Did you feel a noticeable dip in your energy this weekend with the New Moon — as though you needed a little extra time to draw yourself in and gather yourself up before growing with the Moon again? The Sun and Moon were roughly opposite a centaur planet that tends to have a pressurizing effect. And while the Moon has already moved past that point in the zodiac, the Sun is currently in a configuration that asks: How do you handle pressure?
Do you try to escape? Do you split and fragment? Do you try to use it constructively? Here are three possible illustrations.
1. Imagine you’re a submarine. The water is pressing on you from all sides. If you try to dive too deep to escape other boats, ignoring the effect the pressure is having on you, you’ll eventually burst. The welded seams will start to crack; rivets will begin popping out; pipes will burst. The human equivalent is: we lose our emotional and spiritual integrity when we try to ignore pressure. It takes its toll by making us feel fragmented, split against ourselves and unable to function.
2. Imagine you’re a piece of coal, deep in the Earth’s crust. Tectonic plates move and you are subjected to tremendous pressure. But instead of fragmenting, you receive the pressure and allow yourself to be transformed into a diamond. You actually gain structural integrity by acknowledging the forces pressing on you and going with their flow — but doing so means letting go of ‘who you were’, and accepting transformative change on a fundamental level.
3. Imagine you’re a world-class athlete at the top of your game. You’re in the most important contest of your career, against athletes who are at least as good as (or better than) you are. But you are able to take that pressure and internalize it. You own it as though it is coming from you — because, in fact, it is; your desire to achieve is all your own. In doing this, you are able to refine the pressure and focus it, using it to guide your body and your mind, your energy and your every action, to propel yourself further than you ever would have been able to without it.
What exactly is going on astrologically to suggest these images? The Gemini Sun is making aspects to Pholus in Sagittarius and Eris in Aries.