The intensity of March continues into April. As the new month begins, the suspense is building.

The Full Moon is on the 4th, and right afterwards, the Sun and Mercury kick off the Uranus-Pluto square. Fresh from its exactitude two weeks ago, this great square remains king of the skies.

Jupiter

In the midst of the excitement, Jupiter stations on the 8^th. Somewhere in our lives, a red light switches to green. Something that’s been in review is now ready to roll.

Since last December, when Jupiter began inching backwards along the zodiac, we may have found ourselves putting a significant project on hold, or tweaking it within an inch of its life.⁽¹⁾ Now there’s enough confidence to move forward. This will be especially obvious to those whose charts contain a planet near twelve degrees of the fixed signs (Leo, Taurus, Aquarius and Scorpio). But all of us will feel a switching of gears.

Like an actor (Leo) who’s spent the past four months primping in front of the mirror backstage, we can now stride out under the lights.

Just as Jupiter’s getting going direct, Mercury and Mars will square it. Under Mercury in Taurus (April 14-30), communications tend to be refreshingly straightforward: nothing fancy, no beating around the bush. With Mars here, too, actions are motivated, more than usual, by pragmatism (March 31- May 11). For many, this means an ego attachment to the bottom line.

The tension between the Taurus planets and Jupiter comes from the elemental difference between earth and fire, and the fact that both are fixed; neither likes to move. Whether or not the transit plays out externally, as a conflict between stubborn forces, it will certainly manifest internally. There’s a natural conflict between the conservative impulses of Taurus and the creative grandiosity of Leo. Ask yourself who or what is playing out this conflict in your life.

Better yet, find it internally. If we can identify these urges inside of ourselves when they’re aroused, we’ll have far less trouble during the days when the square is exact, April 17-21.⁽²⁾ Be on the lookout for the point at which ambition becomes overwhelm. Find the point at which a good thing becomes too much.

Saturn in Sagittarius

Towards the middle of the month, Venus opposes Saturn. Though it lasts only a few days, this transit introduces a theme we’ll be dealing with off and on for a couple of years: The tension between information (Gemini) and the meaning we derive from it (Sagittarius).

Remember that the general purpose of Saturn in Sagittarius is to clean out the closet of beliefs (see January’s Skywatch). We’ll find ourselves opening that closet door many times during this 2½-year transit. Circumstances may force us to; internal pressure will drive us to it. We need to roll up our sleeves and clear out the detritus: notions we absorbed in childhood that no longer apply, our family’s views on education, the media’s version of moral debate.

Saturn gets us to eliminate judgments we’ve outgrown. If we’re responsive to the transit’s call, we’ll be left with a trimmed-down collection of viewpoints that truly match and support our current reality. We’ll be less dependent on other people’s version of things.

This results in a quiet confidence, as we realize that whatever remains in that closet is ours and ours alone.⁽³⁾

Gemini vs. Sagittarius

It’s good to know the terms of a tug-of-war before it materializes. That way, we know our job even if we don’t know where we’ll be asked to do it.

During this next couple of years, each time a planet – any planet — opposes Saturn, we’ll get a lesson in the difference between information (Gemini) and knowledge (Sagittarius). We may be called upon to draw a distinction between random factoids and in-depth understanding, like a student whose teacher tells her to quit Googling and go read a book.

Venus opposite Saturn

With the Venus opposition on April 14^th-15^th, the tug-of-war might be between a Gemini type of person – at worst: gossipy, scattered, flippant — and a Sagittarius type – at worst: judgmental, pedantic, righteous.⁽⁴⁾

To the extent that you have a good handle on the Saturn in Sagittarius transit, your experience of the two signs will probably be more subtle. Venus in Gemini may show up as an erudite, informed person (perhaps a woman or yin man); Sagittarius may take the form of a worldly person or meaning-seeker.

The other thing that can’t be known without doing the interpretation of an individual’s chart is which of the two signs the native will identify with, vs. which one will s/he project. In other words: which end of the rope will you be pulling?

Pluto station

Saturn and Pluto both have to do with elimination. Saturn edits; Pluto annihilates.

Pluto’s station on the 16^th brings back around the intense issues that have been dogging us over the past four weeks (and in a larger sense, since 2008). The focus is on something we’d rather not look at.⁽⁵⁾ Pluto work is not for the faint of heart.

But it’s time to clean out the rotting vegetables in the bottom of the psychic refrigerator. It’s no use pretending the stuff is still fresh –we know better, after three years of Uranus-Pluto exactitudes – and putting it off will only make things worse. Identify the decay Pluto is exposing, and get rid of it before it becomes toxic.

Conveniently, Pluto gives us the psychological courage to do the job. So go ahead, put on the latex gloves and the hazmat suit. Throw that shit out.

Notes

1 Take a look at the perimeter of your chart wheel. Find the arc between 22 Leo (this is where Jupiter stopped on 12/8/14) and 12½ Leo (this is where it pivots direct on April 8^th.) Make a note of the houses implicated in this range, and the aspects these degrees make to your other planets. These are your clues as to what specific areas of your life were sent back to the drawing board last winter, and are now getting the green light.

2 If your goal in following transits is to understand their cosmic lessons as seamlessly as possible, take note of them ahead of time. Thus prepared, you’ll be ready to notice how the energies feel internally, and avoid projecting them: that is, you’re less likely to experience them coming at you from the outside. See this essay.

3 Saturnine independence is different from the Uranian kind; it doesn’t liberate with a lightning flash. It builds within us gradually, until a dignified self-confidence takes shape, born of experience. Details in Working with Saturn.

4 Without a specific chart in front of us, astrologers can only generalize about a transit’s expression. Although this makes our examples veer towards the stereotypical, such generalizations retain a core of meaning. The negative examples tend to be more colorful than the positive ones, and stick in people’s minds longer.

5 I discuss Pluto, the god of secrets, in my latest webinar.