Sept 29 2009

Notice anything different? Mercury went direct. The collective sigh of relief should be followed by a week of so of cautious optimism as, stiction days will still be with us for the next week or so. Think of overlapping waves, and think of a slowly swinging pendulum. At the upper end of each swing it slows down before reversing direction. Likewise, the relative motion between Earth and Mercury passes through phases of forward, stiction, reverse, stiction, repeat. The stiction phases overlapping with the "actual" retrograde can in some ways be less fun and more troubling than the "pure" retrograde, but like the stillpoints of the Solstice times, one can perceive such shifts as today.

Moon in Aquarius starts off the day inconjunct Venus and opposite Vesta, but then, of course, moves on. Possibility of really needing demonstrative affection, assurance. Moon will begin a sweep conjunct the Jupiter/Chiron/Neptune trio in the afternoon (PDT) and continue through the night. At the same time, Moon will be inconjunct Saturn and Mercury, so it is possible that all those great insights and ideas may fumble a bit on articulation and expression. Broken record: the Pluto T-square of upheaval is still with us.

The Birthcard of the day is the emotionally powerful Eight of Hearts, a Neptune implementation of a Jupiter core, with a Seven of Spades inside and a Seven of Hearts outside. Various examples of expression of this Birthcard are Theodore Roosevelt, Susan Lucci, Robert Bly, JFK Jr, Richard Gere, Christina Applegate, Joe DiMaggio, Madeline Kahn, Itzhak Perlman, Harry Shearer, and the one and only John Cleese.