April 2022: Horoscopes for Moderns
Marriage dominates April: Mars and Saturn show off the strength and power of rational thought while Jupiter and Neptune allow us the opportunity to unplug from the screen.
“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” —Hermann Hesse
TWO BIG CONJUNCTIONS MARK THIS MONTH. Mars and Saturn on April 5th. And Jupiter and Neptune on the 12th.
The thing about astrological conjunctions is that they are experienced within our inner sanctum. They often pass unnoticed, especially if an individual hasn’t developed their interior life.
Oppositions between planets generally play out, psychologically speaking, within the phenomenon of projection. And projections are easier to note. Oppositions manifest right out in the open.
Assuming the Position
As I've been advising clients, the ‘theme’ for April is to move into the ‘zone’ of the conjunctions, which involves turning off the flow of stimulation from the outside world.
I’m not saying become an ostrich, but do pause and reconsider how much shit flows through your nervous system every day.
The human body (brain and heart) wasn’t designed to process the number of stimuli that assaults us regularly.
My aim for April goes like this: “Turn off, tune out and drop in.”
This is a spin on Timothy Leary’s defining counterculture-era phrase: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
And here’s what I mean:
Stop hound dogging the news, not because you’re in denial, but because the ongoing clusterfuck is too convoluted to unravel amidst the coming-at-you-every-five-minutes barrage of infoglut.
This obsessive entanglement is what ensnares folks. Once online, their nervous system is tweaked, poked, and provoked—like a cyber-driven form of Chinese water torture.
And there’s a method to this madness.
Donald Trump’s presidency rearranged the reality principle radically, and big media hasn’t forgotten that goldmine of crazy-making. Nor have they let go of the big takeaway. Namely, anger and panic make people ‘click’.
And within our carnival-like culture, clicking means money.
The Mars Saturn conjunction puts into great detail just how furious Americans are. We are the angriest, most divided nation on the planet.
And yet, on the other side of the scale, we can be the most compassionate and generous. This is a perspective the Jupiter Neptune conjunction in Pisces reminds us of.
The Nuts and Bolts
During the ‘month of the conjunctions,’ the opportunity afforded us is to disassemble the projections.
The mechanism of psychological projection works like this: The unconscious conjures an image related to some unsavory quality within the self and projects that image onto someone (or some condition, political party, or ethnic group.)
An adversarial relationship is established. The only way free from this position is through recollection. Reabsorption of the projection.
Projections are weird because—intermixed with the projection—is a lot of passion and force. So when that’s blasted out and lands on someone or something outside of oneself, a huge chunk of one’s vitality goes missing.
The Mars Saturn conjunction allows for retrieval, for that missing force to be recollected and returned to oneself. A power (Mars) that can be put to contructive (Saturn) means.
After that insight, you can go to work on recollecting. Owning the projection to regain access to the psychic force that went missing. This is what maturation is about.
Start recollecting if you want to do something more than react and rant. Turn off and tune out. Make a clean break.
Now you can DROP IN.
The Jupiter Neptune conjunction returns our attention to our ‘inner screen’—to our imagination.
When a projection is recollected, the rearrangement within the psyche creates a blank canvas within the fabric of one’s awareness.
This canvas or screen acts as a receptacle for whatever you wish to ignite as a new project, idea, story, or solution.
The quirky thing about projections: Not only does the projection rob you of vital force, but it also is a distraction—a way to avoid engaging with life because, well, “I’ve got so many fucking things I want to complain about!”
When the complaining stops, what do you do?
You don’t need to have all the specifics about what you’ll be involved with. Or maybe you do—maybe you want to take to the streets and protest, run for political office or clean out your garage—it doesn’t matter.
The important distinction? You’ve regained the drive (Mars) for doing whatever enthuses you (Jupiter).
You’ve dropped back into your life (Saturn) and freed yourself from the outside world’s distracting miasma (Neptune).
Here are your April 2022 horoscopes for your Sun sign.