Venus in Cancer

From the mid-40s, a fashion model photographed while underwater in Marineland Florida's dolphin tank

(photo credit: photographer Toni Frissell, 1907-1968)

There are a variety of interesting factoids worth thinking about with regards to Venus entering Cancer – an event which will happen on June 3rd at 2:14 in the morning, UT/+0 time.

First of all, considering this is Venus we’re talking about, that brings up our questions of value, worth, confidence (emotional self worth) on one side while asking whether how others and the world are responding to us is what we’d like it to be.

Venus always asks these questions. And for the next three-plus weeks, all such questions will be put to us through ‘Things Cancerian’…or in such a manner as to arouse our Cancer-born instincts.

And yes – when we talk about Cancer, there is a definite quality of ‘instinct.’ As the first of the water signs, Cancer is related to the shaping of our most basic emotions and how those emotions are shaped – which is why Cancer is associated with habits, cultural traditions, the unconscious and our attitudes regarding family.

As we grow up, Cancer comes to be other, more worldly things too. Home, family, nationality – these are all Cancerian concepts.

Then we come to the idea of real estate – particularly as an emblem or means of (rather literally) “building” wealth. The zodiac’s three water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) and the houses they’re associated with (the 4th, the 8th and the 12th) are the areas we look to when we consider wealth in the chart.

With polarities, the idea that air is always opposed by fire and water is always opposed by

earth on the zodiac wheel counts. Traditionally, even though in opposition on the zodiac

wheel, air and fire "get along" and water and earth "get along"...though the more esoteric

question always pitches some form of the reality (earth) against the feeling (water) or 'whether

 the idea works' (air) against the vision (fire). 

You may have thought that was Taurus and the 2nd house? Well, no. Not precisely, that is. Taurus is the ‘I-me-personal side’ of (polarity sign to) Scorpio, which is why Taurus represents what we have depending on how well we get along with and deal with others (and the financial mechanisms in society)…and how well we gauge the concept of ‘risk’ at an emotional level.

That people do think of Taurus so diligently as ‘my money’ is actually rather interesting, considering how few folks focus on Cancer in the ‘landed gentry’ or large scale real estate owner sense.

There are long and well-established traditions in many cultures which “judge” you by your home. That would be Capricorn (our ‘worldly standing’) as the polarity to Cancer – real estate, our home and all that.

So why don’t people think in those terms?

Well, we do – to some extent, that is. Scorpio and the 8th (and to some extent the 8th house of our natal chart more than Scorpio as a sign) is where we display that ‘competition’ or ‘going for’ what we want in a worldly sense. But the 10th and its associated sign of Capricorn, that’s not ‘making it’…that’s more about ‘having it made.’ Capricorn seems a bit more ‘boring’ to us because it’s about (Saturnine) earning and doesn’t have that intense, inter-personal Mars/Pluto tussle quality that Scorpio and the 8th so adds to our lives.

And as far as real wealth goes (you know, giant, incontrovertible wealth) – that’s Piscean and the associated 12th house of the chart. Were the 8th and Scorpio have an active quality which is so associated with inheritances, investments and the spoils of war, the 12th (and Pisces) is associated with pensions, royalties, annuities, income from patents and any other sort of income which simply shows up without your having to do anything in particular.

So if you’re a Wall Street trader who could make it or break it in a day, that’s 8th house. If you’ve inherited an oil company and now are endowed with a sump of money which will never run dry, that’s 12th house.

But lest you say ‘oh, don’t I wish!’ let’s also think about what we know on the emotional side of this triad. Cancer is the sign of family. At it’s best, Cancer is the cozy hearth – and that hearth doesn’t need to be big or fancy in order for it to warm the very cockles of your heart. And that Scorpio is all about power, control, war, death, sex, inheritances, surgery and rehabilitation pretty much says it all. Scorpio is the active search for security – which implies there’s insecurity which must be dealt with.

Then there’s Pisces, the zodiacal land of artists, gurus, addicts, saints and convicts. Need I say more?

It’s an interesting sort of comparison. Evidently as the ‘water wealth’ capacity gets deeper, so do the emotional challenges.

With that duly plumbed, we retreat to the surf zone of Cancer.

Being the sign natively positioned at the very ‘bottom’ of the horoscope wheel, Cancer is about not our ‘standing’ in the world, but what we stand on. It’s about the foundations we are given, or which we scrape out or lay out and then build in our lives. (Yes, there’s that ‘building’ thing again!)

So while Cancer is the sign of home and we often see people redecorate or clean or even change their place of residence (and settle into new digs) under Cancer, any time we see a planet passing through Cancer its attributes are open for us to use in the realm of planning so that we can build a better future.

A wood engraving of an architect at his drawing board which was published May 25, 1893 in Teknisk Ukeblad, a leading Norwegian engineering journal

Mercury is already in Cancer as Venus shows up (dressed casually, no doubt) so we know that the thinking part of how to build our way forward is already under way. And since Venus is entering Cancer in the company of Atlantis and Scheherazade, which suggests there’s something (some Scheherazade ‘story’) which needs (Atlantis) letting go of.

But Atlantis is a bit more complicated than that. (All astrological points are, no matter how we tend to ‘short cut’ them when tossing together some conceptual astro-salad.) Atlantis carries with it a quality of being overwhelmed (‘drowned’) – or at least a fear that you will be, which is why you’re so reluctant to let go.

Of course ‘letting go’ may not be the right term in your world, even if the idea is equally applicable. Maybe you’re having a problem making some commitment and thus reluctant to ‘let go of not grabbing hold’ of something in some way? Or maybe you’re in that ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ position where there’s a problem which you’ve been successfully avoiding for some time now because you just know that the minute you poke that problem all will become a tornado of trouble before you’ll need to work your way through?

No matter what shape your shape is in (or not in) we also know that as Venus enters Cancer, Neptune is already sitting at 5 Pisces – the degree it will go retrograde at in just a few days. And with Mercury is at 5 Cancer, and thus in a perfected trine to Neptune.

And then we look to Scorpio, where Timekeeper Saturn, in retrograde, is at 5 Scorpio, completing a perfect grand trine.

Of course the obvious comment to start out with is the same one you hear me make any time we see Neptune connecting with Mercury. Such contacts are famously infamous for delusions, denials, deceptions and outright lies!

But then we throw a retrograde Saturn into the mix. Is this your coping with something you thought was one thing, and which someone might have led you astray about, but which has turned out to be something else?

That could certainly be the solution to the case of the moment. The Sherlock in you may have just caught up with the truth. And the hard part may be that you didn’t plan or you didn’t listen or didn’t do what legal eagle types refer to as ‘due diligence.’

Emotionally, this moment is a time for triumphs and a time for self-recrimination. It’s a moment as likely to manifest as emotional exhaustion or dismay as delight and sumptuous satisfaction.

It all would seem to be about how realistic you are – and have been – with yourself and about life as you come to June 2013.

On another track, this may be a wonderful time for those who are doing something in the Mercury-Neptune-Saturn. After all, this combination favors performers and artistry of any sort, not just that belonging to the arts. It could lend flair to a presentation. Or a bit of magic to a vacation. This combination favors those working towards generating royalties, pensions and other forms of passive income, and it’s a natural for events (pro or con) in the pharmaceutical, oil or entertainment industries.

But there have to be hard facts and a reality of quality attached to whatever goes on now. No kidding of self allowed! Cutting corners and all the rest of the ‘sub-standard’ stuff will backfire now, whether they’re initiated in the moment or coming home to roost.

Looking forward, by the time Venus arrives at the magical 5 Cancer point, Mercury will have moved on. That event will occur on the date of Neptune’s station (and yes, we’ll be discussing that in full).

But for the moment…let’s just say that this Venus-Cancer ingress is likely to set off a water sign grand trine (Mercury-Saturn-Neptune) already in progress. And since Venus is always about ‘results’ or our generating of results that we want…or deserve…or with Saturn in this grouping, have earned…as Venus enters Cancer (which is Venus moving out of Gemini) this is a time when things which have been considered in theory become a reality which brings on a sense of emotional impact.

Plus or minus, that is. And maybe both.

So to be sure, over the next few weeks our being aware of people’s feelings is going to play into our own happiness or lack thereof. Getting what we want from others will require that we own not only our own emotional situation, but theirs.

It’s probably not going to be easy. But did we think it would be in a year colored by two solar eclipses laid out in Taurus and Scorpio at emotional degrees? This year is all about testing our emotional stability, stamina and willingness to relate to others. In that, Mercury…then Venus…and in the days and weeks to come the Sun, Jupiter and then Mars all moving into Cancer is going to bring us back to emotional basics.

And not to put too fine a point on it, after this grand trine will come one with Jupiter taking Mercury’s place.

So that which is given to us now is ours to grow with and to utilize…or ours to be challenged by on an ever increasing basis.

And maybe both. Over the next couple of months life can be exciting and challenging…or more akin to challenging and off-putting. The temptation is to be ‘tempted’ to think it’s all about ‘them,’ but the reality is that we all have things to do.

Good news: Venus entering Cancer says this is time to get to doing them!
.
.
.