Mer­cury turns ret­ro­grade once more on March 22^nd and returns to direct motion again on April 15^th. As I not­ed in my lat­est radio show, Mer­cury and all the oth­er plan­ets nev­er reverse direc­tion at all. (You can lis­ten to my pod­cast on Mer­cury ret­ro­grade. It begins at about 11:30 min­utes into the pod­cast, which you can get to by just click­ing in the progress bar until you reach that time in the show). Here is the link to the show: Radio Show on Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade and the Equinox.

All the plan­ets mere­ly appear to move back­wards for a time, three weeks in the case of Mer­cury, about three times a year, and upwards of six months for an out­er plan­et like Sat­urn or Uranus, once per year. When­ev­er Mer­cury is ret­ro­grade, you are asked to bend your thoughts inward, to re-con­sid­er what and how you know, to tru­ly make a bet­ter effort to fol­low the path of Spir­it where there is but one cer­tain truth, that the way to Wis­dom is “to know thyself”.

Though many will com­plain that Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is the root cause of many mis­takes, errors and mis­un­der­stand­ings, that is not the fault of Mer­cury. As the bard Shake­speare so elo­quent­ly put it, “The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars, but in our­selves, that we are under­lings.” The plan­ets and stars cre­ate mod­u­la­tions of the twelve-fold ener­gy-forms of this uni­verse. But what we make of those gifts of the spir­it, well that depends upon our spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment, it depends upon our degree of intel­li­gence, wis­dom and love.

As we grow into our greater aware­ness, we will become as wise as a ser­pent, and equal­ly gen­tle as a dove. All great souls pos­sess these traits, and each of us will come into this state of grace some­day. Mean­while, it is best for us all to be hum­ble, to under­stand that our progress is cer­tain but slow, and it depends upon each of us being awake, alert and self-reflective.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty offered to you in this ret­ro­grade can be ascer­tained in two ways. One is by under­stand­ing what sign is involved in the ret­ro­grade. The sec­ond way, is by know­ing through what part of your own chart the ret­ro­grade is tak­ing place. Since the lat­ter qual­i­ty is a very indi­vid­ual fac­tor, let us con­sid­er what the ret­ro­grade in Aries can do for you.

The expe­ri­ence of Aries is to bring you into the realm of what I call your “pres­ence”. No mat­ter what, the most impor­tant thing to be con­scious of, in each and every moment, is to be com­plete­ly focused upon how you meet with what is right before you now. For this is the only space in which you can expe­ri­ence your free­dom to be and become ful­ly human one day. Yes, you must look back at all your pri­or expe­ri­ences and con­sid­er what you have learned; and yes, you must equal­ly look for­ward to the bet­ter you and world you wish to cre­ate. But the only thing that counts in each and every step, the most crit­i­cal moment of all, is how you meet this moment right here, right now.

To that end, Mer­cury ret­ro­grade in Aries can be an instru­ment for guid­ing you to be that much more aware of your­self, to con­sid­er the impor­tance of your pres­ence. By tru­ly under­stand­ing how you appear, and of how you affect those around you, you will be able to more cre­ative­ly and con­scious­ly make the most of every poten­tial held in each of these “pre­cious pearls of the now” in your life.

Mer­cury will turn you back on your­self so that you can see that if you enter a space, or greet some­one with a cer­tain atti­tude and inten­tion, that you will inevitably shape this expe­ri­ence one way or anoth­er. What you must know is that this is the only place you have con­trol to bring about a bet­ter out­come for your­self or oth­ers. Your first step, your first ges­tures and words, they are the means to advance your sto­ry or repeat the errors of your past.

By keep­ing your self-aware­ness focused on the now, through a deep­er self-reex­am­i­na­tion of past mis­takes or mis­steps, you can learn to present your­self in a man­ner that is more appro­pri­ate to every sit­u­a­tion. You can pos­i­tive­ly influ­ence and forge a bet­ter out­come, by break­ing a chain of cau­sa­tion that may have cir­cum­scribed your life (and the life of one or many oth­ers), by just choos­ing to be a bet­ter, more enlight­ened and self-aware actor in the now.

Of course, every­thing mat­ters in this encounter with the now, how you are dressed, how you hold your­self, how you move, but the most impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion is the state of your self-aware­ness, your pres­ence of mind is the key.

As you turn every cor­ner, as you enter each room, con­sid­er care­ful­ly what you are bring­ing into that space as much as what you encounter in it.

Often­times, I will “remind myself” of this. I will, quite lit­er­al­ly gen­tly slap myself in the face as I come to the turn in “the path”, and I will say to myself, “Now stay alert, be prepared…your future is just around the bend!”

May you be as wise as a ser­pent, and gen­tle as a dove.

May you walk the path of Wisdom.

May you choose to stand in the Light.

Happy Astrological New Year!

You are an Immor­tal who walks along the Razor’s Edge of Spir­it, the path­way known as Dhar­ma-Kar­ma. All your Yes­ter­days and all your Tomor­rows too, all of them meet here in this Ful­crum of Fulfillment…

There is only this, you are only in one space tru­ly, you are here in the Eter­nal Now.

What was, is done; what will be, is still being made.

All that mat­ters, for­ev­er and ever, is for you to be here, to be present and face the prod­uct of your past and hold true to your faith in a bet­ter future…and then to Act with all your heart and mind and will.

This most pre­cious space, the space of Now, is the only place that you can be free; it is only in this ever-unfold­ing moment in space-time, it is only here that you can act and feel and think and shine as the Divine being you tru­ly are. Only in the “here and now” can you be and become, it is only here that you cre­ate your bet­ter self and a bet­ter world too.

And the only lim­it to your Free­dom to be and become…is you. For every soul who is on the path of awak­en­ing, who walks the path­way of Dhar­ma-Kar­ma, the only imped­i­ment to you to become even more of who and what your tru­ly are is the self-lim­i­ta­tion imposed by your lev­el of Con­scious­ness, by your degree of Under­stand­ing and Self-Awareness.

As you and your world cir­cle your star every year, you move through the sea­sons of self-becom­ing and self-ful­fill­ment. From seed to seedling, from youth to old age, you strive to reach beyond what you were and become a self-mas­ter­ful and shin­ing spark of the Divine.

The Year just passed has been summed up in your sojourn through the realm of Pisces. It is there that you reaped and took the fuller mea­sure of your tri­umphs and fail­ures. Both your over-com­ings and stum­bles too have made you what you are today.

It is all good, for you are old­er, hum­bler and wis­er than before.

You would not have deep­ened your empa­thy and com­pas­sion with­out hav­ing come through your own tri­als. You would not have reaped your wis­dom, with­out hav­ing first fall­en into the error of hubris. You would not have under­stood the fun­da­men­tal truth: that what you sow is what you will reap.

The only trea­sure that lasts are these spir­i­tu­al trea­sures, these gifts of the spir­it, now made one with your soul. These are stored in that sub­lime realm you call heav­en. You nev­er left it you know, the high­est part of you, your sparkling dia­mond body of spir­it abides in “heav­en” from the begin­ning until the end. The body you call “you”, that is just a vehi­cle of neces­si­ty that you require upon this earth…but that is not you. You are not dust; you are spir­it, and you are immortal.

Yes, today marks the begin­ning of your next cir­cuit through the Twelve Man­sions of the Liv­ing Ones, the Zodi­ac. Today you enter the realm of Aries and the first ques­tion of life is once again put to you: Who are you?

Here, in the moment of Aries, it is here that you are always in that moment, the one and only, the Eter­nal Now.

Now, what will you do?

Do you see from whence you came, and accept all those expe­ri­ences, both the so-called “good and bad”? Do you under­stand that all of it has made you into what you are here today? And, that what you do next with this, well that is the only thing that mat­ters. The ques­tion is this: Are you bring­ing the best of you to bear as you meet the Now? Are you being what you are to be: self-aware, hum­ble and wise?

Think of your jour­ney as if each step was like mov­ing through a door­way. Of course, there is always some­one going through ahead of you. Now they may have been hurt, or upset or angry about some­thing, so what do they do? They slam that door in your face.

Now, now you face your great test of spir­it. As you go through that door, will you take that neg­a­tive ener­gy and just pass it on? Will you just uncon­scious­ly or self­ish­ly just slam that door on the next one, and so pass on the pain that may have been passed down for­ev­er and ever?

Or, will you be the one who choos­es to take that neg­a­tive ener­gy-form and trans­mute it? Will you instead choose to stand in the light; will you hold that door open for the one who fol­lows you?

If you do, know this:

You just changed the world.

You just changed yourself.

You just moved clos­er to the One.

That is all it takes…

To make the world a bet­ter place,

All it takes is Love.

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings – The Equinox and Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade (Sat­ur­day March 17, 2018)

In my third show of 2018 we will con­sid­er some of the cur­rent con­di­tions of 2018. The Astro­log­i­cal New Year com­mences with the Sun entrance into Aries on March 20^th, and the plan­et Mer­cury turns ret­ro­grade on March 22^nd (until April 15^th). We will look at the impor­tance of these shifts and con­sid­er them in light of cur­rent events and per­haps take a look at some peo­ple in the news.

As before, I will answer your ques­tions dur­ing the show, whether on this sub­ject or some oth­er mat­ter, includ­ing per­son­al ques­tions about your astro­log­i­cal chart. If you do wish to ask a per­son­al ques­tion, please be ready to pro­vide at least your birth date and birth place, and time of your birth if you have that too.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sat­ur­day March 17^th @ 2 pm EDT:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2018/03/17/astrologer-bill-attride-radio-show-sun-enters-aries-mercury-retrograde

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638.

Please join me on Sat­ur­day March 17^th at 2 pm EDT as we look at how Astrol­o­gy can help to reveal the true nature of sig­nif­i­cant actors on the world stage today.