24 Apr Nothing Gold Can Stay ~ April 25th – May 1st, 2016

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Why is it that something so true seems so sad? This eight-line poem won Robert Frost the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 and for good reason, since its succinct and lucid wisdom has not been tarnished or muddled by nearly a century of poetic disintegration. Nothing Gold Can Stay is a sunbeam of eternal truth. This one fills the reader with a vision that sees straight through time, like a stop motion film of blooming and withering.

This week, the Moon will be waning, offering you a period to untangle your emotions and cleanse your environment. The days will pass by slowly. Filled with vaporous memories, you will feel both languid and wise. It may be that much of your time will be marked by the emotional timbre of mourning. Though dense and cloudy, this week is a time to realize the true depths of your love for life. The aching vulnerability of grief can be so paradoxically exquisite as it opens you up to a much greater feeling of connection and gratitude. As Rumi once said, “The wound is where the Light enters you.”

Baptiste from the film Les Enfants du Paradis

On Thursday, Mercury will turn retrograde in the sign of Taurus which will beset the skies with rarified astrological conditions. There will be five planets (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto) moving retrograde simultaneously. The retrograde season will be very powerful for those who are willing to master the art of patience. However, with so many energies in reverse, it is likely that everyone will be greatly challenged by internal struggles.

To soften some of the burden of this weary contemplative time, on Friday, Venus will enter Taurus which is one of her rulerships. It will be Venusian energies that offer the most support to you in the face of melancholy, distress, and frustration.

still from Les Enfant dus Paradis

With Venus in Taurus, there is such pleasure to be found in sensuality and luxury. Bestowed with the wisdom of time’s devouring nature (nothing gold can stay) Venus in Taurus will prompt you to waste no time wallowing in misery when you could be worshipping the beauty around you, drinking in the fragrance of flowers and stretching your limbs in the warmth of the sun.

The secrets of building good character, fine taste, and solid wealth are the tenets of Venus in Taurus. And the realization of these secrets relies upon cultivating one virtue above all others: patience. This is a quality considered to be one of the “fruits of the spirit” because without the quality of patience nothing can be truly tasted, truly felt, truly healed, or truly learned. Allow patience to become your new way of being and your life will take on a much brighter hue.

On Sunday, the Sun in Taurus will be sextiled Neptune in Pisces which will be a day that feels quite sacred. Lingering grief will soften into blossoming love. Irresolute relationships will find a solid connection. The one-sided vision of loss in your life will once again reveal its full cycle of constant replenishment: the ouroboros of infinity.

Monday/Tuesday: The Seven of Swords

The week begins in a state of dissonance as you attempt to reconcile feelings and situations which do not match up to your ideals.

The Seven of Swords indicates that your thoughts and actions will be mangled up by a desire to over-design your life and circumstances. Unfortunately, even the most emotionally balanced and spiritually connected person in the world has experiences which are surprising and off-putting. It is best to remember that necessity is the mother of invention and necessity is never born from continuously ideal circumstances. The waning moon will be traveling through Sagittarius, offering you a chance to release obstructive habits pertaining to fundamentalist beliefs. (not other people’s fundamentalist beliefs, but yours)

Myrna Loy

Wednesday/Thursday: Strength

The Moon in Capricorn will trine Mercury in Taurus as it goes retrograde on Thursday. This will create a climate of breaking out of stubborn and obstinate tendencies. Those feelings of lament will be given the power on this day to liberate you from self-destruction and stagnation. One of the benefits of a Mercury retrograde is that it allows you to experience the subversion of your mundane habits of language, which in turn frees up your imagination.

The Strength card here represents the impetus to cultivate patience, thereby becoming more receptive to listening and learning. The Strength card does not represent brute force, but rather the gentle touch of trust and patience. Therefore, even if sadness overwhelms you, there will be a strength inside you that will softly whisper, “this too shall pass”.

Lucia Žilíková Carved Ouroboros

Friday/Saturday/Sunday: The Two of Pentacles

With Venus moving into Taurus, the weekend brings relief and the motivation to nourish your virtues. This comes from an organic realization of the need to feel more closely connected to yourself and to those that you love, which naturally begins to soften your hard feelings.

You might find it much more simple to forgive yourself and others for past transgressions. Or you might simply feel the need to take better care of your physical health. Whatever your natural instincts are this weekend, follow them faithfully. An admixture of sadness and joy is quite likely as the Sun trines Neptune on Sunday: an emotion that might be described as lavender-blue.

The Two of Pentacles reveals the Nature of the Universe, the ebb and flow of time which disappears and re-emerges eternally. Nothing Gold Can Stay, but likewise nothing gold is gone forever.

“And if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy!

Punch a higher floor!”