Art by the marvelous Willow Arlenea

Robert Wilkinson has a great article today on planetary events for the end of February:

A quick look at the patterns occurring now in late February shows a distinct quickening, with more and more of the old peeling away or falling back in our rear view mirror. Mercury is speeding up, preparing to go direct, Venus is changing signs, and of course the big news is the Lunar Eclipse [on February 20.]

We also have another significant factor occurring in the near future. The Sun opposes Saturn on its way to its conjunction with Uranus, portending the future long wave Saturn opposition Uranus which will polarize energies even more than they already are. This is one reason things are quickening, in some places phenomenally violently. Even nature’s various superstorms are getting beyond whatever they used to be.

In our world, this is a clash between polarized views and ways that must be resolved. It will manifest as two energies vying for power, pitting willful erratic Piscean forces and people against evolved Saturn energies and people, as well as regressive, controlling, and fear based Saturn forces opposing progressive evolved Piscean forces.

As this is the first time the Sun in Pisces has opposed Saturn in Virgo this Solar transit activates the opposition for a long time to come. I’ll write more about this in the future as well, since it’s a long wave influence we must learn to maneuver within so we are not caught up in the larger breakdown.

Venus moving out of Capricorn into Aquarius can help us to elevate our likes and dislikes and become more impersonal and dispassionate wherever it transits in our charts. It also can give us more of an Aquarian approach to Taurus and Libra houses and planets, as well as the houses they rule as well. As it approaches Neptune in March, it will trigger the Grand Irrationality, which I’ll be writing more on in the Spiritual Astrology articles coming soon.

Mercury is showing us how to prune things back, shaping our expression in ways that demonstrate what we actively care for. Some things must be trimmed, some radically cut, so that in the future productive period what we care for will be allowed to grow unencumbered by overgrowth.

It’s now conjuncting Venus, bringing fusion of mind and likes, giving us a great ability to blend ideas with pleasant or agreeable ways of expressing them. This particular conjunction can help us see the beauty of broader points of view integrating many facets of whatever is being perceived.

As Mercury and Venus both move forward through Aquarius, when they conjunct Neptune it will trigger the Grand Irrationality spoken of earlier. So in addition to what was said there, include Gemini and Virgo houses and planets. The good news is that Mercury has already been in this span of Aquarius for awhile, so we’ve been able to pick up a lot of information about this sector of reality in our lives. Due to the retrograde, we’ve been able to take multiple looks at our Aquarian areas and so should be familiar with how to see, understand, and coordinate whatever major choices and changes are set into motion when Mercury and Venus both conjunct Neptune in March.