Forecast: Tuesday and Wednesday, March 13-14, 2012

Sun in Pisces and Moon in Sagittarius, 2012

Beginning Tuesday 13 March at
11:55p(M) PT | 2:55a ET | 6:55a UT
through Wednesday 14
/moon goes void-of-course Thursday 15 at 12:35a PT | 3:35a ET | 7:35a UT
until Luna enters Capricorn Thursday at 3:25a PT | 6:25a ET | 10:35a UT

*Flexibility*

I am writing this while the moon is void-of-course (Monday) and on the first day of Mercury Retrograde (until April 4). I would guess that you, like me, have found Monday slower than usual, with more problems, trivial hassles, and interruptions. It is sheer will-power, and belief in the value of what I am doing, which keeps me going. Otherwise I would succumb to a desire to let go and just relax, as probably many would like to do. I do not think that my writing this while the moon is void will invalidate all I say (!), but I leave that judgement to you and G*d. All we can do is try, retrograde or direct, void or not. I hope Tuesday and Wednesday will be somewhat easier for all of us.

The tragic and disgusting murders in Afghanistan, by "one of ours" (if you happen to be an American), are on my mind. They happened while the moon was in Scorpio and in the Via Combusta. The moon was in that portion of the zodiac on the first day of the American invasion of Iraq also. It is an ominous position. But what am I to do? Repeat an ominous and disturbing warning every month when that happens? I have more respect for my readers than to be nanny-ing them with "be careful, watch out, take precautions, don't do anything rash" every time the moon is in the Via Combusta. I do warn about it in other ways every month. In this case, the soldier or soldiers responsible definitely needed that strong advice. If you re-read the report for Sunday and Monday, you will see the warnings.

The day of the killings was also the next-to-last day of Venus's opposition with Saturn. As I have said repeatedly, it is an aspect of "nobody loves me, they deserve to suffer." Well, see what that did to at least one soldier (who had had 11 years of military experience) and to his victims, and see, as I have always known, that Venus aspects affect males as much as females. Probably violence against women occurs more often when Venus is square, conjoined to or opposed to Saturn. Some day the statistics will come out. These murders also occurred while Mercury was slowing down to no motion at all, near its station (from geocentric perspective as always), that is, at a dark turning point of the Dark Hermetic Epoch. I warn every time, every four months, about how this period of "mental darkness" if you wish to term it that beclouds people's judgment. Not entirely, of course. Pray more often and more devoutly if you wish to avoid mistakes such as that soldier's (or those soldiers'). (The DHE continues not just to April 4, though it improves then, but to April 23.)

Good things can develop during this period. There is some disappointment that one's harvest of gains or income is less than one had hoped, yet there remains hope that it will improve. If one's motives are pure and good, one has won a victory whether or not that is evident in material affairs and business.

There is much mental flexibility and ingenuity. You can see into the mathematical calculations which will help you prosper. You sense how to improve your work by keeping your mind active in revealing and productive channels. Someone you know and like, or someone you meet as a promising new associate, has a similar tendency, which can aid you.

Mercury being retrograde does not impede mental activity, always, but makes it fertile in surprising ways, off-handed, or off the usual path. So if you trust a part of you which wants to wander through the thought-world in its own way, you may turn into fascinating vistas. If nobody appreciates these but yourself, that could change in some future.

The ancient and some modern East Indians, with their yogic techniques, understand how to let the mind wander yet return to a point of focus and faith. This is called mantra, japa, or meditation depending on the technique. That you might do, to give a tithe to Mercury being retrograde, one might say, and find that rather than dulling your intellect the practice revives your thinking and puts it on fresh tracks which turn out to be profitable. (But one ought not to do it for that purpose, but to offer oneself to the Supreme.)

The intellectual and the mechanical are somehow linked together (as they are, for example, constantly in the use of technology as an intellectual tool rather than master). That helps you see beyond the darkness of the Dark Epoch, which is a good epoch for dreams, but we need to keep ourselves awake a good deal of the time as well.

One can be aggressive in proper directions without being hurtful. Aggressively defending someone is a possibility, or oneself when that will also help others.

You do not have to get lost in speculations about other people's habits, that is, gossip, but you might find some of that delicious. We can see into people's peccadilloes while Mercury is square Pluto. You might enjoy seeing how absurd people have acted. That is the basis of most humor, as in situation comedies. We laugh partly because we like to feel superior to someone acting foolishly, partly because we recognize others and ourselves in the foolish one and there is a flash of insight which forgives, while laughing, because it partially understands.

Self-indulgence could be a danger, although the grand trine in earth signs is a good thing. If it is debased it can be laziness and trusting to luck and becoming sleepily decadent. Let's have none of that!--or, shall we say, just enough of it.

{Tuesday and Wednesday} *Flexibility*

Cosmic Piper