Moving forward in all directions

Alice came to a fork in the road. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’ responded the Cheshire Cat.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.
‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.’
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Right now, both Pisces planets (Jupiter and Neptune) are taking trines (an aspect about flow) from other planets. In many cases that could either translate to a lot of creative, ‘spiritual’ mojo coursing through us that we can put to truly beneficial use, or an Alice-in-Wonderland-like expansion of the planets’ more shadowy sides into surreal, unwieldy proportions. Luckily, there is some grounding available.

First up, the Libra Sun is trine Jupiter in Gemini (exact today at 2:00 am EDT). Jupiter in Gemini already has the flavor of, ‘move forward in all directions.’ It may feel a bit like a command from the Queen of Hearts: simultaneously impossible to conceive of doing yet impossible not to obey.

If you’re used to tackling things one at a time, or thinking and acting linearly, it could feel a little overwhelming. Add in Pholus opposing Jupiter (and sextile the Sun) from mid-Sagittarius — the other sign Jupiter rules — and things could feel out of control.

Pholus has that genie-out-of-the-bottle feeling; happily, Sun trine Jupiter is generally regarded as a beneficial aspect, especially where physical and intuitive health are concerned. The difference between a genie granting more than you bargained for (out of control/overwhelming) versus advancing your life on multiple levels at once (productive/creative) comes down to clarity — that is, your own.

In the same way the characters Alice encounters continually take advantage of her lack of specificity and make her words out to be stranger than she thought they were, it takes extra clarity to be able to move forward in all directions at once. It’s up to you whether that means clarity in your direction toward several goals at once, or clarity about a single over-arching goal that serves as a guiding principle for everything else. Either way, the aspects from the Sun and Pholus are associated with Jupiter’s retrograde cycle; this dynamic will be working inward and outward.

What about that trine to Neptune in Pisces? That’s coming from Saturn, newly in Scorpio, and is exact tomorrow at 10:38 pm EDT. Saturn has a bad rap as being ‘the heavy’ and Neptune rarely seems to fulfill its potential as the higher octave of universal love. Despite those tropes, this aspect actually tends to bring in a dose of practical spiritual understanding and expression.

Even though Saturn is in a water sign, its association with Capricorn brings in some grounding and a streak of realism. It offers some form to the creative potential of Neptune’s waters and provides nice, strong walls to channel Scorpio’s transformative currents. This trine, especially combined with the Sun-Jupiter-Pholus configuration, becomes a win-win situation rather than a washout (or the chaos of Wonderland, despite its wonders).

Despite what the Queen of Hearts might have you think, life is not a zero-sum game and you need not lose your head — though you do need to use it. And speaking of heads — or rather, the mind — Mercury in Scorpio is making a trine of its own, to Chiron in Pisces (exact 2:28 am EDT today). Note your thoughts and how you feel about the link between your creative and sexual energy, where it has taken a hit in the past, and how much better able you may be to address its healing now than you were then. A great thread along these lines has been developing under yesterday’s Daily Astrology post by Eric. Clearly the conversation is right on time, and underscores how much Chiron rewards documentation.

The Cheshire cat was right about the choice of road not mattering if you don’t know where you’re going. But Mercury and Chiron suggest that you do know, and getting clear on that will serve you with the rest of the astrology that’s afoot.