The Astrology of May and June features Mercury, Mars and Venus, with Uranus and Jupiter as well as Saturn and Pluto thrown in. Mars is leaving Cancer and entering Leo on May 9th and the New Moon precedes this moment by only a few days. At that time a our desire nature will be a focal point of our attention and also our unconscious actions. Since the New Moon also aspects Pluto and Chiron, patterns of behavior that we may be less than fully aware of will be up for recognition and potentially painful readjustment. It is important to keep our eyes wide open during this time and to pay careful attention to whatever comes up for us.

The other personal planets are also very much in the mix of energies swirling around us over this two-month period. Venus is involved in the Full Moon configurations of May and June, taking place around the middle of each month. After the Full Moon of May 19th, Venus begins to conjunct the Sun more closely, becoming most prominent a month later with the Full Moon of June 18th, when she enters Cancer and opposes Pluto just as the Sun and Moon in late Gemini and late Sagittarius emphasize this important transit. Since both Mars and Venus are highlighted in the current skies, relationship is fully up for us as well during this late spring timeframe.

Saturn stands still in the sky in its apparent motion on May 2nd and as it does, almost exactly trines Pluto in the first degree of Capricorn, continuing from last month. Saturn with Pluto implies that something has to give, in terms of the basic structures of our lives, as we saw during the fall of 2001 when they were opposed across the U.S. Ascendant and Descendant during the event that became known as 9-11. During the month of May, with the trine, we might expect a much more graceful passage. Even after Pluto moves backward into Gemini during early June, in our individual lives and in the progress of the country as a whole we may feel as though caught between a rock and a hard place, as the aftermath of 9-11 and the American response to it continues to unfold.

The other important outer planet station during May involves Jupiter, which goes retrograde on May 9th. As it does so, it sextiles Uranus, meaning that the cosmic epiphany represented by this energy – sudden realization combined with bold new ideas – is with us throughout May and for the first half of June as well. These two months will also be an important time of looking into our depths and entirely re-examining our relationship dynamics, because Venus is moving into exact opposition with Pluto around the time of the June 18th Full Moon. Chiron occupies the midpoint in this current configuration, meaning that old patterns of relationship that have ruled us from below the level of our awareness might be ready to yield more or less gracefully at this time.
Then, Mercury turns backwards beginning on May 26th, squaring Uranus almost exactly, which will color the entire period of the retrograde to follow with unexpected mental combinations all the way through June. Mercury with Uranus brings the unlikely ideation, revealing details of the architecture of the universe that we might normally be unaware of. As Uranus shines his lightening-like and fitful insight into the synchronicities of our lives, he brings the long arm of seeming coincidence into helpful aid for our understanding of cosmic principles. You might want to take a good look around you at whatever magical happenings seem to be taking place during this period, to catch the hidden meaning of these events. There will undoubtedly be lessons in figuring out where we are going and why that we can all prosper from.

ARIES (March 20-April 19) This is two-month period of getting even more serious about your opportunities as well as potential challenges, as you slowly come to a new form of accommodation to your destiny. Your work in the world begins to blend with your highest purpose for yourself as you are beginning to understand it. There has been serious movement on your part lately to find the key that will unlock your future self, and you will surely wind up a little closer as May unfolds. On into June, confusion reigns, so that it might help you to remember to ground yourself in your own process as much as possible. While easy is fun, what is difficult poses the more interesting questions and gives you the chance to rise above.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19)
This is an era of mixed celebration for you, and you are mostly just experiencing the joy of the moment. However, even as you relax into familiar feelings and look toward an expansive and creative future, you might also be taking a look behind you at some of the ways that you have been controlled or controlling in the past. It could be that old patterns of behavior will arise that have outlived their relevance for you currently, in order that you make an adjustment. On into June, you are likely pulling up your drawbridge to get more serious about tending to your own needs for the time. Any progress that you make with your issues during this reflective period will really seal the deal for the vibrant future that you have been contemplating and for which you are ultimately heading.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20)
There is nothing superficial about you right now, in spite of your reputation. Especially over this first month of May you are bursting into a new self-concept that takes your internal spaces far more seriously along the way to overt achievement. This is a changeful time, when you are finding your way through a maze of meanings to the very heart of your story. On into June, you are far more contemplative with the retrograde of your ruler, coming to terms with the fact that the inner world has much to share with the outer. Over the first half of the month, or more, you will struggle to integrate varying visions of what life could manifest for you, and you will find ease in your process the more you surrender to just being, without necessarily trying for any specific outcome.

CANCER (June 21-July 20)
This is a soulful period for you, when your self-fulfillment and your nurturing of others is coalescing into greater wholeness all around. This is also a great time to vision new possibilities for yourself into being; the month of May being the best chance that you will have all year to do so. Your perspective shifts are therefore quite valuable and timely, coming as they do in an era of expansion and morphing of your partnership patterns. On into June you are more fully aware that you are changing the way that you do relationship, ideally giving up your fears and choosing to breathe in the possibility of self-transcendence through the agency of important partners in your life. What a relief when you are not defined by either their criticism or their approbation.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21)
You have a date with destiny over this two-month period, but it’s going to take your heart as well as your head to get you there. Day-to-day concerns and issues of service to the greater collective that surrounds you have been on your mind lately, transcending your more ordinary thinking. In this first month you will make further strides along this important path as you rev up business and career decisions in a practical way that yet also has its subtle and mystical side. On into June, visualizing new possibilities and finding a cosmic sense of purpose becomes second nature through the subdued period of the Mercury retrograde. Partners are very helpful right now, allowing you to tune into the underground parts of yourself that are less than obvious but nevertheless vitally necessary if you are to see yourself whole and truly understand the task that you are facing.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21)
You are coming into your power over this two-month period, but slowly. You are the mighty tortoise that eventually wins the race rather then the superficially faster hare. The difficulties of this era and the trials that they represent must be taken into account if you are to actually cross the finish line. During May and the first two or three weeks of June you are gathering information for your process, and then and only then are you really ready to let your arrow fly. The beginning of June is exciting and filled with new workplace initiatives but you might find that more contemplation will help. It’s not so much a case of damn the torpedoes but of moving adroitly between them and letting their very energy inspire your process.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22)
You are in chrysalis form these days, getting ready to emerge as the new butterfly, and you find yourself reveling in your process of transformation. You are fully energized by the world at large right now, but in your own style and your own rhythm. Concerns of the home front predominate, and you might even detect old patterns of familial interaction and self-expression yielding to the necessity for change that you are beginning to more fully perceive. On into June you are reaping the rewards of your process not so much externally as on the inside. Though your waters run deep at this time they come to the surface powerfully when they do. You are engaging the world from the standpoint of your own deep center, and when you do that, and do it well, you are unshakable.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
This is a powerful period for you, in the midst of a powerful year. Partnership is a focal point right now and it leads you to considerations of family dynamics and also the way that you communicate, along the road to a better understanding of your mission statement and in what way you can most effectively plug yourself into the social order that surrounds you. Rather than being ground up by the gears and levers of the greater collective you are scheming your way to graduating from a mere cog in the machine to a fundamental factor in your world. On into June you are finding a way to integrate confusion and joy, letting go of being right in favor of just being. It’s not a secret because you’ve known it all along at some level, but you can move mountains when you decide to align yourself with the forces of Spirit.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20)
This is an important two-month period for you, when you are busy improving your outer-world style and substance, moving closer in the process to your soul’s true purpose. In a joyously healthy development, communication trauma that has arisen from the peer-to-peer interactions of early childhood may be fading into the woodwork to be replaced by more functional patterns of interaction. On into June, the ongoing revision of your values and your partnership dynamic allows you to slip into a more serious form of commitment. The remarkable degree of changeability in your life lately represents a mixed blessing. On the one hand your sense of sanctuary including financial security is fluctuating, while on the other, a log-jam may be breaking up that has been preventing meaningful growth, providing you breathing room for even more profound transformation than you have seen thus far.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19)
Your totally transformative year continues into this two-month period, and the pace of change may become if anything more pronounced. This is definitely a time of shifting values as you reinvent yourself yet again. Practical considerations may restrict your movement until you find the right combination of holding on and letting go. On into June you are likely to appear even more contemplative, the caterpillar that doesn’t look like much while going through its major changes. The perspective shift that allows you to embrace your deepest truth is developing in its own natural rhythm and you cannot expect instant miracles. What you can however expect is that your profound process of inner metamorphosis will mature over time, so long as you can get yourself out of your own way and allow the universe to quietly do its work on you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17)
You are finding new wine in old bottles these days. As the events accumulate and your changes continue, you are coming to greater awareness of an expanded sense of self that permits and even prefigures the possibility for spiritual transcendence. Your transformation may take many forms, not the least of which is tuning in to the still small voice of angel guides that you have not always chosen to heed. On into June you are reinventing yourself yet again, integrating inner and outer perspectives. Your self-worth is on the line, and remaining stuck in old patterns of interaction with others may be one way to safeguard it. But your world is changing, and allowing your soul to breathe new wisdom into your more normal set of operating instructions could be another.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19)
Communication with others in search of yourself is the name of your game over this two-month period, although you may also feel somewhat blocked from full partnership at this time, tending your own garden. You are currently opening up to new ways of being in the world that reflect your essentially forward-thinking values more accurately, and yet also take tradition firmly into account. On into June, deep reflection on your situation and on the psychological roots of your being leads you to reconsideration and reestablishment of familial and tribal connections that you have made over the years. You will find yourself more joyfully determined and more seriously playful as soon as you lose the sense of your own limitation that has perhaps prevented you from full participation with the world around you, up to now.