The hammer and the sword

As the New Moon gets closer, an old cycle is being wrapped up.  A new intention may be set for the coming month, but the repercussions of decisions, particularly action taken on those decisions are more far reaching because a new 2.5 year period is being initiated at the same time that requires unprecedented clarity.
 If I were astrologer to the politicians I would tell them to watch themselves very closely, because a poorly motivated plan is going to boomerang, and will be a bitch when it does.  Aggression is less appropriate than ever, and action taken from unclear motives at this time are bound to produce disappointment at best.
This is  period when it is vital to approach decisions with consciousness of harmony instead of self interest, progress instead of profit, being honest about what is needed without smokescreens.  Shame has to be confronted,  fear as well, and the masks, once ripped off, reveal only a mirror.  We are all more connected than we know.

Mars handcuffed to Saturn

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting tired of the cosmic hammer.  Here in NH we have been having the perfect summer.  It's a rare thing.  Not too hot, not too cold, no long stretches of any kind of uncomfortable weather, but cosmically, energetically, it has been another story.  The cardinal cross which has danced around between being a T square to a complete cross depending on the faster moving planets, all the switching around with retrogrades has been  dizzying.  We are coming up on the Mars-Saturn conjunction in unforgiving Scorpio this week, so between the fire and the hammer, the sword and the anvil, I get an image of tempering.  Also, how important it is to the next phase to keep our tempers.  This will apply globally of course, the US chart [ I use the time recorded on our money, 2:22pm, giving the US a Scorpio ascendent.   The US is nothing if not dogged, relentless and unforgiving.  With Saturn going through our collective hose of masks, and now being joined by Mars, the activator and producer of results, we could see some severity arising and acting out based on rigidly held positions.  Personally, this next couple of weeks requires discipline and simplicity, as well as unflinching taking of responsibility.  This is all arising with the Virgo New Moon, it's a requirement that we recalibrate our intentions for the new cycle.  Saturn is always more benevolent when worked with rather than against.

short

This last New Moon we just had was less subtle than New Moons often are, distributing fireworks and determination that we can draw on for another 10 days.  Today, tomorrow and the day after are the times when the invitation is to not get stuck in a particular attitude, not by being dogged or bloodyminded, but by accepting responsibility for how one gets where one is.  There is a series of decisions that went into creating the present situation.  To change circumstances those decisions have to be acknowledged or they will hover in the background, affecting the development of anything new.