“April is the cruelest month,” T.S. Eliot claimed, in the opening lines of “The Waste Land,” “breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain.” Perhaps he was right about this one thing — he did have an intimate knowledge of cruelty. The breeding, mixing, and stirring in the fertile ground he wrote of is not so different from the kind that hovers in the air above it. Memory and desire mingle in the stars, too, waiting to take a new form. On April 4th, Mars makes a conjunction to Saturn in Aquarius, and our movements take a restrictive quality, password protected, limited access. It’s probably for the best seeing as how Venus shifts into Pisces the next day, co-present with Jupiter and Neptune and boundless with more options than she knows what to do with. On that same day, April 5th, Mars in Aquarius squares True Node in Taurus, reminding us that, when it comes to our actions, there’s only one way to see different results. On April 7th, comfortable, direct Mercury in Aries makes a sextile to honesty-is-the-best-policy Saturn in Aquarius and all cards are bound to get placed on the table. Jupiter in Pisces makes a sextile to True Node in Taurus on April 8th, and perhaps cruelty, however we conceive of it, can be endured if hope is present. On the same day, Mercury in Aries makes a sextile to Mars in Aquarius, and the energy is zealous, self-reliant, and strong-willed. A first-quarter moon in Cancer rounds out the week on the 9th, a moon that squares the Sun in Aries, as if to ask “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow/ Out of this stony rubbish?”