The Astrology of May features Venus, Mars, Neptune, Chiron and Pluto. Mercury is retrograde most of the month as well. This could therefore be a frustrating month with its spate of missed communications and mechanical breakdowns. The apparent difficulties could be magnified at this time, since Mercury aspects Pluto as it stations, and also because the issues of limitation represented by Saturn are still very active. Pluto in Capricorn is also still very much with us throughout the year, and triggered by this month’s configurations. This Pluto transit represents necessary albeit painful restructuring. Saturn remains singular, on its own side of the Zodiac apart from all the rest of the planets, and therefore also emphasized. The lesson here is for all of us to pay careful attention to everything that happens to us right now with a minimum of reactivity. If we hold on tight and stay the course we will eventually see the benefits of our striving.

Mercury stations retrograde on May 6th in the early degrees of Gemini, and aspects Pluto as it changes direction. The period of the retrograde lasts about five weeks, counting the time of the “retrograde shadow.” Mercury turns to direct motion on May 30th, but does not re-enter Gemini and regain its lost zodiacal longitude until mid-June. There will be a gradual easing off of the retrograde condition, but it is best not to push things until then. May 15th to the 17th, when Mercury conjuncts the Sun, represents one highlight of the retrograde. Also on the 30th, the direct station will be accompanied by uncertainty of a different kind, since Mercury also squares Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter for nearly two weeks at this time. This is likely to be an extremely powerful Mercury Retrograde period due to the aspects made with Pluto and with Neptune. All in all this will be a difficult time but one that is terrific for introspection, and for journaling, as we attempt to come to grips with our deeper issues both individually and collectively.

Neptune is featured in these May skies as well, especially as a participant in a forming triple conjunction with Jupiter and Chiron. This symbolism is full of healing potential, and is especially strong from the 17th until around the time of the Gemini New Moon of May 24th in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. The configuration is active to the end of the year, staying extremely close through late summer. As these planets draw nearer to each other in the current timeframe, we begin to feel the effects in terms of idealistic social values and also greater awareness of our separation from this ideal or from our spiritual essence. Ironically, this separation is only an illusion, albeit a powerful one. Could we but see our world whole and ourselves as well, our supposed fall from grace could change in an instant’s epiphany, something that Eckhart Tolle has famously been promoting in his epic best seller, A New Earth.

Venus newly direct remains in conjunction with Mars for this entire month and squares Pluto from the 1st to the 8th as Mercury retrogrades. Relationship will be on our minds for most of this month and we will be looking into our hidden motivations regarding the way that we relate. Right relationship with each other – and indeed with ourselves and with our planet – represents the only way out of our current set of almost inconceivable dilemmas. Perhaps it’s time we got started. ARIES (March 20-April 19) This is an exuberant period of time for you Aries. There’s lots of everything in your world right now, including big changes. But quantity is not enough to satisfy you right now; you are concentrating on values, trying to find the fit that works, the magic formula that will incorporate the cogwheels of your life and of what you love to do into the greater machinery of the society around you. As your idealized vision soars you are also very mindful of the practical concerns that enable it to become real. You may be taking a retiring and philosophical stance on all this, especially after the 6th when Mercury retrogrades for the remainder of the month in your resources sector. It pays to remember that you are history in the making, forever ancient and forever golden youthful.

TAURUS (April 20-May 19). This is an entertaining and paradoxical and perhaps confusing period that you are entering into, Taurus. Your birthday time of the year has arrived and with it a joyful and socially engaged attitude. In some ways you are fully meeting your world. And yet in another way you are not so much outer as inner, taking a mystical vacation from mundane concerns to travel to the hidden recesses of your mind and heart. It is an idealized and introspective space that you find yourself in these days, and you do well to acknowledge this simple and inescapable fact. The confusion comes from trying to live your life as though it were all on the surface. You benefit by honoring the paradoxical and deeper side of your life that makes the rest of it possible.

GEMINI (May 20-June 20). This month you are in the world but not of it, Gemini, finding yourself more internally than outer oriented. You are coming to new means of softer intimacy with others and even yourself. Your introspective stance is made more noticeable at the time of the May 6th retrograde of your ruler Mercury in your sign, followed by its moving backward into your sector of dreams over the next six weeks or so. As you turn to the unseen world, this period is a good one for meditating or other spiritual practices, and it is likely too that your dream life will be richly informative. This is a good time to take stock of where your life is heading right now, and how your actions ultimately serve your highest purpose.

CANCER (June 21-July 20) You are feeling your way into a new phase, Cancer. This involves a sincere revision of the way in which the unseen world inside your heart interacts with the rest of your life. You are future-oriented right now, especially over the first week of May, and definitely taking Spirit to be a necessary component for your journey of self-discovery. Your wishes are powerful, and you are manifesting your social connection anew with each one of them. You are also involved up to your eyebrows in better understanding the your relationship dynamic with others. The remainder of the month might be seen as a long meditation on all your possibilities and how they play out in the bigger picture of your life at large as you gracefully reinvent yourself.

LEO (July 21-Aug. 21) This is your time to shine on the public stage, Leo. Of course you love that, and yet you are also looking more deeply into the part you play and questioning how that role connects with your highest sense of purpose for yourself, going forward. Especially after the 6th, with Mercury retrograde in your career sector you will no doubt be revising your priorities and remaking professional decisions. Everything changes again by mid-June, so it pays to hold off on major shifts until then. All through this monthly period, and accelerating after the 17th, you will find yourself taking a spiritual factor strongly into account in your musings for how you might better integrate inner and outer agendas to more effectively serve yourself and the world around you.

VIRGO (Aug. 21-Sept. 21) This is a philosophically active month for you, Virgo, when new insight and also some revision to your thinking could emerge. You are finding perspective shifts and novel creativity all the time these days and the only difficulty is that these different ways to express yourself might supersede your original style, so that you have to be ready to make some changes there. Everything evolves; it is a law of nature. After Mercury retrogrades on the 6th you will likely be mulling over the effects on your life of these seismic alterations in your affairs. There are definite implications for where you are headed with your life in general. An idealistic pattern could emerge in your heart of hearts for what you really want to become when you finally grow up.

LIBRA (Sept. 22-Oct. 22) You are entering a new phase, Libra. This month the stars incline you toward an unknown destination, and it could be that the reward is found in the journey itself. There is joy in the discovery and the exploration, but only if you pack extremely light, leaving all your preconceptions behind as you climb aboard. Partnership is powerful for you at this time and contributes mightily to the arc of your own development. Your ongoing process of refining and redefining your position on life and love continues into the present cycle, especially with Mercury retrograding through your sector of intimacy and personal evolution. It’s amazing how life consistently builds upon itself and continues in a new phrase that is somehow based on the earlier segment but is also entirely different.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) This is a potent month for you, Scorpio. Your focus is on partnership with important others in your life, even as you seek to find the bliss of your own way forward. You are revising your approach in this area, and it spills over to your entire conceptualization. Expansion and potentially confusion in the home and family department leave you guessing, but it is all part of your ongoing investigation of your possibilities. You are taking your intended future quite seriously these days, and it is tempting to have it all figured out in some manner or fashion but this is somehow destined not to be the case. You win when you steer a middle course between knowing where you’re going and just going anyway, without needing to know.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 20) You are in the midst of another month of graceful epiphany, Sagittarius, accompanied by the hard work of taking your realizations to the next level of actualizing them. This entire year is a profound time in many ways for you. As your values shift and the way you manage your resources morphs in tandem, you benefit by communicating your deepest intention to others around you. Partnership is powerful as the month unfolds, and revising your approach in that area leads to interesting reconceptualizing of your path forward. Service to the local community and to humanity at large becomes your mantra for this cycle as you explore the interface between Spirit and ordinary life. What begins to dawn on you is – contrary to the consensus viewpoint – their essential oneness.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) Times are tough in some ways for you these days, Capricorn, but you can counter the weight of necessity by amping up your own creative juices. Some kind of attitude adjustment is likely. A maelstrom of changing perspectives and philosophical musings still allows you to benefit from letting the simple pleasures guide you for a while. Romance and play are more readily available to you now than usual and constitute important ways that you can let your own light shine through. As you manage to keep alert to your possibilities you continue your process of throwing off the influence of received conditioning and automatic thinking. Surprising information serves to remind you that the steady base beneath you is moving and that you must remain flexible to keep your footing on the rolling deck.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 17) This is a confusing but ultimately illuminating time for you, Aquarius. There are various modes that you are operating in right now, and one of them is an informed disillusion with business as usual. Trouble is, that may leave you at sea for where to go instead, and as this monthly cycle unfolds, you are looking within yourself for the answers. Home and family concerns dominate your thinking and may lead to important realizations. You are descending into your depths in order that you might eventually surmount apparent confusion. The good news in all this is that the answer is but a gesture away. Your container is only as limited as your mind may make it, and everything resolves once you firmly believe in your own power to enlarge the scope of your endeavor.

PISCES (Feb. 18-March 19) Welcome to the land of non-obvious blessings, Pisces. This is an important time of celebration and mystical revelation and is also not without surprises for you as you practically sleepwalk through your daily round. The future beckons you onward, but not in any way that conditioned thoughts can recognize. An opportunity for growth presents itself to you over and over again throughout this monthly cycle but you might need an unfocused inner gaze in order to perceive it. Communication becomes inward-directed and somewhat problematic on one level, especially after the 6th, but equally it becomes more illuminating from the standpoint of mystical awareness. There is only the One and there are fortunate flashes that point you in this direction when you are able to close your eyes and fully see them.

Henry Seltzer, transformational astrologer and creator of the TimePassages astrology software, is based in Santa Cruz, California. An extended look at this month’s star signs is available on his website. Holding degrees from MIT and the University of California-San Diego, Henry is a popular speaker and also offers life enhancing private astrological counseling. Call him at 831-425-3686, or visit his website at www.astrograph.com