Even though it’s been incredibly meaningful on many levels, I think most of us will be feeling like “thank god and goddess that month is over!”.

The prolonged squares between a slow moving Mercury in Aries with Saturn and the Black Moon in Capricorn made April an incredibly tough month for many people.

And now the universe has presented us with the gift of a Jupiterian Full Moon month for May, a dramatic swing from one polar opposite to another, between Saturn and Jupiter.

As you will see in both the Nova article (Click HERE) and my extension notes below, May is a particularly auspicious month for the evolution of our relationship lives, amongst many other things.

Uranus enters Taurus (for the first time in 84 years!)

The radical, unpredictable, liberating planet of revolution is in the process of leaving Aries where he has been for the last seven years, a period of reawakening of our fire energy, independence, individuality, authenticity and courage to leap into the new and the unknown.  As most of you will admit, it’s been a wild ride these last years, of unprecedented and often unexpected change that simultaneously shatters and liberates.

This passage into Taurus though will be staged, entering the sign of the Bull for the next six months, then retrograding back into Aries until March 2019, re-entering Taurus and staying there until 2026.

It’s fair to say that his passage through Aries has given him greater freedom of expression, his elevated fire fitting well with the extrovert energies of the Ram. Going into Taurus is a different matter though, as the earth sign will present  greater resistance to this electrifying planet, creating a certain degree of discomfort between the urge for change and the need for stability and security.

The Bull can easily fall into complacency, stubbornness, security consciousness, becoming routine-bound and is not fond of change, especially when it’s outside of one’s control. However, like the reclining bull in the paddock, once you stir him up, you awaken the giant of energy who is unstoppable.  Uranus will work on him like a highly unpredictable cattle prod, with exceptional voltage behind it.

However, this combination can create some remarkable achievements, as the Bull in us learns to be more flexible and available to healthy change.  One of the best descriptions of Taurus I saw in my early career was that the essence of the sign was to bring spirit down to earth and give it creative form in the world.  During this next period, Taurus will act as a lightning rod for the elevated spirit of Uranus and so we can expect all sorts of brilliant creative innovation in all the security systems on the planet, whether social and political, financial and economic.

Current innovations in classical Taurean arenas, such as housing, agriculture, ecology and conservation are all precursors of further remarkable developments.

Spiritually, we can expect further resurgences of the earth based practices, pre-Christian goddess traditions, reclaiming our indigenous roots whatever our ancestry, balancing out the excesses of new ageism, upper chakras spirituality and detachment as a way of life rather than a useful tool

However, before we get carried away with all the possibilities, the kind of change that Uranus initiates is often chaotic, initially destructive even,  meets huge resistances from the status quo, and challenges all our security issues.

For instance, I like many others have felt that the world’s governments’ responses to the global financial crisis has been little more than tinkering around the edges,  propping up the status quo and therefore losing the opportunity for dramatic deconstruction and reconstruction of our financial systems.

Unfortunately, if we resist collective demands for deep and dramatic change, the powers driving that change are forced to act more radically.

So it is highly likely that during this next seven-year period there will be further financial and economic shakeups, with corresponding opportunities to do things very differently.

Whatever the case, as per usual with Uranus, it’s going to be a rock ‘n’ roll time and when we’re not being personally rolled by his challenges, he will continue to make life very, very interesting!

Mars conjunct Pluto and the Black Moon in Capricorn

As I’ve written in the Nova article, this is an awesome combination of power but one that needs careful, considered handling with great integrity. With the warrior energy Mars in the mix we have the opportunity of aligning our individual will with these great powers of deep change, transformation and purification.

In terms of achievement in the outside world,  Mars combined with Pluto can allow an individual to work through tremendous difficulty and challenges with an almost inexhaustible reservoir of relentless energy behind one’s actions. If one’s aim is accurate, righteous, from a clear heart and mind and benefiting others then the chances for success are high. However, getting one’s ego, woundedness and unresolved anger or rage involved in this power potential can be equally destructive.

Whatever the case though, particularly through the presence of the Black Moon, her dark grace supports the purification of ancient forms of grief, trauma and rage whether from childhood, ancestral influences and past life history.

This conjunction is directly opposite to Hekate in the sign of Cancer, so part of the transformation demanded by Pluto/Black Moon combination will be the dredging up of ancient memories of the persecution of wise women, as well as the karmic consequences of where the goddess traditions turned toxic and destructive in its own ways as a consequence of such prolonged rejection and betrayal.

Fortunately, the benevolent  Jupiter trines both ends of this opposition, highlighting the reality that if we are able to do the deep work of purification and real transformation, we get to reclaim more of the psychospiritual gifts gathered over lifetimes of service to humanity and the earth.

Mercury in Aries Still Squaring Saturn and the Black Moon!

Oh yes, these squares that made April so tough are still in play, rubbing our noses in the negativity of the old patriarchal influences, as well is the darker emotional spaces that most of us do our best to avoid.

And while this presents its own form of resistance, as Mercury in Aries will prefer to charge off unhindered, it does slow the operations of the mind so that we get to learn on deeper levels about how to harness fire and passion with effective planning, appropriate caution and a healthy appreciation of the wisdom behind necessary delays in forward movement.

However, unlike last month when Mercury was slowed up by its retrograde motion, even as we start this month he is getting close to galloping speed, separating from both Saturn and the Black Moon by the end of the second week.

Mercury conjunct Parvati, Chiron conjunct Juno

These twin processes speak much about the current flavour of collective relationship evolution,  as both goddesses represent different forms and layers of marriage and commitment.

The latter speaks of healing the influences of what I call “marriage and relationship conditioning”, where Juno the traditional goddess of marriage in the Greco-Roman Pantheon,  is where we carry the psychological influences of our parents marriage.

These influences are familiar to many of us in certain age brackets, where we can look back and see that some of our early relationship experiences mirrored certain qualities and dynamics absorbed from the parental marriage.  These are often uncomfortable memories, depending on the degree of dysfunction in the family system.

So along comes Chiron, with his simultaneously loving yet ruthless desire to heal, lancing into this conditioning in order to break it open and flush it out. The gifts of this process are that we can get to know more clearly our own authentic relationship needs and take steps for healing and adjusting current relationships..

Sometimes he will use a particular relationship experience or interaction that triggers a seemingly out of proportion response, where some careless comment could trigger feelings of abandonment in a significant other.

Sometimes it can be a love or sexual experience that is so deep and so ecstatically opening that is simultaneously releases some form of pain or relationship obstruction.

Ultimately, he is about preparing the ground for greater quality relationship but his methods are often not gift wrapped!

So while this is happening, Mercury travelling with Parvati is an opportunity to consciously connect with an inbuilt desire to create exceptional relationship beyond whatever the family norms are.  As the goddess of the sacred marriage and Queen to the Tantric God Shiva,  she allows us to recognise that urge within us, as she provides a deeper level of commitment to work through our old patterns, a process so necessary to prepare the ground for higher quality relationship.

Overall this month then, we have this mixture of very deep processes and demands, combined with abundant grace and support represented by multiple aspects to the benevolent  Jupiter.

Enjoy the grace, and open to its flow, even in the darkest of territory.

Go well,

With love and blessings,

Daniel