Mercury – the Messenger of the Gods planet – enters Cancer (4:17AM PDT), a cycle that lasts until June 25. Mercury has been moving at its fastest daily pace of the year during the past three weeks (over 2 degrees per day), but now Mercury’s daily speed begins a gradual decline that lasts until July 14 when Mercury will makes its next three-week retrograde cycle. In the meantime, this morning’s Mercury transit into Cancer gives a boost for home and family interests, cooking and baking, gardening, antique hunting, historical studies and learning more about your ancestral tree.  A Moon-Jupiter flowing trine in earth signs (5:39AM PDT) – usually a very expansive alignment on mental levels and in business matters – has the challenge of also starting a void lunar uncertainty zone that lasts until 7:18AM PDT. Although this void-of-course Moon cycle is relatively short, it is wise to complete odds and ends while it is happening.  Once the Moon enters the third air sign of the zodiac – Aquarius – at 7:18AM PDT, the cosmic vibrations favor group projects, team sports, community activities and humanitarian efforts. The later hours carry a volatile force since Ceres makes a frictional, 135-degree link to extremist Pluto (7:04PM PDT) while the Sun squares the red planet Mars (7:31PM PDT).  The Ceres-Pluto encounter can temporarily derail your productivity across the board while the Sun-Mars skirmish is a valuable warning about hanging around with temperamental individuals who tend to shoot from the hip without thinking of the consequences. Pressing the anger button is off-limits. Being an ornery, egocentric havoc-creator is the complete shadow side of the Sun square to Mars.  Striving to put out interpersonal fires and inflammatory rhetoric is one way to utilize the Sun-Mars fracas in a positive manner. If you can also tweak this sky pattern into directing vitality in clear physical and emotional channels, then you are working wisely with the overall energy-field. Leave romantic overtures for another occasion.