This week

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Wednesday is the night in question as it brings a Full Moon right next to Pluto and a simultaneous contretemps between this unforgiving demolition ball of the zodiac and pretty-in-pink Goddess of Love and Matronliness, Venus. There’s more to come Friday as we feel a secondary tremor in a contretemps between the Sun and Pluto PLUS the delays and general frustrations associated with Mercury’s return to direct action. In astrology an opposition has the same pendulum-swingin’ energy as a seesaw. You can choose one extreme or the other – or you can find the balance and access the energy of both planets and create a new evolving hybrid. This week will be an icky affair if you let it. Or it can be a chance to become a better you. If you can try to resist making the other person/people wrong and instead shine a light on your own part in the shortcomings. Happy solstice!

Aries
This week the Thing that you have been refusing to say vis love and your general plans for the future may begin to boil over on the stove of your dreams. It may even be that the words of a friend and a boss/someone you respect hit a nerve that you have been secretly keeping wrapped in cotton wool in a box under the stairs. Feelings that begin to bubble in the face of innocent, passing words is a CLUE that this Nerve has been Uncovered. Do you feel that you are not being heard / understood / told the Whole Story in a particular area of life and as a result your impatience and sense of impotence are reaching a mini crisis point..? If the issue actually involves the friend/boss/person you respect then clear the air by all means. However a clearing of the air which leaves eardrums ruptured and the local constabulary arriving with a noise abatement order is quite a different kettle of neeps. If, however, the words of the friend are in fact simply an unwitting poke at the nerve which then unleashes an inner coiled spring in you about Your Stuff, then You absolutely have to Own It. Why have you been so weak? By the weekend your temper will have dissipated and you’ll be e-m-b-a-r-r-a-s-e-d at the kerfuffle that came flying out your cakehole. Monday week and you ruler Mars is metaphorically held under the bathwater by Neptune. Where it comes to children, lovers, and creative ventures a reality check is in order. See things as they are, not how you want/imagine them to be.

Taurus
There is another way. Venus’s annual opposition to Pluto [I said annual] coincides this year with Pluto’s return to your 8th house of sex, death and taxes ie ‘letting go’. The fact that it’s happening on the Same Day as the Full Moon – and while the Moon is holding hands with Pluto - and that this is all followed two days later by a Sun – Pluto opposition and we can surmise five things. (1) Eesa gonna be uncomfortable. (2) If you haven’t already done so, a 20/20 view of one of your own self-sabotaging behaviours is back in the frame triggered by an immoveable object ie tricky person. (3) That this time round, with the energy of the Full Moon in the mix, you absolutely have no choice but to See this Behaviour in all its fruitlessness – but can you calmly accept that it is of no service to you and therefore consign eet to de bin? (4) On Friday a situation will arise (possibly also with this tricky person) which challenges your behaviour/ decisions/words of Wednesday. The key here is to stall all further discussions until Tuesday next week without appearing to be an egomaniacal/defensive tosspot. (5) The weekend will be a very apt time for a drink... So, Bull. It’s a tricky week in store but there’s gold in them thar hills. One of the underlying nuggets shows what you have absorbed from your Ma’s modus operandi when it comes to standing up for one’s self out in the world. How do you do it? Do you feel equal to all those around you? This week walk the walk. Keep your ego stoic and fair and where necessary, try behaving with more self-worth / less fear and defensiveness than your Mum.

Gemini
Pluto’s return to your 7th house of lovers and bizniz partners at the weekend has already begun sparking off some of your oldest demons, childhood traumas, and memories of broken-heartedness. To follow this painful trip on the Ghost Train of the past, Wednesday’s Full Moon with its Plutonian flavour and the simultaneous opposition to Venus, the planet of love, brings in an air of an emotional brick wall being reached with force after a long, long time. Astrobabble has asked before, how and why you do allow yourself to be a doormat? And how and why do you have an inexplicable addiction to someone or something whose sole purpose seems to be to beat you over the head about the very things you dislike most about yourself? Pluto’s return brings these big and lingering gremlins right back in your face and they won’t leave in a hurry. There they are in the mirror, popping out of the toaster, sitting next to you on the bus. With your heart and ego at stake your strongest urge may be to cut out the middle man, to beat yourself up for a change. That is one way for sure. The other is to let all info percolate until after Mercury’s retrograde ends on Friday then schedule talks for the weekend or better yet middle of next week to see whether there is a middle way. Fearful as you are, watch out for puffing your ego up to the size of a house as a way of pretending you don’t hurt; Pluto is in charge here and your ego will be suddenly deflated to the size of a pea that has been left in the sunshine if you run from the Truth. Pluto has the Power. He sez here’s the fear now deal with it as Yourself, not as a puffed up/beaten up version of yourself.

Cancer
The thunderclaps are coming but whereas a week ago you would likely have run for the nearest rock flapping and scriking, this week you feel more able to face it. As the Sun and Venus head your way bringing with them confidence, happiness and a renewed sense of, “I’m alright I am. I’m doing alright, me…” they face a dressing down from Pluto at the front gate to your reef. A work or health issue which has been keeping you up at night and which you have been dreading as if it’s the spider to your inner Little Miss Muffet demands to be faced and dealt with N-O-W NOW. Meep. All this and a big scoop of Full Moon crazy in the same spot.... Let’s just say Wednesday may not be your favourite of days. But before you scuttle for that rock, let’s unpack the puzzle. Whatever this pressing need is it’s holding you back, impinging on your freedom, and pouring cold, mouldy semolina on your sense of positivity. The forthcoming arrival of the Sun, Venus and the New Moon in your sign augurs in a time of good things, good timings, and things going your way. Try and stall whatever it is until after June 23rd as Mercury will be heading forwards by then. Likewise anytime just after July 3rd (your annual New Moon) or 11th (as Mercury moves from your murky 12th to sunlit 1st house) look more favourable. You’re heading into a time of changes to do with plans overseas, spiritual evolution, and/or long-term ambitions. If this ‘dread’ is a stepping stone on the way to that tangible Utopia then it needs to be sorted.

Leo
The Big Noise for you this week falls in your 5th house of love affairs, creative ting, and bebes where Pluto, the weighty kick-boxer of the skies has recently returned. Triggered by the Full Moon he shouts first at Venus ie your attachment to love tings, and then at the Sun, ie your attachment to your ego. It seems the high hopes you have had for a certain squeeze / creative project / off-spring have not been based on hard facts but rather wishful thinking and when this truth comes to light it hits an old, raw nerve and sends you diving for relics in deep, stormy seas with an air of indignation and high dudgeon as if the Problem is Entirely Theirs. Yet you know, for all your bluster and scuba diving equipment, it is not so. Ego shmeego. If you can accept that this week’s timely yet harsh revelation is merely a yardstick for measuring your progress from The Worst of Where you’ve been to Where You Are now then you will be using these times for the best. Picture yourself say five years from now and you’ll see yourself as a confident, groovy, accepting kind of cat. In the present moment you are already pure, fresh, strong, and undamaged. You just haven’t realised it yet. Through the weekend and into Monday Mars in your sign faces up to Neptune, Lord of drugs, drink, underwater bleariness, addiction and creativity. If you find yourself growing angry because you believe you or someone close to you has no grip on reality ask yourself this: is your anger helping to make things any better?

Virgo
For the next two weeks Mars’s on-going transit through your deep soul-searching 12th house of fear leaves you somewhat at the mercy of the changing winds. The good that can come from this is a chance to see who or what is for ye or agin ye in your present life which in turn can lead to acceptance that you can and will jettison these things once your confidence starts to return on July 2nd. Twinned with the on-going retrograde of Mercury your ruler this week the best you can do for now is to Wait It Out and to Say Nothing or at least Be Diplomatic. The ructions of the Pluto and Full Moon oppositions to the Sun and Moon stir old wounds concerning home and family and how they impinge upon career and your own sense of success. To put it another way we’re looking at the conflict between what you have inherited from your Mother through nature and nurture and how that hamstrings you when reaching for the other pole; namely the successes/ authority/father approval that we all so deeply crave. How did your Mother proceed in the world? What was so right or so wrong about it? As the planetary dogfights hit this week their effects on you may not be so obvious as doe-eyed neediness. It may be the opposite; holding it all in with an I-Can-Cope-With-Anything sense of purpose when in actual fact you want to break just like a woman and cry just like a little girl, Bob. (Or admit that you’re flailing and get drunk with friends and fall down.) Over the weekend and next Monday trust no-one’s work or health diagnosis and offer none yourself. Neptune is smothering Mars in an eddy. Wait until Wednesday when you’ll be seeing in a straight line again.

Libra
A weakness in the way you express yourself comes to light this week as you see how it has confounded your own cherished plans for the future. Angry is not the way. Shouting is not the answer. Blaming the other person will get you Nowhere Fast. Intense as the realisation is, if you trace the snafu back to its original deviation from the path of your desires, you will find that in the discussions that took place you were less than crystal, not calmly assertive enough, not pedantic enough with the finer detail. Why were you so lily-livered in the first place? To blame a chef for serving up a well-done steak because you didn’t clearly state your penchant for a bloody mess on a plate is nonsensical. Why would you be angry at someone else when you are to blame - unless of course you’re too cowardly to act with humility... Your ego is at stake of course, but if you can stand back from the Full Moon crazy, ask yourself honestly who would you respect more – the person who says, “Sorry it was my fault,” (because it actually was) or the shouting, angry coward? If you can suck it up you’ll find that discussions are re-opened next week and things can be resolved in your favour. Burn your bridges now and that daquiri on the beach of your long distant dreams when it finally does arrive will taste like battery acid. Finally, while you’re on ego patrol, this weekend and into Monday keep a watch out for some porkie pies from you / your lovers to one another. It seems your/their ardour for ardour is making you/them hear/say/do things that aren’t strictly truthful.

Scorpio
Your ruler Pluto clashes this week with Venus and then the Sun suggesting that relationships with lovers and some harsh truths about your own contribution to certain ‘issues’ are up for a bout in the ring. While there’s a positive power to be found in air-clearing and getting things out in the open, the Full Moon’s part in the proceedings is going to raise the intensity to System Overload and the verbal punches may be a leeetle extreme and egos a leetle dented. The issues concern money and possessions and perhaps a difference in opinion about how much they matter, are used, spent, treated… Neptune in your house of home and family opposes Mars in your 10th house of success into the weekend and early Monday bringing with it a slightly skewed inner-conflict as your head screams, “Go! Go!! Go!!! Career! Shine! Take the helm!” But your body curls up on the sofa and hugs a pillow. How to get to da bottom of dis? The 4th and 10th are considered to be the influences of your Ma and Pa respectively. So. How are the values of your Ma and Pa shaping your aspirations and behaviours in the here and now – and how much of that is valid? Conversations in the wake of Wednesday’s prize fight and this Ma and Pa query are best left until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. And by then Mercury, the planet of chat, will have turned direct and your mouths can be motoring about the future again.

Sagittarius
It’s a big week Archer where relationships are concerned. Pluto and the Full Moon in your first house of You make a direct ‘What-You-Looking-At’ angle to Venus and the Sun forcing a ‘point’ and confronting an ‘issue’ vis your love and your ego head on. Worst case scenario is that a biiig simmering row-ette reaches boiling point and the end of the line is reached. Best case scenario is that in a-feeling-the-fear-but-doing-it-anyway moment of glory you take the plunge with a spezial long-term somebooody. Changes on the home-front are starred so these decisions will have profound effects with a moving in or moving out flavour in the coming few weeks. Mercury’s on-going retrograde in your 7th house of squeezes means it would be good, once the emotions and intensity have abated, to gently thrash out the details whether it’s splitting the CD collection or joint decisions and compromises on who gets which wardrobe and where the dog will sleep. The sharp Mars – Neptune spat at the weekend from your 3rd to your 9th house means that in trying to pretend you are being compromising and diplomatic you in fact become a walk-over OR rigid and self-serving in a passive-aggressive way. STOP right there. Meet on Wednesday next week when you’ve gathered your thoughts and can be completely honest. Venus and the Sun’s forthcoming ingress into your house of letting go means it’ll be easier than you thought to settle into your changing life.

Capricorn
As Pluto sunk back into your 12th house at the weekend, a fear which revealed your vulnerability and impotence in a particular situation or two raised its head above the parapet. After the power, control, over-excitement, over-expansion, and possible self-righteousness you’ve been experiencing since your birthday the swing of this pendulum has been a shock and try as you might you cannot resolve the situation without a commitment to change. What Pluto is here to show you is what it feels like when the boot is on the other foot – the dramatic difference between tyranny and impotence - and harsh as this lesson is and high as the price you are paying to learn it may be - the returns for your pain will be swift. By Saturday 21st a new path opens up to you, most likely involving love and emotional commitment, but potentially also concerning money. This may not be wedding bells but rather a new, shiny commitment from You to You vis your emotional stability and happiness in the future. It’s the middle road for you and if you can accept this truth, never again will you be at the whims of your own up-down, high-low, everything-nothing ego. Foreign and long-term commitments made now are well-starred. The thunderbolt of last weekend and the aftershocks in this forthcoming week are to help prise your fingers away from the old ways so you can wave them bye bye and emerge from the chrysalis a beautiful butterfly en route to that commitment. But you WILL have to let go first. Rather than struggling, allow the changes in. Almost the minute you do the answers and peace descend and your inner power returns. As Maddy sez, “There’s no greater power than the power of goodbye.”

Aquarius
As Astrobabble has said, an opposition is an opportunity to find a New Way. This week as Pluto the power-crazed demolition ball of Truth sends a thunderbolt from your 11th house of friends and wishes to your 5th house of lovers, creativity and squeezes it may seem that a particular deep-seated, long-cherished-for wish may come to nought. It may even be a friend who implies it, without even realising they have just taken your horseshoe of dreams and melted it in the fires of Mordor by asking an innocent but pertinent question. Undeniably a sticky situation, friend. There are three ways you can go. One way is to feel that your entire life is a shower of manure and that all your wishes will come to nowt and your friends hate you and to then collapse into a heap of tears and chocolate. Another way is to draw swords and blame your friend/circumstances/everyman and his mangy dog because if it wasn’t for them your life would be a bed of roses (and chocolates). Another way is to assess your dreams and your modus operandi in pursuing lovers/creative ting/bebes and to reel some in, discard others, focus your efforts on those that work and have a Realistic Chance of bearing fruit. Truth can be painful but it hurts less when you let it in and resist barricading the doors and boarding up the windows. Through the weekend and into Monday a lover or biziniz partner is either in a bad mood or is properly getting on your nerves. In the light of this week’s intensity, leave well alone until next week – and have a chinwag on Wednesday.

Pisces
The affection and support of your family in recent weeks has not been a secret plan to undermine you or because they think you are weak / incapable / foolish. Not necessarily so. The recent affection and support of your family is because they love you and want you to be happy in your wash – and they can see that you are struggling at times with change, commitment, and the vagaries that you and life have been throwing at each other in recent years. This week, as the Full Moon and Pluto rampage through your 10th house of success be eversoeverso careful that you don’t behave like a laughable toddler hellbent on picking up the cat by yourself or reaching for your beaker from the tabletop. You, at your age, are old enough to know better. Ask for help if you need it. Say “No thank you,” graciously if it’s offered and you don’t want to take it. Wednesday and then Sunday through Monday will be the most irksome days but resist the egotistical tantrum-like desires to tirade against the love of your family. They are not weak in loving you. And you are not weak in accepting it.