Maya del Mar's Daykeeper Journal: Astrology, Consciousness and Transformation
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M A Y  2 0 0 3
M O N T H L Y   A S T R O L O G I C A L   I N F L U E N C E S

May, Aggressive and Pushy, Stay Aware

by Maya del Mar

May will be an aggressive, pushy month, where we are concerned with getting and keeping "ours," whatever we consider that to be. It is also a month of building—again building our thing, whatever it is we need to build on whatever level we’re working.

The personal and the universal are in conflict this month, and perhaps for this reason there will be much secrecy and operating behind the scenes. Money is a big thing, and it will be accumulating somewhere, for somebody. With Mercury retrograde in Taurus for much of the month, we will be re-evaluating our priorities, and how we use our resources to manifest them. For instance, people all over are talking about needing more time off the wheel, more time to spend with family and with their own activities. People may choose to work less, spend less, and have more time. Or, on the other hand, to work more to pay for that home or car they need or want.

Freedom of speech is another issue that is up now. A particular focus during May is the huge new re-organization of broadcasting by the Federal Communications Commission which threatens what little variety and local expression now exists. The channels are by law owned by the people, but in fact they are mostly corporate-owned. The new proposal encourages media consolidation, which would make the media even more of a corporate-government arm than it is now.

I see a greater consciousness that death can occur in any moment, and with it a greater value of the preciousness of life. This value will determine many of our choices this month. The spiritual dimensions are closer, at the same time as we’re totally involved in the earth plane.

We have much help to move through major changes, for there are two eclipses in May. Eclipses open new doors, and close old ones. They give us a big lift towards the direction in which we’re already moving. There is also a rare passage of Mercury over the Sun, and an occultation of Venus by the Moon, both of which also introduce change. Mercury is the planet of communication, and Venus relates to values and desires, including money.

The fixed signs star this month. In general, this is an indication of working with resources to establish a stable power base. Fixed signs also resist change, so resistance will be a characteristic of the month.

Taurus, sign of the month, is one of the fixed signs. The others are Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. All planets in fixed signs will be especially moved, and the personal growth of people with Sun in a fixed sign will be especially stimulated.

Jupiter is now traveling direct in Leo, and ready to take a leap into new creative adventures. Juno is fairly stationary in Scorpio, working to ally with power and willing to endure abuse. She is the victim of the zodiac. Juno and Jupiter, Queen and King of the gods, are now square in the heavens, working at cross-purposes. Weather disturbances, both drought and flood, are likely to be indicators of the stress between this couple.

Mars and Neptune are both traveling through Aquarius, promoting idealism and reform. Mars will instigate struggles for power and supremacy, especially during the first half of the month. Neptune in Aquarius can elevate us to a high level of humanitarian concern, as well as carry us into illusion (and oil).

By May 15, at the time of the Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio, Mars will have joined a stationary Neptune—and the Neptunian veil descends anew, enhanced by Jupiter’s opposition to Neptune at the Solar Eclipse at the end of the month.

With such an active Neptune, the propaganda barrage will surely be excessive. Try turning off your TV for awhile just for a mental vacation. TV is the great mind control tool of the U.S. corporate-run Administration. Mercury itself, the energy of perception, runs into shady Neptune twice this month. We can use that energy to create our own images of a better world, instead of being sucked into the prevailing propaganda. How would you really like to live? What can you do to move closer to that ideal?

The practical earth energy needed for building, whether it be a business, a home, or a body, is strong now. Saturn, the Builder, is in its final month of its turbulent two and one-half-year journey through Gemini, asking us to complete our current building projects, especially in the field of communication.

Saturn can also be an "unbuilder" now, because of its stressful square with Vesta for the entire month, exact on May 23. And also because of Mercury retrograde in Taurus. Investments built on a house of cards may come tumbling. However, investments in some form of health or service may do well, for Vesta is in the sign of Virgo. She makes a grand earth trine with the Taurus North Node, a point of destiny, and the U.S. Pluto, the signature of the U.S. plutocracy. This augurs well for U.S. corporations to make a mint from the rebuilding of Iraq. Vesta in fact conjoins Dick Cheney’s own Neptune, the oil planet, for the entire month.

The proposed FCC rules will be a major platform this month, and a major opportunity for action to promote diversity in communication. Web sites for more information are www.media-alliance.org and www.fcc.gov.

May is always an important month for Israel and Palestine, and we can expect tumult and changes in that hot zone.

Periods which are especially active are May 7-8, May 11-15, and May 23-27. The last week of May, after Sun enters Gemini and Mercury turns direct, will be easier.

Degrees most stimulated include 10-14 degrees of the fixed signs, and 24-30 degrees of the fixed signs.

Mutable sign planets in 27-30 degrees will be especially activated. Those final degrees in a sign means it’s time for completions. The mutable signs are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces.

Chiron, nearly stationary at 18 Capricorn, will inspire all cardinal planets at that degree. Cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.

All of these degree ranges are, in general, particularly significant. This means that important events occur around them.

With many fixed squares, and a Mercury retrograde in a fixed sign, May will be a difficult month. At the same time, the late degrees and the eclipses will provide space for completions and breakthroughs.

May is the last big push-through of the last two years, which encompasses the first stage of the work of the Bush administration, as well as the opposition to it. End of year transits will tidy up loose ends for all of us, again through eclipse changes.

In June we start a new energy deal, much more emotional and much less mental. And the U.S. begins a difficult two and one-half year period of Saturn transiting its great Cancer-Capricorn axis.