There’s been a distinct sort of heaviness lingering in the air these past few days (distinct as in: yes, true, everything generally feels heavy all the time now, but this is a slightly more specific and pronounced flavor of it).

That’s the sound and texture of Pluto stationing retrograde, exact today, bringing unresolved grief, shame, and memories of abuse to the surface of our awareness.

Pluto spends almost half the year retrograde, which on its face doesn’t register as hugely different in our felt experience of things, but when outer planets station in either direction, the effects are pretty palpable (and worth reflecting on).

Has a confrontation with ugliness provoked an unexpectedly strong reaction in you these past couple days? Have you been ruminating on the bullies of your past (or perhaps the ways in which you bullied others)?

Are you harboring shame and guilt in your body that you can’t let go of because you can’t forgive yourself? Are you obsessively stuck on something you wish you weren’t so hyper-focused on?

Let the cramped contents of your psychological storage closet out for some air and light this weekend. They’ll weigh you down too much if you try to keep them too neatly tucked away from view.

The Sun also meets up with Uranus tomorrow, which comes with a certain amount of chutzpah to claim your autonomy and shine for reasons that only you can. Who gave you the right? You did.

Of course, this is the sort of attitude that can be great for personal growth and potentially selfish and destructive from a community-minded perspective (we’re seeing a lot of this stubborn agitation coming from people protesting the stay-at-home orders, for example).

In short: do you, but don’t be a dick! There’s beautiful potential for liberating ourselves from self-imposed prisons of the “can’t” or “shouldn’t” variety, but it always pays to be considerate.