Post-eclipse check-in and what’s up next

Yesterday we closed the current eclipse season with the Gemini Full Moon lunar eclipse. You may in fact feel like you are in a completely different space within yourself, and your external sense of place may have also shifted surprisingly. What new sensations or thoughts are you noticing now? You can expect these shifts to develop over the next six months (or longer) so don’t worry if you can’t quite put your finger on what has changed today.

With the drama and tension of Mercury’s station direct and the eclipses behind us, the immediate astrology looks like a love-fest — but it’s possible that could go to our heads a little this weekend, with some potential for overreaching and its consequences.

Venus and Mars, fresh from their respective conjunctions to larger, slower planets (Saturn and Pluto, respectively) are each feeling their power in different ways. But their relationship to each other right now isn’t a question of power or competition, but rather a question of contact.

Today Venus in Scorpio sextiles Mars in Capricorn, close on the heels of her sextile to Pluto in Capricorn yesterday. Venus-Mars brings our feelings and actions into harmony, and Pluto adds a feeling of relevance and reaching some deeper meaning with it all. Venus sextile Pluto tends to allow us to see the good in others, no matter how deeply it’s buried. Bear in mind that the energy of sextiles may be ‘close enough to reach’, but you do have to reach out. It won’t just fall in your lap.

Or think of it this way: it’s like the containers that were busted open by the eclipse yod pattern left us lots of space to take the shape of our higher natures, the shape of love and harmony, and even the shape of devotion in our sexual/spiritual relationships. (That last part gets a boost from the Moon conjunct Vesta in Gemini, opposite Juno in Sagittarius today). And it’s clear that desire fulfilled and commitment expressed have a relationship to one another.

As mentioned, Venus just conjoined Saturn and Mars conjoined Pluto. Once a significant aspect is formed, it’s like the faster planet picks up the qualities of the slower one and carries them forward. With a conjunction in particular, there is a new cycle starting. Feel for ways in which you may be inclined to limit or structure the sex or love you receive, or any urges to disrupt or reconfigure how you express desire. The sextiles Venus is making to Mars and Pluto come with deep, loving, harmonious impulses, but the recent conjunctions have altered the tone a little. Listen and observe carefully as you reach out to a partner, and vice versa.

We are but human after all, despite all the deep, meaningful, harmonious vibes today, and it is hard to maintain our higher selves in this world of consumerism, jealousies and insecurities, self-absorption and sensory overload. The Sun in Sagittarius opposes Jupiter in Gemini on Sunday, putting us on alert that our egos might swell a little too much over how loving and free and ‘tuned in’ we’ve been this week. It opens the door to the potential for poor judgment, financial issues and generally overdoing things (especially physically, with Mars in Capricorn making an awkward angle to Jupiter).

We may be spiritual beings having a human experience, but that human experience takes vigilant awareness, practice, continual reality-checks and a lot of questioning and curiosity to stay grounded and humble — even as we radiate love toward ourselves and others, even as we heal and grow.

Asteroid Vesta in Gemini opposing centaur planet Pholus in Sagittarius emphasizes the point: we can get a little religiously fervent in our commitment to seeing our own light and shadow, as well as tending that sexual/creative flame. Maybe we can leave some room between our intellectual understanding and our spiritual questing for some good, old-fashioned heart-based love to carry over from this week?