I hope you are enjoying today's Mercury sextile Venus, which is a blessing as Mercury slows down, preparing for his retrograde phase starting on Tuesday next week. And we're probably still coming to terms with Pluto turning retrograde last week, already no doubt requiring cutbacks and efficiencies in our lives.
We change mode with the retrogrades, and in the Mercury retrograde we tend to be so busy reassessing our own ideas, that we can't effectively reach out with new proposals, or hear them from others. Some communication works anyway, and that's how you know it's the real deal, but some needs extra effort, and some is best saved for later.
Fortunately today we also have Chiron quintile Ceres, which is an evolutionary flow between our healing power and our ability to love and nurture ourselves and others. The quintiles take the energy of the planets at either end and integrate them at such a deep level that new potential is realised.
We see Ceres's nurturing abilities in the bountiful harvest she encourages, but we often forget that her self-nurturing skills also come from being an abuse survivor, having been abused by her brother, Jupiter, the king of the gods, which resulted in the birth of her daughter.
Furious, Ceres withdrew into seclusion to heal, and all living things began to wither without her love, so as well as nurturing living things moment to moment so they blossom, she also has healing-from-trauma skills, which come from lived experience.
So with the quintile between Ceres and Chiron, and with Mercury almost stationary retrograde, if we are looking for a breakthrough in a healing issue, new information might come to light today, or over the next three weeks of the retrograde, and we could potentially understand the issue at a much deeper level.
Or you could use the quintile to grab the last opportunity to onboard Ceres' healing and nurturing abilities at the scholarship rate here at the Uni, studying her in your chart and life with a friendly international group of astrologers.
Classes Roundup
The students at the uni range from beginners to very experienced astrologers and this is the source of the vibrant class culture. What students love is the community sharing through blog-posted assignments and live Zoom Q&As, which gives a good picture of how these new planets act similarly yet diversely in our lives.
We look at a range of factors to give us the initial meaning for each planet, including the myth, the discovery chart, the Sabian Symbol of the discovery degree, the physicality of the planet and the orbit, and then we dive into chart analysis in the assignments and Q&As.
We are coming to the end of our current classes on Eris (the higher octave ofPluto), and Orcus (Pluto's straight-talking brother). And in the last fortnight we look at the transits to our natal planets and this is where we really see the energy manifesting in our lives.
Then we have a brief retrograde Mercury break, before the new courses, Makemake (the higher octave of Uranus), and Ceres (the higher octave of theMoon), start as Mercury moves direct again.
Join us if you can.
Love and laughter
Alan