Henry Seltzer – Saturday morning’s Last Quarter Moon, taking place quite early on the West Coast and at nearly mid-day for Europe, is another very special lunation that will somewhat try our patience, and where great rewards are available to us when we pay the closest possible attention to our inner motivations. This remains a transformational time period. In this current configuration, there is a huge emphasis on trickster Uranus, bringer of epiphanies regarding the way that we are adjusting to our changes, with the other outer planets of Neptune and Pluto also prominent, and including Saturn. This lunar phase in any case signals a timing when we are shifting in our perceptions, adding things up inside our heads in an entirely new way, in response the accumulated wisdom from the previous three weeks of the cycle, which is to say, based on what is largely an internal vision. We do best at this time when we adhere to the maxim that what goes on deep inside of us, very nearly unseen and unnoticed by our conscious mentality, has more to do with our moods and our triumphs than the rational logic that this culture values so highly, and which yet falls so far short in creating peace of mind within us or between each other, or, indeed, between national and ethnic groupings.

The mystical and numinous archetype of Neptune, quite prominent in the recent Full Moon from the last weekend of the previous month, is triggered once again at this Last Quarter Moon timing, by an unusual set of contra-parallel aspects from a stationing Venus and from Jupiter. Venus is greatly slowing, and is therefore quite potent, getting ready to return to direct motion on Sunday this same weekend. As she stations, Venus aspects Pluto while Mars, close by, does the same. The Sun and Moon in square also aspect Pluto, in an almost exact trine and inconjunct. With both Neptune and Pluto triggered, major changes are once again upon us, although in some sense, of course, they never left; the entire period of these last few years has been about major metamorphosis coming down. There is great joy and yet also tremendous angst in acknowledging our evolutionary destiny. As these cycles of extreme developmental intention constantly remind us, while we honor the transformation that results in the butterfly, we do have to admit that it is not necessarily that much fun to be the caterpillar. Continue reading →