An incendiary dark moon descends over us all now, its pull to rest and recalibrate at odds with broiling revolution. If you needed an omen for the eclipse season incoming, the days between now and the Pisces new moon will likely deliver it. Try not to baulk when it lands like a bomb, like a blast of past angst, or dripping in blood. The gloves have actually always been off.

This week begins in the hazy daze of Neptunia, its surreal half light obscuring and conjuring by design. Its been a wild weird wired weekend on planet rebirth. Emerging from the fray like a blessed slingshot, Mars finally concludes his months long hamstrung retrograde in Cancer. Though this will not instantly dry up all the tears nor quell the shouting, it does offer significant hope for fresh resolution and resolve on the way.

Though the start of this transforming year was shrouded in retrograde and revisionary imperatives, one thing is crystal clear. There is no going back. There is only looking forwards, grounding down and now, picking up the pace and the patter that will unlock the next phase of revolution.

Mercury's retrograde always proffers strange crossings. Tangling us in language and tech snafu that raises questions and hides easy answers. Changing course and altering propulsion so we move as if in a dream. Conjuring the past, breaching the surface glass we have cultivated to disguise our denizens of the deep. All in the service of a slow dance through our life to date, its revision calling wisdom to our own little boat.

You don't have to do it alone, darklings. Just ask Stell and that big smile, the one borne of patient encouragement and unconditional belief. I know she can swim. I know you can too.

In the midst of all this square dancing we are being called to a quest, a treasure hunt larger and more vital than any we have undertaken before. Today Jupiter turns his face to the ground he has already claimed and begins his retrograde.

Pluto's grind is here again as the dark lord of our underworld turns retrograde in Capricornia. Only five months to go. Unlike other rx's where we get to slow down, this actually amps Pluto's unholy purpose: to create the kind of chaos that forces us into our dark corners. We are transformed finding our way out. His retrograde takes us deeper and holds us under longer.

Musing on time travel as the multiverse conspires once more to shift its space time disco through our lives. Perhaps it is the glut of spare days or the slower pace that immobility affords but my forward motion has stilled. In its place are long moments of contemplation, an abyss of ideas that I have until now simply leaped over in my hurry to get to the imaginary line I have drawn in the future.

If you have been fairly choking on the constant change of the last little while or longer, a cosmic let off is here. Ish. In the last few days Jupiter has shifted into reverse gear in Scorpio. First cab heading back off the rank, his retrograde retraces his steps as far back as last October.

Saturn throwing his weight around (& strapping on his retrograde shoes) can feel gloomy and dour. A compulsory cosmic colonic. Chocked with reluctant responsibility. Littered with solid lessons that will hold you in good stead forever but feel craptastic now, & maybe tomorrow too & at least until August.

If there is one thing you can bet the gingerbread house on during a Venus retrograde, it is a return of your exes.

As we begin today to come up for air after a typically torrid saison d'eclipsia, not for me the new moon intention setting or break neck fast track to my brave new world. I am wary of any kind of bring-me-this magic woven under eclipsing skies. We know eclipses to be portents of change, unpredictable beasts who do not bow to our attempts to tame or harness their peculiar magic. We know too that they ripple: across astrological and emotional axes, across years, pinging our past and future alike.

Both Pluto and Mars have turned retrograde, joining taskmaster Saturn and truth bomb Jupiter in reverse gear. And although it may well feel like the brakes have been slammed on, in truth this an invitation to enter the shadowlands prepared to spend some highly instructive and revealing time walking among our skeletons, the denizens of our dark.

After the spectacular whirlwind that has been the first quarter of this year - I'm still looking at you eclipse season - we're all more than ready for a hearty dose of slow mo. In the next month we will find ourselves having the pause button repeatedly pushed by three retrogrades as Mars, then Pluto and finally Mercury all haul themselves into reverse, joining long players Saturn and Jupiter.