{"id":75152,"date":"2014-03-20T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T04:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=75152"},"modified":"2014-03-19T16:44:18","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T20:44:18","slug":"spring-thaw-the-aries-equinox-and-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/astro-daily\/spring-thaw-the-aries-equinox-and-mercury\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Thaw: The Aries Equinox and Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sun enters Aries for the equinox today at 12:57 pm EDT — the first official day of spring in the northern hemisphere (autumn in the southern hemisphere). For much of the northeastern U.S., it has felt a long time coming after such a cold and snowy winter; and although the weather may take a few weeks to catch up with your consciousness, the energy of the season is saying, \u201cBegin!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A snowless sunrise over the Eastern Promenade in Portland, Maine, at the 2012 Aries equinox. Photo by Amanda Painter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You may be asking yourself, \u201cBegin what?\u201d which is where Mercury comes into the picture. As Mercury emerges from its shadow, taking our mental awareness along with it, it encounters Neptune in Pisces. We\u2019ve been under this influence all week.<\/p>\n

That influence includes the intensification of: fantasies, daydreams, nocturnal dreams, emotional sensitivity, psychic sensitivity, feeling psychically or emotionally overwhelmed, self-delusion and creative visioning. So what else is going on in the sky to help us ground and direct this energy in positive ways? <\/p>\n

Well, we can look to the Sun ingressing Aries. The first degree of Aries is known as \u201cthe Aries Point,\u201d a sensitive area of the zodiac that gets extrapolated to the first degrees of Cancer, Libra and Capricorn as well (the four cardinal signs; that is, the signs that begin each of the four seasons). The key phrase for the Aries Point is \u201cthe personal is political,\u201d meaning that when we have an astrological event in the early cardinal signs, we often find that world events affect us personally, or that our personal life is rippling out into the wider world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The general tone is one of investment and active engagement in some way — realizing that what we do makes a difference, and that we\u2019re ready to step up; or understanding that the world is not \u201cout there,\u201d but rather is intimately involved in our daily choices and actions.<\/p>\n

To have Mercury leaving its post-retrograde shadow phase and moving into its conjunction with Neptune on the same day the Sun enters Aries sends a clear message: the time is right to move on to some fresh ground yourself — mentally, creatively, consciously and physically. <\/p>\n

Where is that balance between getting lost in your fantasies versus using them as artistic fodder or channeling them into some real-world solutions? How do you participate in the world and your immediate community while staying connected to your more sensitive, subtle emotional and psychic forms of inner knowing?<\/p>\n

This is the task calling you to begin it today. You don\u2019t have to complete it today; but do consider taking that first step outside your comfort zone onto fresh ground. New growth will follow before you know it. This will matter in one month as we encounter the cardinal grand cross that is shaping up (which Planet Waves will continue covering in detail), but don\u2019t worry about getting ahead of yourself. Like the growth breaking new ground in the northern hemisphere this time of year, it\u2019s ok to start small.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sun enters Aries for the equinox today at 12:57 pm EDT — the first official day of spring in the northern hemisphere (autumn in the southern hemisphere). For much of the northeastern U.S., it has felt a long time coming after such a cold and snowy winter; and although the weather may take a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1734],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}