Paris, March 5, 2005, about 9:30 pm

Is anyone else feeling like hamburger, or perhaps sushi? As in, you, personally? Or perhaps on top of the world, but hyper-emotional?

There is some intense astrology cooking tonight: the Moon is setting off a grand cross aspect in the cardinal signs. A grand cross is when planets gather at 90-degrees to one another, at four points of the sky.

Quite honestly with all the action in Pisces, this one kind of snuck up on me. I saw the parts -- not the whole thing. It consists of: Vesta on the Moon's North Node in Aries; this is opposite Jupiter in Libra on the Moon's South Node. Then there is the Mars-Saturn opposition that is nearly exact across Cancer-Capricorn. Those are the slow movers. Those make up the main structure of the cross, in the cardinal signs -- the action-oriented ones; the hot ones.

Tonight, the Moon is blowing through Capricorn setting the whole business off. If you are feeling something, this may be a picture of it. Moon-Mars conjunct is exact at 6:46 am GMT, or 1:46 am EST or Saturday night at 10:46 pm in California. If you live in Australia, this occurs at 5:46 pm Sunday. Yes we all live on one planet, just a different space-time everywhere.

To make matters more interesting, the aforementioned Moon is closing in on the New Moon on the 10th and is now well into last quarter phase. It will make a shit-ton of conjunctions during the next five days, approaching Thursday's New Moon in Pisces, and this promises to make life interesting and, unless extreme care is taken to keep emotional balance, a bit difficult. So the key is to keep emotional balance; to know the potential difficult points, and to leave a wide margin of safety around yourself and your state of mind.

I would say that one of the best things you can do (metaphorically speaking) is get a hold of the Jupiter-Saturn square for some stability. This square is NOT exact. It will not be exact while Jupiter and Saturn are in their respective signs. Due to the retrograde patterns of both, the exact square, which occurs once every 14 years, will be from Jupiter in Scorpio to Saturn in Leo on Dec. 17 of this year. So to get hold of it, I would say try this imagery. There may be something in your life that is well on the way to coming to development, and you can trust how far that something has come; and when it finally meets, it will be a different color, but essentially the same thing at the right time.

So while we have a ways to go on such major developments, the current setup represents a pattern of preparation for what finally comes to fruition at or near the time of the square. Of course, two large planets will be changing signs right before, which will change the backdrop to much of life...and then the exact contact point of the square engages. Chiron-Nessus (now conjunct in Aquarius) are involved in the sign changes of Jupiter and Saturn; Jupiter will square this conjunction, and Saturn will oppose it. This is not a year of la-di-da. But I don't remember the last one of those.

Right now, this square is in 'almost' mode -- but almost is quite a lot of power at the moment, and it's in full force this evening. However, the most important almost you can be watching is how you feel. There is an edgy quality, and a lot of potential. Some people will be feeling quite strong and positive; the more emotional types may be just feeling a whole lot of something intense. There are a load of Pisces planets taking off the pressure, absorbing the energy in the cosmic ocean. By Thursday at New Moon, the whole scenario will be clear.

So be nice to Fish, and be nice to you!

Blessings and warmth,

    e