards or away from our truth. Dynamics in your intimate relationships may be more than you are prepared to grapple with this week. Stay steady in yourself and try not to start any fires. In fact be helpful, put a couple out.
Taurus & Taurus Rising
Your ruling planet, Venus, is in a standoff with a mighty opponent this week. Saturn is her name and consequences are her game.
Venus is currently in your sign, making this transit and this week’s events feel entirely personal. If I may, a word of advice about dealing with our dear Ms. Stern Saturn —if at all possible refrain from whining, blaming, cheating and lying. It’s just not worth it. Consequences, remember? You are more likely to get called out on your BS this week and less likely to be able to shrug it off.
This week wants to ground you and stabilize you. This week wants you to speak the words that your heart is afraid to utter for the commitment they may point to or even demand. This week is about getting real about your worth and your needs, and taking concrete steps towards manifesting both. This week wants you to pause in the moments of the greatest tension and meditate on the discomfort instead of reacting to the triggers. Wait long enough for a deeper understanding of the polarity that you are living in or for another option to arise. Refrain from dualism even though it will be oh, so tempting to partake in.
Thursday’s full moon will occur in your Eighth House of Letting Go, so do it already. This could very well be a time when your inner fears appear to be manifesting on the outer plane of experience. But it’s just an experience. One to see yourself through. One to pray yourself through. One to watch arise and then inevitably fall away.
Gemini & Gemini Rising
The most obvious way to take stock of our issues is by observing what arises when we are in relationship. By relationship I mean to include interacting with anything outside of ourselves, even inanimate objects. All life is relationship and so all life is full of moments to observe ourselves. This is a blessing, for everything that we come into contact with is truly our teacher.
As the full moon blooms in your Seventh House of intimate relationships it shines the light on your most obvious of relationship issues. However, there is something else lurking just under the surface that is likely to be exposed gradually throughout the week. This thing I speak of is something that is not at all conscious, or something that you are only slightly aware of at this moment.
One of the greatest gifts of being human is the opportunity to become more conscious. The opportunity to awaken doesn’t always feel like such a “gift”but these revelations are the best part of incarnating into human form. These revelations are points of redemption, points of entry and points of integration if we can hold our ignorance with enough compassion and our intolerance with enough understanding.
Your boundaries will be tested this week, your psychological limits as well. Let them be tested, just don’t fail to see your own humanity in the whole meshugas.
Cancer & Cancer Rising
It’s a slow your roll kinda week, Cancer. These things happen. Those things happen. And sometimes nothing seems to happen. But it’s not true. Things are happening. They are just doing so in their own very strange way.
You may feel temporarily out of luck and out of juice so do what you can to help your body rejuvenate. Your ruling planet, the moon, is peaking this week in your Sixth House of health issues. Don’t create any by burning the candle at both ends and running yourself into the ground. Just. Slow. Down. There is this cheesy yet helpful acronym in a 12-step program called HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired). So when you’re agitated you HALT and ask yourself, am I one of those? If so you take care of it before you go on to do anything else. Eat, calm down, call a friend, give yourself some love and get enough sleep. Then try to go out and face the dragons.
Or just stay home in your bubble and stay there for as long as you can. Sometimes the world is just a distressing place to be. Sometimes it’s OK to have a break and take a step back. Sometimes it’s OK to not call, text or email them back right away. Sometimes not going to the party is exactly what you need. Sometimes just to sit for a long moment and wait until we feel like it’s time to move again is the most fun possible.
Leo & Leo Rising
Maybe it’s that moment of suspension. That moment of being seen for all that we could be, all that we were meant to be and all that our design was meant to become that sends us off into the edges of the universe to find love. Or maybe it’s something subtle and soft, something as simple as reaching over and holding the hand of your lover. Rolling over in bed to their warmth. Cupping their face in your hands. Gazing into their eyes. Filling your heart and your mind with the poetry of possibility.
Maybe it’s as profound as having a friend—a best friend that we can share all of ourselves with, all of the pieces of us, all of the layers and levels and facets of who we are and who we can be. Maybe it’s about knowing that we are brave enough to try to love and to be loved in return. Or maybe it’s just a trick of nature that keeps us running up the stairway to Love’s door, trying desperately to knock it down. Begging to be let in. Wandering, wondering and howling into the abyss of Love’s dark night we can sometimes stumble upon our greatest capacities.
Sometimes in those struggles and in those challenges we meet the part of ourselves that is worthy of our love, our attention and our devotion. What a strange trick to be wired in such a way that we feel compelled to experience ourselves through the recognition of another. Here we are and there you have it. This is what it is.
The full moon blooms in your Fifth House of romantic love, creativity and a long lost child-like effervescent enthusiasm for life. I encourage you to cultivate the feeling of romancing yourself and your creativity, coaxing your beauty to the surface. Especially while any work tension becomes too tough to tame. Stay where the options are instead of being pulled into and either/or agenda when it comes to making major decisions at work. Find the romance, even in the most mundane or stressful situations.
Virgo & Virgo Rising
Now we get down to the roots, the cause of the cause. It may only be for you to know. It may only be information that is valuable for you to know. It looks like Thursday’s full moon wants you to get down with the deeper meaning that fuels you. A moment of reassessing is healthy.
There is tension for everyone this week and for you the primary pull is to go within to understand what is worth working hard for. Sitting with tension is no small matter—actually it’s a mark of maturity. It’s a mark of how well our practices are serving us, or how well we are serving our practices. At the end of the day all we have is how we deal with what tears us apart. At the end of our days we have to be OK with losing everything that we have ever tried to hold together.
There can be a sweet release if our primary meditation is one of understanding all the pieces at play and our attachment to them. This doesn’t have to be cold or make us emotionally detached—in fact it can very well serve to make us much sweeter. To sit with opposites, especially ones that we feel so personally effected by, can make us much more understanding of the human condition. We are flawed, we are tender, we are perfect and if we refuse to let any love in we become a ridiculous joke, taking our suffering too seriously. Find what really matters to you and stay close to it. Also, laugh at yourself regularly.
Libra & Libra Rising
This week is full of your favorite pastime: balancing. This week’s balancing requires all of us to reach beyond our own reality, our own agenda and our own story. The key to equilibrium is to not remain focused on any one side but to hold a both as well as perspective. We must know the subject at hand from its root to the fruit in order to really understand it.
On Thursday there is a full moon in Sagittarius, an opposition between Venus and Saturn, a square between Mars and Pluto and a final opposition between Mars (still in your sign) and Uranus waiting in the wings, coming to fruition at the end of the month. This is a tremendous amount of tension to hold. It may feel like there are many choices to make, people to consider or like your entire being is splitting in two, three or more.
Opposition can make us feel restricted, like we are bound only by the options that appear in front of us. Opposition can also, however, open up a considerable amount of space. If we are open to it, tension can show us jut how far we are capable of going, how elastic we can be and how flexibility works. We can’t go there (wherever there is) all at once. We can’t force ourselves into an extreme yoga pose without ever having done it and expect to be able to walk the next day.
We can however work on it, little by little everyday and see a slow progression and shift in our body. We can practice the simple but profound act of breathing through the sensations that arise while we mindfully explore our current limits. We can work on creating space via the tension that we create so that we might find a new openness, a new sense of freedom and a new way of being in our lives.
Scorpio & Scorpio Rising
I dreamed this week that you and I were talking about your horoscope. In it I was suggesting that you pay attention to those that you inhabit space with for they have something quite profound to share with you. I also was quite adamant that at the same time you keep your eye on the subconscious material that arises from these interactions. Like being focused inward and outward at the same time (our Gemini friends have a similar theme going).
This week is about allowing ourselves to be stretched into areas of life we may not usually inhabit. It’s also about dealing with the tension that arises when we encounter opposition. Emotionally and spiritually speaking, opposition may be the most important component of our growth. In fact we seem to inhabit a lived experience that demands we face the most excruciating challenges in order to experience the formidable strength that runs through us. For how will we really ever know what we are made of if we’re never tested?
Thursday’s full moon takes place in your Second House of financial affairs and feelings of self-worth. If your worth is dependent, even in the subtlest of ways, on the actions of others there is only one end to the story: disappointment. But if your self-worth is dependent on your own feelings about yourself and anyone else’s appreciation and love is just icing on the cake then there can be many happy endings even in the midst of struggles and hardships. Allow space for others but be wary of making them The Answer.
Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising
This is your full moon. Thursday. All day. Really it’s the kind of energy that lasts for a couple weeks, if you want to be holistic about it. A little before and a little after. Like a wave building towards you, washing over you, then dissipating onto the shore. I suggest that you get ready for it by doing whatever it is you feel you need to do. Prepare. Make space. Be willing to reflect the light of your soul to the rest of us.
Your sign isn’t big on holding back, but full moons in our sign have a way of bringing something to the surface that we didn’t quite know was there. Sometimes it’s exhaustion. Sometimes it’s emotion. Sometimes it’s a feeling of fullness, overwhelming or completion. It all depends on where we are standing when the ocean swells. It all depends on what we need to see, experience and know about ourselves. It’s the kind of week that wants to be lived out step by step—not always your style, I know. But there is a lot to weigh, many parts to balance and quite a few tensions to stand in.
Tension isn’t bad though; it’s actually quite useful in small doses. The body needs to work with the tension of lifting the weight of itself, the tension of gravity and the tension of learning to balance. The mind needs to work with holding and experiencing the tension of opposites and even of paradox; it is at its most creative this way. The spirit intrinsically knows tension; the tension of being an immortal spirit inside of a limited physical experience.
No matter what swells inside you or in front of you this week take the time to remember your eternal nature. It will most likely help you to deal with any issues that come up in your community, circle of friends or peers. When in doubt, take a break.
Capricorn & Capricorn Rising
This week has a couple of spotlights shining in different areas of your life. The one I am the most interested in for you has to do with your creative self-expression and your ability to have faith in it. Not because you’ve clicked your heels three times reciting magic words. Not because you believe in magic. And not because when all else fails all we can do is fake it till we make it.
No, I want you to have faith in what you have to throw into the ring because of the work that you have already put into it. Rely on the skills you have, on your accomplishments and the cold hard evidence that you are where you are because you are supposed to be there. Temporarily anyway, so make the most of where you find yourself.
Thursday’s full moon occurs in your Twelfth House which sheaths all the things that are hidden, that we hide from others and whatever takes place behind the scenes. It also rules sorrow and loss (sorry, astrology addresses all of life) or the sorrow that we experience because of the attachments that we have to what we lose.
My suggestion is to offer up your fears to a deity that consumes such things for pleasure. In one bite. Gulp. Or write down all your fears and as you write them down tell yourself that the mere act of doing so releases them to a greater cosmic order that is taking care of all the details and making sure that it works out better than you could have imagined. Then put them in a box. Imagine that box is like a magic mailbox that gives your fears over to something greater than yourself. Then get on with your day and your duties.
In short, put as much of yourself, as much of your love and as much of your wicked intellect that you can into all that you do. Do what you can and then let go of the outcome.
Aquarius & Aquarius Rising
We aren’t all placed in an environment where we can flourish as children. Most likely, very few of us are. This week’s astrology seems to invite you to consider what your optimal conditions would have been growing up. What situations would have benefitted you best? What rhythms did you need? What intellectual stimulation would have best suited you? What emotional nurturing did you crave? What artistic encouragement would have best served your talents? What would have boosted your confidence? What would have made you feel safe, loved and adored?
While looking back at all of that I encourage you to keep a very firm foot in the present moment and see all the ways in which you have supplied yourself with those very things that were lacking from your childhood. See all the areas of your life that still need you to supply these essentials and then make some very definite and concrete plans to supply yourself with such amenities. We cannot go back and change our past and I have never heard of anyone feeling better by wallowing in it. We can, however, review it as a way of taking stalk of where we have been, where we have arrived, where we would like to go and how to close that gap.
The full moon blooms in your Eleventh House of fortunate encounters with friends. I encourage you to use experiences with your peers as a medicinal meditation on how you do fill your tank with this area of your life and how you don’t. Watch to see which relationships fill your uninhabited parts and which just seem to cause more feelings of emptiness, then reflect back on your own attitudes about the relationships. What expectations are you putting on others? How adept are you at sitting back letting everyone be who they are doing what they do. Spending the week noticing all of these trends is likely the most productive thing you can do.
Pisces & Pisces Rising
Sit with the tension for long enough this week until you get a chance to soften mentally. Allow the fury, the complaints and the self-pity to arise and then stay with those feelings long enough that you either become so bored with the company (they really only say the same things over and over and over) or a greater desire arises in you, like the desire to rise above your human pettiness.
When dealing with things as sneaky as self-pity we must desire a connection to our strength more than our weakness in order to gain any real ground in this life. The overall desire may be to harden, to become stern, to draw definitive lines in the sand. There are ways in which this can be useful and appropriate in some cases, but the consideration is always going to be around whether it is necessary in the given circumstance. Sometimes we need a boundary, even a harsh boundary drawn around us in order to heal for a time period.
Eventually though, the waters of time erode these structures and our relationship to the wound changes. This doesn’t mean that we forget or even forgive if it isn’t a natural next step but it can mean that we come to a new understanding of ourselves, and our capacity to grow. Like grass through cement, our spirit is incorrigible.
As the full moon blooms in your Tenth House of life path, career and public life I encourage you to take these lessons out to those you work with, for and beside. It’s time for you to reflect the light that lies not only in your soul, but the light that lies in everyone.
*Edited by Moi Garcia