FOR THE FIRST TIME in a decade, we have 5 planets retrograde at the same time (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto). Don’t fall for the idle gossip. A pensive concern lurks behind the apparent frivolity. Instead, be nondual: applaud the pompous, pumping smokestacks of the great Oz, but speak directly to the faceless face pulling the levers from behind.
Pay no attention to the paranoid Mercury retrograde hype. Beautiful things will continue to be added to your life this month. The emphasis now, however, is on pulling off a graceful subtraction. Of course, something else will fill the ensuing void. But your job is to prune your life of what is energetically dead and let the substitution arise naturally, with minimal ambition or doer-ship.
Amazing how distilled and well-timed word-craft can become during a Mercury Retrograde. When Mars joins Murky, the two planets shout in unison: “The rhythm method was never meant to be just for sex!” And yet… with smoldering Pluto in a grand trine with articulate Mercury and far-seeing Jupiter for the entire month, you’d be crazy not to talk (or write) about, whatever is normally left unspoken. Author alert: May is book-writing heaven.
Above all, don’t get stuck in one grove. Obfuscate publicly; but vigorously write and confess in your journal and with those who effortlessly “get” you. How do you know if you’re cleanly confessing? Simple: well thought-out positions and postures wither on the vine- choked by the immanent threat of tears. That sudden urge to serve up some “helpful mirroring:” pure dissociation.
What happens when Pluto and Mercury retro together? Detox. Will it be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual? Is it your cluttered home that needs a colonic or will you flush your life free of a subtler parasite: that hardened dutifulness or some other enslaving interpersonal automation?
Mars retro is paradoxical; it says, renounce or break free of your fear of having what you want. Abstain or violate your pleasure threshold- whichever most disrupts your lonely little me-story. Become as intimate with the “suffering of having” as you are with the suffering of loss, says Mars retro, so you can open to the blessed third option. Whichever route you take, show some respect for the zen mood of the month by bowing humbly as Uncommenting Silence secretly, silently, burns every ego alive. As Meister Eckhart says, “The soul grows through subtraction.”
Best to time your micro-movements forward to coincide with the planets going direct. Jupiter moves forward in Virgo on May 10th, helping us clarify the direction of our work. Resist the temptation to perform some dramatic ribbon-cutting event, and content yourself with the steady strengthening of ongoing projects, relationships, and business ventures.
Mercury goes direct on the 23rd. Slowly but surely, as May unwinds, we regain the clarity needed for decisiveness and forward motion. Then, on the 26th Jupiter makes its third and final square to Saturn, prodding us to breathe new life into old plans. Come June, the action and innovation ball starts to roll… whizzing into something unstoppable in July.
For now: don’t get distracted by the blizzard of backwardness. Instead, notice the stark teaching that all these retrogrades are pointing at: relax into god’s will or do it begrudgingly.
May Transits 2016
May 6th – New Moon in Taurus
May 10th – Jupiter direct in Virgo
May 20th – Sun enters Gemini
May 21st – Full Moon in Sagittarius
May 23rd – Mercury direct in Taurus
May 24th – Venus enters Gemini
May 27th – Mars retrograde re-enters Scorpio
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