TAURUS (02 September US/Canada/UK/Europe - 03 September NZ/Australia)
With Mars gone from your work sector and the Sun and Mercury not returning until later in the month, you may find that some of your enthusiasm and motivation is waning, as you realise what a long road you've been on and how far there still is to go. Yet while it has been a long road to date this current slower patch is more about giving you a chance to pace yourself, with catching your second wind likely to come sooner than you think.
Monthly Overview
The Monthly Overview gives you an indication of the cosmic conditions for the month ahead. The heavens are in constant flux and by having an outline of the cosmic conditions you are better able to navigate and sail your way through these constantly changing conditions. You can't take the helm and become the master of your own destiny if you don't know what those conditions are. The cosmos is like a giant sea, with the planets creating energy waves that can make it seem that we really are being tossed around on life's seas. You wouldn't head out to sea without checking the weather forecast, so why head into a new month without checking the cosmic forecast?
September 2012
When I sit down to write this Overview on the conditions for September it’s with some reservations. I know what I need to tell you, but it’s finding adequate keywords to sum up the month as a whole that is a bit of a challenge. On one hand September is challenging, but on the other it’s exciting. It’s a month that you need to be aware of some fairly testing conditions, but also some real opportunities developing. So I guess this is really a mixed bag of a month, but also one that you need to brace yourself for without being overly concerned.
As I’m searching for the words to explain this complex month and at the time that I’m writing this, tropical storm Isaac has just become a Category 1 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and has New Orleans right in its crosshairs, on the 7thanniversary of hurricane Katrina, a devastating category 5 hurricane, where 1,800 people lost their lives. By the time you read this, this will have passed and we’ll all know the outcome, but from what I hear it’s nowhere near as severe as Katrina, but try telling that to the residents of New Orleans, who will be experiencing massive emotional triggers.
The reason why I’m mentioning this, is that as I’m listening all I can think is what a strong simile this is to the cosmic conditions this month, in that the challenges are very familiar, are likely to evoke massive emotional triggers, but also where the event itself is nowhere near as severe as it was in the past and how much more prepared the city and surrounding areas must be to deal with this, thanks to the lessons learned in the past. Yet at the same time this will be challenging and very tough for some people to deal with.
That we experience emotional triggers at all, those instant reactions when something that even feels similar to a challenge we’ve been through in the past evokes an emotional or physiological reaction, is a survival mechanism and if we didn’t have it, our ancestors would have continued to walk into danger and as a species we would have died out a long time ago. But we did survive, because we have amazing survival instincts, with all our receptors recording past challenges and dangers, alerting us to when they might be approaching again.
So expect some challenges this month and some old triggers, but in the logical part of your mind realise that they’re just doing their job and that you can take it from here.
So why challenging and what are those triggers? It actually began late last month, when the Sun moved into Virgo and into opposition with both Neptune and Chiron in opposing sign Pisces. What will make this more extreme is that on the 1st September New Zealand time (31st August for every other country in the world), the Sun and Moon will move into opposition, creating a Full Moon. Because there is already tension, when the Full Moon comes along it’s going to add fuel to the flame. It doesn’t help that Mercury moves into Virgo on the 1st September and he also moves into opposition with Neptune and Chiron. However, you will always have a Full Moon in Pisces at this time of year and the Sun and Mercury will always move through Virgo at this time of year and with Chiron in Pisces until 2019 and Neptune until 2026, for many years to come this will be an annual event.
It’s less the tension this will create, which will have run its course by the 5th September and more the old triggers, for it’s on the same ground that Mars moved into and out of opposition, multiple times during his 8 months in Virgo, from November 2011 to July 2012.
Yet with any pressure there are some real opportunities, for this is the first Full Moon in Pisces involving Neptune, planet of dreams and fantasies in our lifetime. Neptune is the ruler of Pisces and having only returned in February, apart from a few months last year, for the first time since the 1760’s and this is where he is at his strongest. So from any pressure or tension, is likely to come a lot of motivation. This is also a chance to resolve things that came to a head earlier in the year and after Mercury leaves Virgo on the 17th September and the Sun on the 23rd September, any tension will ease right back, allowing you to put this safely behind you.
Yet while the tension between the Pisces and Virgo ruled areas of your chart will drop off rapidly from the 5thSeptember, this isn’t the end of the tension and unfortunately it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but again in a way that is mainly going to be about old triggers.
What we have next is some layering, in that pressure will be coming from two different places, but having a similar impact. The underlying layer is the return of the Uranus/Pluto square that we experienced in June/July, with these two outer planets moving back into a tough aspect, from their positions in Aries and Capricorn. The difference between the oppositions that the Sun and Mercury are involved in, both between Virgo and Pisces earlier in the month and Libra and Aries later in the month, is that they are fast moving, happening annually and are both short and part of the annual pattern. When you get aspects between the outer planets, which are a lot slower, they last longer, are a lot more intense and impact everyone on the globe, creating global tension.
Uranus and Pluto will move back into their square aspect on the 18th September and while they will remain in this aspect until the 2nd October it will peak on the 19th September. This is not something that I’m particularly worried about, because squares can be extremely positive aspects, in that they push us to take action and to get things done. In this case, Uranus is putting pressure on Pluto, who turns direct on the 18th September and coming out of a 5 month retrograde phase, a bit of pressure is what things in the Capricorn ruled area of your chart probably need in order to get anything stuck moving. Back in June/July Uranus was at a near standstill ahead of his retrograde turn in Aries and Pluto was the mobile and therefore triggering planet and as the planet of change and revolution, this really stirred things up, especially as this was the first Uranus/Pluto square since 1934.
This time around Pluto is motionless, because he’s had to come to a standstill in order to turn direct on the 18thSeptember and Uranus, planet of surprise, synchronicity and the unexpected is the mobile and triggering planet. Because this is a repeat of the challenging aspect formed in June/July this is likely to create triggers and some tension.
What is going to exacerbate any tension is that Mercury’s return to Libra on the 17th September and the Sun’s on the 23rd September is going to put them into opposition with Uranus and into the same difficult square aspect to Pluto. For Mercury this will happen on the 20th/21st September and for the Sun on the 29th/30th September, right when Pluto and Uranus are locked into their square. What is going to add even more fuel to the fire is a Full Moon in Aries in the 30thSeptember.
Yes, this is going to create a lot of tension, but it begins on the 18th September and ends on the 2nd October, a period of just 14 days and a lot of what is felt is likely to feel worse than it actually is, bringing reminders of the more severe Saturn/Uranus oppositions of recent years.
Yet what excites me about these oppositions is that for too long, we’ve climbed one mountain only to find another one in front of us and then another and another, leaving us all wondering when it’s going to end. The answer is now, for the mountains you’re crossing this month are the last ones and there really is a light at the end of the tunnel and I’m not just talking about the challenges this year or of the last few years, but as far back as 2000.
On the 6th October, just 4 days after the tensions from the Uranus/Pluto square ease back Saturn will leave Libra and return to Scorpio, for the first time since 1985.
Even though Saturn is out of the firing range of the Uranus/Pluto square we’re experiencing this month, it was the Saturn oppositions of the past that have made us all so sensitive to this and as he spends his last full month in Libra this is the last mountain we have to climb, for when he returns to Scorpio it will be a very different experience, one that will see everyone finally emerge from not only some tough Saturn years, but a tough period in general.
At the moment the outer planets; Pluto, Neptune, Uranus and Chiron are all over on one side of the sky, stretched out between Capricorn and Pisces and that has been the case for several years and while they may change signs, one has moved on only for another to take its place, this has impacted everyone on the globe since 2000.
In August 2000 Saturn moved into Gemini and that is when Saturn’s and our troubles started, for at the time Pluto was in opposing sign Sagittarius. This set the scene for a series of Saturn oppositions with the outer planets, the first since the 1960s that really came to a head in 2001 but didn’t really dissipate until 2003. Since then Saturn has moved through Cancer, Leo, Virgo and now he’s in his final month in Libra and during that time he has moved into opposition with all of the outer planets and as he’s left one sign he’s swapped where the Saturn oppositions fall, but not the Saturn oppositions themselves. Since 2000 Saturn, as he moved from sign to sign and from area of your chart to area of your chart, has moved into opposition with Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter and Chiron, creating 12 years of Saturn oppositions. It’s because the outer planets are located in such a narrow range of the sky right now, just a few signs wide and because they move so slowly that Saturn had to run the gauntlet, opposing with all of them before emerging out the other side, something that will take him from August 2000 to October 2012 to achieve.
When Saturn returns to Scorpio on the 6th October there will be no planets in opposing sign Taurus and there’ll be no major planetary activity there until 2019, long after Saturn’s gone from Scorpio. The same will be true for not only years but decades to come. The Sun, Mercury and Venus will always move into opposition with Saturn once a year, as will Mars once every 2 years and even Jupiter once every 12 years. These aren’t the major Saturn oppositions that have dominated the last 12 years; that linger for weeks and sometimes months, never quite going off the boil and are instead simply part of the natural pattern that will always repeat year after year and are the norm and won’t play out for the first time until May 2013.
History has periods of instability and these are usually around the times when Saturn is in major conflict with the outer planets. We saw this in the 1960’s and we’re seeing it again, for a more extended period.
While we have oppositions this month they are not Saturn oppositions and despite how the pressure feels this month, is the tail end of something much stronger, that is behind us. It will create a lot of triggers and just like the citizens of New Orleans when you say that Isaac is only a category 1 hurricane and not a category 5 hurricane that they shouldn’t panic, try quashing down all those old fears, stresses and tensions. It’s only after the fact, when you see that yes this wasn’t pleasant, that you'll see that it wasn’t a repeat of the past.
Saturn’s return to Scorpio will mark the start of a much more stable era, with the next major Saturn opposition not coming until 2055, in another 43 years time, when the first 12 years of the new millennium will be as much a part of history as the 1960’s now are.
Yet we don’t have to wait until October to get a taste of this new era for Mars, the warrior planet of the cosmos and the planet that gives us our drives and our passions is already in Scorpio, as is the North Node, that returned on the 30thAugust.
With Venus returning to colourful and creative Leo on the 7th September and a New Moon in Virgo on the 17thSeptember, there is a lot of excitement this month as well and any challenges and tensions are likely to seem worse than they are, coming and going relatively quickly and unlikely to leave the same mark that previous challenges left.
Your Individual Monthly Horoscope Reports detail how this will play out in your chart and all rest of the exciting details of this changeover month. September is always the time of the Spring/Autumn equinox, which occurs when the Sun moves into Libra on the 23rd September and as the seasons change so too do the cosmic conditions.
Anne Macnaughtan
