I went to a wedding last night for a relative who isn’t legally a relative because I’m not legally married to her father. In a sense, I have a stepdaughter and now a stepson I don’t actually know very well. Someday, I may be a young step-grandmother. I actually like that idea a lot.

There is something magickal about weddings, despite my misgivings about the political nature of the whole thing. The ritual attempts to crystallize the magick that we can’t see, the bringing together of two karmically connected souls.

If you get married, you have karma. If you go through the ritual and the commitment, you have karma, no matter what happens in the end. I don’t think I have done a single synastry reading where there was no karma.

There is something frightening about a wedding though. I don’t have children of my own, so I don’t know what it feels like to have that fear of the unknown for something I have created, but if every man and every woman is a star, and if each star is meant to move in a path without interference, and if we cannot know the future, then we cannot really know what will be for our children, what they will create, and what is ultimately good for them. All paths, unique as they are, ultimately lead to the same place, the true will, without interfering with the true will of another, leads to that path. Thus, we can only hope that they find happiness, the indicator that they are on a true path, one we cannot create for them and one we cannot know beforehand.

It was a lovely ceremony, and it simply felt good. The vibe was wonderful. I like my in-laws, and I like being around them. I like talking to them, which is weird, because I have never otherwise been a family person. So it may be my desire to see all of their stars move in the sky as they will that enhances the sense I get. And maybe it was also because the bride herself was bubbling over with infectious joy. And maybe I needed to see something idealistic to combat the stark realism of my latest Saturn transit to my natal Sun. But I am a claustrophobic, and this wedding was indoors, and when I feel there is something wrong, or off, I cannot handle the energy and try to get outside and away, but I didn’t.

And we never know what the future will bring, but being me, I cast an event chart for the wedding anyway.

Suffice it to say — in contrast — this is not the easiest chart for a wedding.

Most astrologers probably wouldn’t have commenced a wedding when there is a grand square in the mutable signs, when Saturn is conjunct the moon in the 2nd house, Mars retrograde. peregrine in 1st house Scorpio, Chiron in the 5th house, and Juno in the 12th house. This is a time of idealism clashing with realism, of intensity unchecked, of hardship and restlessness. There may be trouble with finances, with communication, with children, big hopes for the future and dreams of home in conflict. This at the very least; if I wish to interpret the opposition between the Moon and Saturn in Sagittarius with Mercury and the Vertex with Alderaban and Antares, and the glaring oppositions, I could go wild. But I won’t, because this can also be a time of making big dreams come true. It is also a time of making big things happen, and nothing big ever happens without a little bit of elbow grease.

But the bride and groom are not astrologers, and the time was picked because of his work schedule as a village police officer (and if she becomes one too, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised, with the Part of Fortune in 6th house Aries conjunct Uranus squaring Pluto in 3rd house Capricorn). This work already features quite prominently in the chart. They are also big fitness buffs — I think that is how they met. On the wedding day, the Sun was conjunct Venus, ruler of the 7th house in the 8th house, bringing people together to celebrate this union entered into for the joy of love. This is a marriage where they will transform from one thing to the next, and these two may have radical changes in fortune together.

Jupiter is conjunct the north node in the 11th house, opposing Neptune: this will be a union to further big hopes and dreams, and sure, the bubble may pop on dreams and illusions may fade, but that is actually par for the course of any marriage, and from the remains we create new ones. That is life; in a way, every dream is mutable.

This was the song played at the end of the ceremony, which is just so apt for the brightness this opposition can bring:

And truthfully, no one who falls in love and stays that way signs up for easiness. And soul mates are not actually the idealistic, two-dimensional lovers portrayed in movies. Many never become lovers, and wouldn’t dream of it. But soul mates are never easy, and I refuse to predict the future when I’m not asked to do so, to say that it will be this way or it will be that way.

So, if I see a chart like this, I figure that it figures, that it can go this way or another, but there is certainly enough energy here to bind two people together, and a wonderful thing that the driving force is love, and with love, challenges are surmountable, creative, productive. That the grand square is in the mutable signs tells me that this will be a marriage that will create a lot of scattered energy, but it may also be a lot of energy spread around, because that is what the mutable signs do: they spread around, they spread out.

And who doesn’t like the idea of love spreading around? And perhaps they will roll with the changes and all the ups and downs the future may bring.

*I do not have the birth charts for the bride and groom, but I wish I did.