posted May 13, 2013 05:27 AM            

We saw the story play out quite literally in Cleveland, Ohio as three young women were released and set free from their captivity. They were abducted when the Nodes were reversed 10 years earlier. They were carried off into the Scorpio underworld, abducted and held captive in the dark basement of Scorpio. Now the Sun diving into the South Node in Taurus set them free. Like those young women, we turn to face our future over the next four weeks.

As I mentioned last week, there were THREE eclipses or occultations ~ Mars, Mercury, and the Moon. Each planet appeared in the story of the abduction and new beginnings. Mars in his fall in Taurus ~ One woman was beaten, starved, punched and forced to miscarry five children, she was classified a runaway and essentially forgotten. Venus shifted into Gemini ~ so we focused on two of the women who were actually classified as missing children. Moon in Taurus ~ the mother who actually called attention to herself and escaped with her child and Mercury ~ the youngest captive ~ she exited the car carrying her home with her fingers held aloft ~ Mercury rules hands.

Quite a few other stories tied into the eclipse energy ~ Bloomberg reporters (Mercury) could apparently tap into Mother Bloomberg (Moon) terminals and see what various traders at different firms were doing (Mars)…. Wall Street firms pay Bloomberg $20,000 per TERMINAL per year to facilitate their trades. All that data, the transactions, the searches, the details, the scoops: live on Mother Bloomberg’s networks. This scandal will continue to grow! The eclipse was on the degree of currency and Cyber thieves (Mars) around the world stole $45 million by hacking into debit card companies, scrapping withdrawal limits (Moon) and helping themselves to millions from cash machines (Mercury) in 27 countries (Moon).

We each had the eclipse story, in the form of Mars, Moon and Mercury, appear somewhere in OUR charts. Find the characters in your world! One client reported his former co-workers were all fired (Mars in Taurus ~ killed off) and he had a wonderful meeting (Mercury) to discuss a project he had created (Moon). Another client was torn between moving (Moon) and keeping or ending (Mars) her business (Mercury) ~ could she maybe keep her business AND move? A third person decided to not take a job (Mercury) that entailed moving (Moon) because she would “kill myself if I have to work 7 more years” (Mars) as opposed to staying where she currently works so she can retire in three years.

My cats appear to have had a shift in who is dominant and in charge ~ Handsome (Mars) seems to have relinquished his power position, preferring to sleep in the closet, as Max (Moon) assumed dominant control of the food bowls and Remoh (Mercury) howled and growled, protecting my pillow and his new sleeping position, when a man sat on my bed. Who knew? My eclipses could have been much worse!

think about where the story shifted in YOUR life. We are going to work with the eclipsed energy again this week in a rather profound way. Identify Mars, Moon and Mercury from last week. This week we’ll add Venus into the mix. We face up to three fated choices as Venus, Mercury and Juno request us to choose the direction we want to go in our life. Mars exits the story, diving into the South Node of Fate, releasing and letting go of something important. Moon rules food, emotions, mom and home. Mercury rules brains, ideas, siblings and younger people (or the youngest cat in my case). Mars rules actions, drives, sex, anger, and aggression. Going to be a wild, wild week! And NEXT week is even WILDER!

he Week’s Planetary Highlights ~ The eclipses are here! It is a rocking and rolling week! Lots of stuff happening over our heads~ that means bumpy, busy, bumpy down here on earth! Two Fingers of God/Goddess promising “fated choices or moments!”

Mercury has 25 aspects ~ Again with all the Mercury energy we get to learn, hear, process and say! Awakenings! Mercury moves 13 degrees so he’s traveling at a very fast pace ~ almost 2 degrees per day! And he enters Gemini ~ one of his favorite places to be!

Mercury sets off the upcoming Uranus Pluto square on May 13 2013 between 07:53:29 pm EDT and May 14 2013 at 00:26:00 am EDT

Venus fights with Neptune May 13 2013 at 04:47:01 pm EDT

Mars dives into the South Node on May 13 2013 at 01:46:21 am EDT and contraparallels the South Node at 03:21:00 pm EDT

Mercury enters Gemini May 15 2013 at 04:41:12 pm EDT

Sun sets off the upcoming Uranus Pluto square on May 16 2013 between 02:54:49 pm EDT and 08:59:46 pm EDT

Venus forms a Finger of God with Saturn on May 15 2013 02:53:30 am EDT and Pluto on May 18 2013 03:15:50 pm EDT

Mercury fights with Neptune May 18 2013 at 03:19:24 am EDT

Venus works with Uranus May 18 2013 at 12:40:10 pm EDT

Juno choses her fate on May 18 2013 at 02:26:27 am EDT

Sun Contraparallels Pluto on May 18 2013 at 01:19:19 pm EDT

Mercury forms a Finger of God with Saturn on May 18 2013 07:33:04 pm EDT and Pluto next week on May 20th.

Void Moons in the Week Ahead: When the Moon is Void, it is wise to avoid making important decisions as they tend to be unrealistic, and subject to false starts, errors or unexpected hassles. Avoid being concerned with things beyond your spiritual center. It is time for subjective, spiritual and non-materialistic concerns. Kick back, let life flow and center yourself. Connect into your essential oneness with the Universal Forces.

Moon goes void joined to Jupiter on Sunday May 12 2013 at 09:33:08 am EDT and enters Cancer on Monday May 13 2013 at 5:57 am EDT

Moon goes void sextile to Sun on Wednesday May 15 2013 at 08:14 am EDT and enters Leo on May 15 2013 at 06:38:41 pm EDT Moon is Void all Day Wednesday

Moon goes void square to the Sun on Saturday May 18 2013 at 00:35:39 am EDT and enters Virgo on May 18 2013 at 05:33:56 am EDT.

gain, THIS week the personal planets are quite active. Mercury has 25 aspects with the other planets. Last week, Mercury had 26 aspects. Information just FLOWS over you. Don’t worry about remembering it all. Just let it flow. Continue the advice from last week: Mercury is FLYING through the heavens at close to 2 degrees a day, traveling from 24 Taurus to 9 Gemini. SO much information will be flying by, it will be hard to keep up. Take notes. Hold thoughts! Mercury’s giving you tons of information and various categories of things to think about and ponder. Gather the data. Don’t react ~ you might miss something if you stop to react …gather, gather, gather.

Mid-week, Mercury enters Gemini so he’ll be in his favorite sign for 16 days of fast, spirited communications ~ which makes the information fly by even faster!

Mercury and the Sun are combust until May 23 and Mercury goes out of bounds on Sunday. It makes each of us believe WE are right and THEY are not right. And we can be quite obnoxious about how right we are. Agree to disagree instead of locking into fixed positions of rightness. Out of bounds planets don’t feel the rules apply to them. As Mercury will rule the sky as of Wednesday and be unresponsive to playing by the rules as of Sunday as we enter a mighty stressful week next week. Avoid locking and loading into righteous positions. Stay flexible and consider your choices.

NEXT week, we have two major aspects, the Uranus Pluto square and another Full Moon Lunar eclipse, that we build energetically towards all week long. You’ll feel the tension grow and grow as Moon builds to fullness traveling through Emotional Cancer, Playful Leo and Analytical Virgo. These are personal moons where we are each asked to nurture, love and work on our own side of the aisle.

Mercury and the Sun both set off next week’s upcoming Uranus Pluto square so you will be asked to choose between chaos and power, change and control, fire and earth, break ups and stability. Mercury and Sun are both in Taurus and have stressful aspects with the square ~ you’ll find you have to “choose” or “pick” between choices that may feel unbalanced. First Uranus gets set off so you’ll feel a bit blindsided by an unexpected change and then Pluto gets activated in a way that will feel stressed but you have to step up and take action to go for what you want. Mercury ~ the knowledge that you have to do it takes place on Monday while the Sun ~ your ego involvement in the situation is activated on Thursday.

Venus and Mercury both square Neptune and the scales of illusion and delusion fall from your eyes. We see a situation (or situations) clearly in our life. It is an opening square of consciousness. We will feel like we never quite saw it like that before! And we probably haven’t ever seen it before. Trust what you see. Don’t be angry with yourself or the other person. It had to happen this way to get you to go along with the transformation. If you KNEW what was going to happen, you never would have done it. The dream (what we called the illusion and delusion BEFORE you saw it clearly this week) was how the universe got you to sign up for the transformation you are undergoing now. Trust the process.

There are two fast moving Fingers of God or Goddess formed by Venus and Mercury as they step into the shoes held by Jupiter for months. From December 4 to mid-April, there was a Finger of God/Goddess between Jupiter as the Apex with Saturn and Pluto as the legs. All winter, the heavens were digging into your psyche, encouraging you to evolve and change. This week, Venus and Mercury both scoot through the position held by Jupiter. Fast Fingers ~ they ask you about your heart’s desire (Venus) and to articulate (Mercury) what you’ve figured out over the winter about your path in life and the direction you want to head in next. Be sure to be as clear as you possibly can be. The heavens are listening! The positive part of Venus and Mercury in Gemini is you suggest and offer up a Plan A and a Plan B and maybe even a Plan C. It is YOUR life after all! What do you want? Gemini offers choices even if it feels a bit indecisive. We don’t feel stuck or down trodden. Hope appears. Do both or all three and let the energy decide FOR you!

Finally Mars dives into the South Node by both zodiac and declination degree on Monday. This is a MAJOR letting go energy. Expect a huge release and an equally enormous beginning. Mars does NOT like being in Taurus so this probably will not be a pleasant experience. However, it is necessary for the upcoming transformation to take place. We have to release into the South Node of Fate to move towards the North Node of Transformation. Let go, let go! We are going TOWARD the North Node in Scorpio, promising a profound transformation of our very essence. Scorpio takes us through a death and rebirth experience. Scorpio rules sex, death and taxes as well as our deepest psychological issues, our bowels, our reproductive areas and our inner hidden parts. Scorpio is an intense sign and asks us to go TOWARDS intense transformation.

We are about to be ejected from our ruts and thrown into profound transformation!

Moon day Monday May 13, 2013 finds Moon in Cancer with generous closing aspects of a sextile to Sun. Cancer Moon is deeply sensitive and profoundly connected to all that is going on right now. Schedule yourself lightly this week. Allow extra time for self-care. Today and tomorrow are great for nurturing procedures or beauty projects. After a restless night of psychic releases and troubled sleep, you wake up to a good sense of the possible. Saturn trines Vesta making you especially adept at household clearing out or office organizing. The new plans and ideas look and sound great! There is a new pattern taking place that will offer a bit of stress before it all settles down. Mid-afternoon, Mars releases a major amount of energy as he dives into the South Node declination. On some level, it is completely finished and done. Similar to the cherry blossoms in the picture above ~ their beauty, fragrance and color accomplished calling the bees in for fertilization. Task accomplished, the blossoms fall like so many pink snowflakes. The release propels us forward to a new destination. We launch out of the South Node towards Freedom and transformation. Venus’ square to Neptune causes you to lose the illusion or dream that has been carrying you forward. Time to move forward on your own, with a clear eyed clarity toward the dream in your heart. The dream got you this far. The next chapter of the journey is YOURS to make. No worries ~ other people will join you as you travel your path. Mercury says goodbye for real for true. It is finished. The clock ticks and invites you to choose between Uranus or Pluto ~ fear or love? Truth or lies? What do you choose? Mercury’s staring across the heavens at Pluto and is completely unwilling to lie or distort the truth to make the power happy. The truth sets you free. Give yourself a nice nurturing evening of self care and support. The week just gets crazier after today. Tonight between 07:53:29 pm EDT and 12:26:00 am EDT Tuesday, Mercury sets off the Uranus/Pluto square. Uranus asks about freedom. Pluto asks about fear. Choose wisely.

Mars day Tuesday May 14, 2013 Moon in Cancer continues to help us process emotions. Another night of tossing and turning dreams as Moon aspects both Uranus and Pluto ~ pay attention to the messages you receive from your unconscious. Around mid-day, Mercury joins with Admetos ~ traditionally this is an ending energy. You receive word of an ending or perhaps a death. A dream dies. A rejection. It isn’t a negotiable ending. It is done. Again, part of why that situation existed was to get you to the knowledge you have now. You wouldn’t be where you are now without it. So thank it. Don’t hate it. Waste no time in sorrow. Appreciate what came and helped you understand. Patterns exist in all of our deepest relationships. We are who we are. The hope is that we find people whose baggage matches ours and who we want to walk along the road with. Today you get a fresh start on a new chapter. That old gang is gone but a new group awaits you…

Mercury’s day Wednesday May 15, 2013 finds Moon void all day in Cancer so supportive if a bit emotional. Use today to process the changes from last week and integrate them into your being. Part of you can’t shine the way you want to so you need to make an adjustment. Health matters seem to clarify and settle down. Venus starts to form a Finger of God with Saturn and Pluto ~ what is your heart’s desire? Over the next few days, Venus takes Jupiter’s place to connect how and why you are evolving. You can find yourself or others are irritated at the idea ~ no worries YOUR dream is YOUR dream not the other guy’s or gal’s dream. YOUR DREAM!! Some partnerships take you to hell so you know you don’t want to be there anymore. Watch out for withholding or destructive behavior. It can be a pattern. You don’t have to do it anymore. You can move onto another place, another person, another relationship. Or you can dig in and work hard to help the current relationship evolve. Mercury enters Gemini for 16 days of frisky, fast and funny communications. Watch for mimicry. Learn how to juggle or do some crafty thing you’ve been thinking about. Hand eye heart coordination is fabulous for the next few weeks.

Jupiter’s day, Thursday May 16,2013 Moon in Leo has a hard closing aspect of a square to the Sun. The principle of creativity is going to fight with the desire for stability. Can you figure out a way to have both? Venus is in Gemini ~ she suggests divide and conquer or DO BOTH. At least for a bit until you figure out what you actually want to do. Allow for Plan A, Plan B and even Plan C. Change your sleep patterns ~ when you wake up tonight, get OUT OF BED ~ write down whatever woke you. The dreams this week are seriously crazy. The dream about power is to encourage you to step up and live your life. Sun sets off the Uranus Pluto square between 2:54 pm EDT and 8:59 pm EDT ~ you are seeing the choice clearly and know, even if you don’t want to say it, that you’ve made a decision. It is a done deal. Give yourself a night of nurturing if you can. Self-care is very important at moments of choice like this. You are at a huge crossroads.

Venus’ day, Friday May 17, 2013 finds Moon in Leo ~ how can you create the life you want within the stability you crave? Are they mutually dependent? Is there a way to do BOTH? Do you actually HAVE to choose? In some cases, the answer to this question is YES ~ you have to pick. In other cases, you can have both ~ with some compromise. Mercury combust the Sun is NOT in the mood to compromise. Be careful with words today as they can take you over the top and past the point of no return. Fights can fly quickly out of control. You are trying to shift very old EMOTIONAL patterns. Maybe this is all you know how to do. That doesn’t mean it is the ONLY thing you can do. Try a different approach. If you always lean forward, lean back. If you detach instead of connecting, connect instead of detaching. If you habitually lean back, lean forward. Take a different approach. Change is in the air! Saturn answers to Mercury in Gemini so he has LOTS OF POSSIBILITIES…. And he is actually moving pretty fast.

Saturn’s Day Saturday May 18, 2013 finds Moon in Virgo for probably one of the most difficult days of your life. The closing aspects are excellent so even if it is a difficult day, you’ll be okay on the other side. Perhaps better said, one of the most profound days of your life. Or maybe one of the most transformative days. You will be a different person after today. The Nodes station. Juno on the world axis squares the Nodes of Fate suggesting the choices you make today ~ good, bad or indifferent are incredibly profound and important in their meaning in your life. Choose to go away from the stuck place towards the transformation place. Sun ends a major chapter as he joins with Admetos. Mercury’s square to Neptune drops the scales of delusion from your eyes. You see things you never saw before. Yes, of course, they were always there. You just never saw it this way before. Mercury and Venus kind of nod at each other across the heavens ~ there is a profound ah-ha moment. After it happens, you can never go back to the way you were before. That person no longer exists. You have evolved. Still more to go but it just happened. On some level, you realize you are alone and separate from all that you love and adore. Life includes a profound existential loneliness ~ that is part and parcel of the energy. Mercury’s aspect to Hades can make you think the gates of hell are open just for you to see… Mercury is about to break free of his responsible behavior and go out of bounds. He might see something that forever alters him and his understanding of humanity. I went to see the Civil War Photography exhibit at the Met last weekend. Photographs of men at war and the decimation that war causes to the land, the bodies and the horses. Pictures of survivors of Andersonville Camp that so resembled the survivors of the camps in Nazi Germany. The second to last room was filled with photographs of injured men ~ their battle wounds and their stories~ as photographed by their doctor ~ a very skilled healer. I was with my Aries Sun, Scorpio Moon best friend from high school who got half way through the room and said “I can use a drink right about now.” We are both readers of the walls so were taking our time with the photos and the stories of the soldiers. A woman arrived in the room, clearly rattled by what she had seen in the earlier rooms. She walked over to a photo and screamed. Then she went to another photo and screamed. She did this for a few more photos. Then the screaming woman went to the stereo-vision exhibit of three-dimensional piles of body parts and screamed yet again. “I can’t stay! I can’t look any more! Oh my god! Oh my god!” and she ran out of the room. When you know someone a long time, like the 45 years I have known Dunford, you don’t need words. We both looked at each other and smiled. Dunford says “We probably should have warned her NOT to look at the body parts!! Let’s go get a drink.” We both laughed ~ like you sometimes do at funeral parlors. Venus sextiles Uranus offering a bit of comic relief or laughter to Mercury’s tough visions. Sun is arguing about power dynamics with Pluto. Venus wraps up her Finger of God/Goddess with Pluto ~ speak your heart’s desire even if fate seems to be spinning out of control right now. Venus can take you to a very dark place of loss today. Mercury starts to form a Finger of God/Goddess with Saturn and resolves it on Monday with Pluto. No bargaining for things you can’t deliver. Speak your truth. Say your vision. It either happens or it doesn’t. Ask for it. Ask for what you want. Your life is on the line.

Sun’s day Sunday May 19, 2013 finds Moon in Virgo with a lovely closing aspect offers some time to process all that went on over the last week. Next week will be particularly tumultuous so take time today to prepare the routine things in your life. Another night of tossing and turning offers you interesting dreams on which to ponder and visit in your memory. Mercury has health and emotional aspect today so allow him to process verbally. Mars is stimulated by Jupiter as the two of them assist each other understand what is going on… Expect some wisdom or understanding to arrive today as Mercury continues to form the Finger of God/Goddess over your head. This is what your life is for. Moments like these when you realize just how much you love being alive. Astraea stations to go retrograde so health matters can start to reverse or slip backwards… especially chronic health matters. Moon’s trine to Mars at day’s end allows you to get a great deal accomplished tonight~ if for no other reason than you have exceptionally restless energy right now.

copyright (c) 2013 A. C. Ortelee