Here’s what to watch for:
* Mercury in its fall and exile in Pisces moving into a square with Mars in Sagittarius points toward the possibility for conflicting points of view, muddled communication, passionate rhetoric that may become distorted or egotistical, and divisive and/or cathartic thinking.
* It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees when we come to places of disagreement with one another. When confronted with a vision or perspective that is challenging or different from our own, it’s easy to quickly reduce, eliminate, or dismiss ideas that are different from our own as absurd, misguided, ignorant, or reflective of someone’s “personal” shortcomings or unconscious complexes. It’s difficult to really sit back and listen. We tend to hear and react, hear and react. And then our responses, however intellectually sound they may appear, bear the mark of our ego’s defensiveness rather than our heart’s openness.
* Sometimes we think that we will be liked or loved if we can convince others that our ideas, personal experiences, expertise, or “authority” are correct, superior, or legitimate. Other times, we think that we will be liked or loved if we simply sacrifice our personal opinions, ideas, and experiences. Sometimes we give away some actual piece of authority that we might have in life simply because we don’t want to risk someone not liking us.
* The ego often plays tricks on us surrounding “good intentions,” as well. Sometimes we “act like a good person” because we want to be loved or liked, by others, by God, etc. We can become brilliant method actors, and we can learn to look the part and speak the perfect spiritual sounding dialogue. But underneath, if it’s all about our ego’s need to be number one, then all we’re doing is hiding, ashamed, and selfish…a miserable mess of self-focus and self-loathing at once. Ouch! On the other hand, sometimes we truly don’t value ourselves enough, when all along our heart, our soul, our spirit, the spark of the divine that lives in our hearts, is calling out and saying, “Hey! I need and want you to be in service to me above everything else. I’m not asking you to treat me like someone who looks at you and scolds you or judges how well you act or look like a spiritual person. I’m asking you to think less about how you look and more about what I need from you, which is your full, radiant, spectacular love and attention.”
* Because it turns out that when we put our egos (our actions, thoughts, and life) in the service of the divine spark that lives in our hearts, we get back exactly what we give. The relationship is reciprocal. As the neuroscientists tell us, the place in our brain where we feel and experience love cannot tell the difference between giving it and getting it, even though they are separate activities. The result of learning to give love is learning to receive love. But it doesn’t happen on an intellectual level. The more we intellectualize these things the more we end up method acting.
* When Mercury squares Mars we will be put to the test. We may be exposed as method actors specifically because we are caught in the act. We try too hard to convince someone, to be right, to look the part, to say the right things, or we fail to have enough backbone, we fail to speak the truth out of fear, or we collapse under the weight of what people might think of us if we come from the heart. Forgiveness and patience of mind, speech, and action are therefore key right now. Listening is paramount.
* We are capable of having loving and intelligent minds at the same time. It is actually possible. When we don’t believe it’s possible we often act and speak one way in front of some people and then collapse into jerk mode privately or fall into gossip behind our co-workers’ backs, etc.
* As the Sun and Neptune get together the full Moon in Virgo will be coming through. We have an opportunity to open our hearts and minds, to recall that unspeakable love that is so much bigger than us and yet living within us, always with us, always in need of our conscious attention. In the midst of this Neptunian Full Moon, there also comes the call to practical action, practical usefulness, skill development, and earthy service. Watch and listen for the call of the Virgin, the humble Harvest Maiden in the days ahead. She is standing now at the foot of a great ocean, calling us home, one step and one helping hand at a time.
Prayer: Bring our hearts and our minds together. Make our lives an intelligent and authentic expression of real love.
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