Forecast for week of July 23-29, 2012

By Kathy Biehl

Are you welcoming the slow stretches yet? If yes, this week ought to suit you just fine. If not, well, opportunity is coming to change your tune — and for all of us to change our minds.

Slow stretches are one of the two defining characteristics of this week. The other is a flurry of mental activity, conversations, messages and realizations. (Yes, once again we have a terrific amount of action in the midst of inaction.) They’ll take us by the weekend to a very different stance from what we had at the outset.

Let’s start with the second. It’s the by-product of contacts that Mercury, the planet of communication, is now making. He’s currently retrograde (appears to be moving backward) and taking us back over territory we’ve recently covered. Welcome what you rethink, discover, trip on or get hit upside the head with this week. You may soon wonder if you’ve been sleepwalking lately; that’s the magnitude of what’s in store.

Mercury has an open channel to the genius, light bulbs and alternative-to-disruptive perspectives of Uranus the awakener. While the air is still tingling with whatever that breaks or shakes loose, Mercury hits a high-stakes choice point with Pluto, who holds the ultimate power (which could be lower brain impulses, fears or desires or a higher force that trumps the ego). Thinking is clarified and focused, minds are made up, a direction is chosen and there’s no going back. Instead, Mercury heads straight for the Sun. Whatever the choice, we’re on board with it, quickly and unshakably.

In sum: You catch something you missed before (particular in how it relates to you). You make a choice. And then you wrap your mind and self around that choice and make it part of you.

Little of this happens in a flash (except, of course, the Uranian part). Thanks to the slow stretches, we have the opportunity to think about, look at and chew on all this — which is likely to convert you hold-outs to the viewpoint that slow is good.

The slow stretches are not merely from Mercury’s ongoing retrograde (and attendant epidemic of traffic-snarling accidents, highway, bridge, lane and exit ramp closures and, my favorite, multi-lane standstills without visible reason). The day-eating void of course moons are back, and how. That’s no sci-fi phenomenon, though it sometimes feels as eerie as one; it’s a condition that results from the current nature of the Moon’s activity.

Because there’s no planet at the end of a sign just now, it’s taking the Moon an uncommonly long time to leave each sign once she makes her last major aspect in it. When she’s in this unaspected zone, the atmosphere is floaty and unmotivating. It’s hard to get anything done (just try to get a business call answered; I dare you), and much of what does manage to get done has a way of unraveling or not amounting to much later.

We’ve got three big ones this week: Monday into early evening, Wednesday from late morning (EDT) till late night and — sit down for this one — Thursday from late morning, through all of Friday, until the wee hours Saturday. If you were already planning on a long weekend, you nailed the timing.

Use these to digest whatever Mercury’s travels are kicking up for you. Contemplation is more important than achievement; being is more important than producing. (Exception: I find void moods particularly suited to tasks that you are going to do again anyway, such as cleaning, shopping, laundry, preparing food). Sunday will make up for the stillness all in one day.

For more big-picture information (and strategies), visit my Summer of 2012 Resource page. Bookmark this and come back to it again and again!

For another take on this week’s events, listen to my quickie podcast. If you like it, please give it five stars on iTunes! NEW: You can now get my podcast as an app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod! Info under this week’s podcast.

Monday: Once again, we have a soft launch to the week. The Moon is void of course until 6:39 PM EDT. Scale back your expectations for productivity as well as interpersonal harmony. It’s an itchy and scratchy day. The discomfort is internal, really. Don’t let it escalate into something more.

Tuesday: As if for making up for lost time, we are all busy little bees in the first part of the day. Moon contacts to both change agents throw us out of any stupor (or sleep, if you’re on the West Coast). Internal engines shift into high gear and precipitate a frenzy of mental activity and sharing. We work all kinds of things out for ourselves, set all kinds of conversation in motion (which may or may not continue the working-things-out theme), and then Get Going. Pay attention to the messages and conversations. As the day progresses, doors open to information of personal importance and interchanges that validate you. Honor the bounty by sticking to the higher route of kindness and compassion yourself.

Wednesday: Dreams resemble a romantic comedy, heavy on the sweetly credulity-defying plot devices that are so common in one. A night that’s gently unhinged from so-called reality is actually a good prep for today. Thoughts, concepts and plans are in for a major tilt as the planet of communication opens the channels to the cosmic awakener. It’s impossible to predict the substance or worldly source of any Uranian contact. Very likely it will bring a shift in perspective on a recent development. Whatever form the lightning bolt takes, it will disrupt and ultimately free you — happily so, if you let it. Take the rest of the day to sit with it. The Moon is void of course from 11:23 AM to 10:30 PM EDT. Inside the void, look for glimpses of the beast (or terrified being) steering someone else’s actions. Distance is also available on the day’s twists and turns and their possible meanings.

Thursday: Dreams are motivating. Even if you can’t remember them, even if you do and can’t connect them to the waking world, they send you into the day with your engine running. It’s a day of activity and choices, with a twist. The paradox is back that defined so much of last week: Doing without doing. A flurry of activity in a motionless stretch. A frenzy inside stillness. The Moon pushes off from Mercury to go void of course at 11:39 AM EDT, which will last until after midnight Saturday. Importantly, Mercury makes the only major contact inside the void, an adjustment aspect to Pluto. Thoughts must be processed; words must be exchanged. All are monumental, and some of them must change for good (and for always).

Friday: The Moon is void of course all day. Any chance you can head for a pool or beach? Though this void is as vague and formless as any other, it’s also shot through with edgy vibes that will make it hard to lie still and take in the sun’s rays. Norms are out of kilter, inside and out, and no amount of pushing is going to return them to a comfy place just now. Let everything float by you: your reactions, other people’s reactions, other people’s behaviors and demands, other people’s attempts to steer, control and force…the last of which won’t be coming from you, of course. Right?

Saturday: The Moon’s void ends at 1:18 AM EDT, but the resulting relief at possible movement isn’t the only difference that greets us come morning. Relationships feel different, too. Our overnight journey leads us to the ones that are right, appropriate and joyful for us and delivers a list of topics for discussion in the ones that don’t make that cut. Run with both. The daylight hours are emotionally open and expansive, full of ice cream and balloons and red-ribboned hearts. You’re becoming one with what your mind has recently learned. It’s a good thing.

Sunday: Day of rest? Not this week. Sunday’s dynamism makes up for a week of long voids. The catch-up vibe starts right after midnight EDT, when an unseen foot goes down on the accelerator. (As if we need any more reason for disrupted sleep, right?) Interpersonal weirdness swirls around midday — after all, everyone’s ragged out — and calms by late afternoon. Don’t play with other people’s toys without their permission. Put yours back when you’re done. Then enjoy the rewards of acting with integrity and responsibility.

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