Henry Seltzer – The First Quarter Moon of Wednesday late evening, by West Coast time, will take place in the early hours of Thursday morning for the East Coast — and of course even later for further east. This will be an interesting lunation, primarily for the connections made between the inner and the outer planets. Mercury is conjunct the Sun, just escaping by one degree his tightest embrace, creating a thoughtful ambiance, while Venus in exact minor aspect with the Sun and Moon, is also in forming square to Pluto, thus providing a sense of our ongoing transformational process. The Sun is parallel to difficult Saturn, while the Moon closely parallels mystical Neptune. Saturn slows us down, and Neptune relates to inner values and also to escapist tendencies. Mars in the early degrees of Libra is in forming sextile with Saturn, thus indicating that while things will not go entirely smoothly over this somewhat difficult quarter Moon timing, they might eventually be able to resolve themselves.

Mars is also inconjunct to Neptune, just as Saturn comes within a degree of making a square to this numinous and mystical planetary archetype, suggesting the contrast of hard-nosed expediency versus the fanciful dream realities that are at times able to supercede it. This phase is in any case all about making necessary adjustments to what we had thought was well started, what seminal 20th Century astrologer Dane Rudhyar called “crisis in action.” The adjustments to be made are in the direction of taking a conservative approach to success, being content with what you can actually get, of being brought down to the real. This configuration therefore represents a cautious and eminently practical response in the midst of an essentially enlightening and transformative period of time, especially with regard to the key relationships of our lives. Continue reading →