OVERVIEW: APRIL 2014 HOROSCOPE

By Leigh Oswald (London-based Astrologer and Teacher)

T.S. Eliot said that April is the cruellest month and he may indeed not be wrong this year, as this is a particularly tricky period.

There is a very strong and rare exact cardinal grand cross in operation, involving Pluto, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus the Sun and Mercury. The days when this configuration is at its strongest and most operative are the 2^nd / 3^rd, 14^th to 16^th and 22^nd to 24^th, so early, mid and later in the month are particularly critical times, but the whole month is haunted by this energy.

It is characterised by overweening power, over-confidence of nations, aggressive posturing and serious danger of risk and explosive behaviour, particularly around the 2^nd/3^rd and 22^nd to 24^th. Warlike noises are loud and ruthlessness is underscored.  There is also a great sense of internal conflict and uncertainty within us all to some degree.

The potential for significant geophysical eruptions and the disquieting power of nature in general are also greater this month.

The combination of human ruthlessness, impulsiveness and arrogance, combined with an extra sense of hubristic daring, spells potential for some global fireworks. There is much anger abroad and the unexpected is particularly rife.

Eruptions are the hallmark of the month.

Global unrest will be increasingly evident and authoritarian responses to this can be extreme, and with Mars still retrograde, the full consequences of events may not be manifested this month, so even if events are less dramatic than described, undercover forces are at work significantly now, which will be building untenable, if rather invisible stresses that fully reveal themselves in the coming months. These will bring ultimately a sort of revolution in our personal lives and a change in global consciousness, of necessity.

The United States’ Sun in Cancer at 13 degrees is being hit hard and exactly these months by the Grand cross effect, so events there may indeed be a barometer of the mood of the planet.

We will all feel this to some extent personally in our lives, as we all microcosms of the bigger picture.

There are also two eclipses this month. The full Moon lunar eclipse on the 15^th is definitely a catalyst period for events when things can come to quite an explosive culmination and are triggered.

The solar eclipse and the new Moon on the 29^th is less stressful and actually can point towards a new beginning and a new start that may be connected to an urgent resolution to any significant crisis, or the birth of the needed new, out of the ashes of the old...

Positive days (and there are some) are on the 18^th and 25^th, and even the 26^th and 27^th hold out some inspired potential.

This is probably not a period that will pass us by unremarkably.  If it does, then don’t let lack of obvious manifestation make us complacent to the critical forces that are at work, and which affects so much in the coming months.