Newsletter Number One -- January 11, 2006

Welcome to the first issue of the AstroCocktail Newsletter! For those of you who have been waiting for some time as we put everything together, thanks for your patience.

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So here we go, with good news for spring and an astrological explanation of just why the fall was so fractious and the coming six months have much friendlier potential…

The Trines Of Spring

The period of November through January was marked by a grueling set of grand fixed crosses, making progress slow and frustrating, compounded by Mars and then Venus retrograde. For a lot of people, it seemed like it would never end. Spring and summer promise to go the other way, however, with four smiling grand water trines pivoting on Jupiter and Uranus, along with two sets of grand air and fire trines off Neptune and Pluto, concentrated between April and July.

So, by comparison to the previous fall-winter, spring-summer 2006 will be a breeze, full of pregnant possibilities and beckoning opportunities that promise easy gain. It seems too good to be true, but it isn’t. It’s really happening, even when it doesn’t seem like it. Although there are always pockets of disaster waiting to ensnare the unwary, in general when you roll the dice, your number's more likely to come up than it was before. Of course, if you don’t play, it won’t pay, so it’s time to get in there and play the game, even if you’re a little gun-shy after a 2005 of unmitigated snafus and reversals.

Grand Crosses

Before looking at the exact dates, signs, and degrees involved in this lovely turnaround, let’s take a look at how it happens to begin with, and why it tends to repeat itself. A grand cross, two oppositions set at right angles, like an X in the sky, most often happens when two slow-moving planets are either in opposition or at right angles and then the faster Sun and Moon come along and briefly fill out the cross. It tends to last a day at the most, then it’s gone. When, more rarely, three slower planets get themselves into a T-square – an opposition with a mutual right angle – then there’s already trouble afoot, since by itself it makes for difficulties. And then, once a month, the Moon fills out the opposite side of the T making it a cross. Most rare of all is when four slow moving planets all work themselves into a cross and then the Moon simply pulses it, hitting one of them every week, like rubbing salt into a wound. That’s what happened last fall, when a slow T-square of Neptune, Saturn, and retrograde Mars, was filled out first briefly by Mercury in late October, then the Sun, and finally at length Jupiter forming a grand cross that just hung there for months, every week further aggravated when the Moon hit one of the four currently involved and intensified the effect. It was a pounding, indeed, eleven manifestations in all, the last coming on January 15th, just after Full Moon.

November 1 grand cross that stirred riots all over France, the beginning of a long series

Grand Trines

Grand trines form more easily and often, as all it takes is one big, slow trine to get filled in briefly by the Moon once a month for a fleeting grand trine for a day, or perhaps the Sun filling in and making it last a week or so. It’s more unusual to have three slow-moving planets all making an equilateral triangle in the sky and remaining for longer. This spring’s grand trine activity begins with Jupiter and Uranus in trine being filled in by Mars, lasting for three whole weeks, with three pulses of the Moon adding to it. When Mars moves on, then Mercury moves in to fill its place, then the Sun, and then Venus, each for a week or so, with the Moon as an add-on along the way, right into August. In between, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus form other grand trines around Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn, all putting a positive spin on those sometimes troublesome slow planets. Just like the rolling grand crosses of the fall, the grand trines of the spring tumble from one player to the next, handing off opportunity to opportunity, and all you have to do is chase them along as they happen.  There are more than two dozen separate occurrences all told, some happening two at a time at a dizzying pace.

Does this mean that everything just falls into your lap? Maybe, but probably not. Transiting aspects are really just sets of opportunities to do something, make something happen – and when you do, that action has its own horoscope. Those daily action horoscopes (whether it be a contract, a marriage, a purchase, the birth of a child) were pretty tense last fall, so it was wise to lay low and only move when you had to, since the results of your moves were likely to be troublesome. When you do something this spring, with all those trines, the horoscopes of each of your actions, decisions, and involvements -- the little “children” you create just by starting something -- tend to be really favorable and it’s easy to move ahead with them. So, it’s nice weather up in the sky for a change, but you won’t benefit if you don’t go out and play in it.

Begun April 26, Mars-Jupiter-Uranus grand trine adds Moon, plus Mercury opp May 12

Not everybody gets an equal piece of the action, either. If the grand trines involved fall on your chart, you’re more likely to be the first to get invited into the game or even get pushed into the pool without asking. Where it hits your chart tells you the way and the area in which if affects you, but even if you don’t have a copy of your own natal horoscope, you know that it’s going to hit you if your birthday falls around the degree areas of the trines, a few days on either side of November 7, March 5, July 7 (the biggest trine is on your Sun) or anytime in 1994, 1982, 1970, 1958, 1946-47, 1935, 1923 (it’s your Jupiter return). 

For dates to make hay with in general, the individual grand trines fall on: 

March 8, 15, 19
April 4, 16, 26 (lasts until 5/17)
May 5, 12, 29
June 7 (lasts until 6/13), 25, 26 (lasts until 7/10)
July 3, 5, 17, 24 (lasts until 8/1), 28
August 1, 2, 13, 18
September 9

Check out our daily astro-ephemeris/calendar to see the individual planets and their exact positions as each date approaches.

The Future Is On Its Way -- Which Side Are You On?

But of course this, too, shall pass, and by the fall we’re back with all the planets generally moving in opposition to Saturn and thus return to more challenges, an ongoing trend finally ending in 2008. That end, in fact, is part of a bigger picture that has been periodically painted across the skies which includes long periods of prosperity, change, and even war, depicted by the rhythm of Saturn with the outer planets and the repeating patterns they paint. A look at that will tell you which side of history you’re on – and thus, hopefully, which side to take. But that’s for next time…

And finally, a word from our sponsors [that’s us, no one else!]:

Don’t forget our wonderful selection of astrological reports -- they’re illuminating, helpful all year long, and they make great gifts -- and they're on sale now!

-- John and Susan Townley