STARFIRE

March 2008

March 2008 - LUCK OF THE IRISH IN MARCH.
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LUCK OF THE IRISH IN MARCH

And isn't it about time for a little good luck?

By March 28th, the doom and gloom of winter will be behind us, and Jupiter sextile Uranus is a perfect symbol for the initiative and light heartedness of spring.

The Irish know you have to keep an eye out for those little Leprechauns if you want to find out where they're hiding their gold. Jupiter-Uranus aspects work best when you cock your head and look at the world from a different angle, too.

Taken literally, Jupiter and Uranus aspects mean expanded good as a result of new ideas or changes in perspective. Good news doesn't always float down from the skies waving a lottery ticket at us. As the New York Times reported on February 29th ("Facing Default, Some Walk Out on New Homes" by John Leland), good fortune for sub prime home buyers may begin with understanding that their "home ownership" is more like "renting with risk". Walking away may be the bitter pill of bad-tasting medicines, like spring tonics and cod liver oil.

Jupiter does imply growth through learning, through experience—and also through learning to be merciful with ourselves and others. Uranus takes a colder eye at situations and redefines the principles and paradigms by which we live. Prosperity before the discovery of Uranus was mostly about land and inherited privileges, which each new generation could use or neglect. Millionaires, people amassing fortunes without land or money, came with Uranus.

What Uranus really gave us, I suspect, was a new perspective on personal initiative. Jupiter says do what everyone has done, but with more juice, more expansiveness, more understanding. Uranus says yeah, and so what if we've always done it that way? What about doing something else for a change?

In the years before the discovery of Uranus, Pony Express riders made a huge difference in our ability to communicate from coast to coast. Horses and riders weren't new; the pony express rider was a spin-off from the stagecoach business, a faster and lighter way to do what was already being done. We see the Uranian side with airmail, which literally got off the ground only after men looked at transportation in totally new ways.

The sextile between Jupiter in Capricorn (a very traditional approach to expansion, and a very businesslike approach) and Uranus in Pisces (fey, with an eye to the past and another eye on the future) tells us it's time to get wild and crazy in our personal brainstorming. It's time to play with ideas we would have considered crazy a few months or years ago, and then to apply them with all the insights we've gained from previous experience.

Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius are still in mutual reception, flitting back and forth between their mutual signs, so the creativity and sheer good luck of Jupiter-Uranus this spring may be off again-on again. Count on sporadic insights and capture even your strangest ideas as quickly as possible; once they're on paper, you can revise and modify an idea, but an idea lost is lost forever.

It's possible to coerce your brain into providing raw ideas and creative insights. My favorite way to is sit down with paper and pencil and make a long list—at least 25 items—of possible solutions for a problem. Let your mind range free and jot down even the craziest ideas. The whole point of a long list is exhausting your mind's supply of ready answers and old solutions, forcing your mind to come up with new ideas and insights.

Keep the list. Go back to it later and play with one item at a time. Range through your experience and ask your subconscious mind what you know that might make this idea valuable. Be gentle with your ideas; be as merciful as a mother teaching a beloved child to read. (Another of Jupiter's images is the mother as first bestower of wisdom).

The luck, however, comes from innovation. Tradition and experience may show us how to use new ideas, but it's the newfangled ideas themselves that bring the luck.

No one ever knew what the pot of gold contained—except those who caught leprechauns.

This spring's good luck appears only because it's been a hard winter. Necessity may not always be the mother of invention, but necessity is certainly the instigator of this spring's creative bursts. The Moon's last conjunction was with Saturn—but her upcoming conjunction at the moment of the Jupiter-Uranus sextile is to Pluto. The most profitable ideas this spring will have mass application in some way, whether that means your whole family or is a huge idea like Microsoft's dream of a computer in every home.

It's clear there will be financial benefits to the Jupiter-Uranus creative burst this spring. Uranus is conjunct both Venus and Mercury, creating a mini-stellium or gathering of power in Pisces. Spiritual ideas, such as applications for the Law of Attraction, will thrive this spring. Jupiter, however, suggests a business or government environment.

For artists and other spiritual or creative professionals, new ideas drawn from the future of their work can now become the backbone of their business plans.

The end to recession also comes, in the long run, from new ideas in small businesses across the country (and around the globe; this is not a purely American benefit).

The Sun in the sixth house suggests personal effort, daily work and independent action as an important part of any success that comes from these ideas.

So how green will this spring be? If I were betting on the most productive ideas this year, I'd bet on greening. It is the Irish color, after all, and this whole season is about making luck out of hard times.

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.