Station Effects Joined: Venus, Jupiter and Polyhymnia

 Venus seen at the edge of the Sun: a Venus station visualized 

photo credit: Swedish 1-M Telescope Team/NASA

As a symbol, Venus represents our ability to get what we want from others - and out of life. The former is Venus as ruler of 'do you like the idea of it?' Libra - and the latter about Venus as ruler of earthy 'I am/ am not satisfied and secure' Taurus. 

As a symbol, Jupiter is about our ability to amalgamate ideas and figure out how to make things work in life, thus expanding our horizon. As ruler of Sagittarius, it's the effort we put into growing our world-life-efforts, figuring out where the glitches are and how we're going to deal with them. As the ruler of Pisces, Jupiter represents how well we know our capacities - the fantasy from the reality - and thus how well we deal with  emotions which arise from this or that...the reality of it as opposed to our hopes (the fantasy, good or bad) we had imagined or forecast for ourselves, our world, etc.

Against the above two symbols being planets (personal attributes), Polyhymnia is one of thousands of main belt asteroids - a facet of thought or experience we consider or meet up with along the way.

Polyhymnia is also a muse - a talent. And thus for us, a human talent. The Greeks considered her along the lines of being the 'evocation of' (talent for) poetry and eloquence - in light of which, Polyhymnia is often portrayed as in a thoughtful mode of composing herself...or composing one of her works.

And yet on a celestial level the asteroid seems to work as a point of 'happiness.' So what's the dotted line?

It's about evoking - the ability to be moved and thus be moved to happiness. And that comes through some sort of internal mechanism...in us...being effected.

Being moved.

 Polyhymnia by Friedrich Ochs (1857)

photo credit: Steffen Heilfort

So to have Polyhymnia taking station in tandem with Jupiter and Venus suggests this is a set of days in which we may be moved. Or realize what moves us. Or when we'll decide to let go and just allow ourselves to feel. Or express ourselves, our feelings, our poetic angst... something.

And remember...if you won't do this stuff, the universe will bring it to you. So if you're not in the 'feeling mood' you may attract a lot of people who are very much in a feeling mood - or situations which will cause you to feel.

Looking at this another way though...'to be moved' (Polyhymnia) plus knowledge (Jupiter) plus 'making things real in life' (Venus) equals expectations. Or maybe even admitting something - first of all to yourself!

So maybe it's worth asking ourselves what kind of expectations (Jupiter/Pisces) do we have...maybe even just floating around inside that we've never really acknowledged to ourselves? How well/carefully have we thought through what we're doing in life and how we're going about doing it (Jupiter/Sagittarius)? Are we kinda sorta pretending that we want to be happy (Polyhymnia), or are we doing it for (Venus) real?

Or is not having to deal with the reality of something (Venus) what really makes us happy (Polyhymnia)?

What are we moved by (Polyhymnia) really (Venus)? Do we really actually know/understand what moves us (Jupiter)?

Have we thought through who we choose to show or share ourselves/our reality with (Venus/Libra)...and what that reveals (Jupiter) - not only to them but about us? Where are we in our personal security/satisfaction growth curve (Polyhymnia/Venus/Jupiter)? And are any of the given situations we are in likely to actually help us be the person we need/want to be (Venus/Taurus)?

And granting that the moment is the thing, maybe we need to also consider not just that all three of these celestial objects are about to change relative direction, but what direction they're going in.

To put it concretely, Jupiter and Venus are taking a station to go direct. Their symbolic attributes are about to go into forward motion and thus open external (direct) situations through which we will experience Jupiter and Venusian opportunities and choices.

But Polyhymnia? Polyhymnia is going retrograde. That means the brakes are not just 'coming off.' We still have to think.

When is all this happening, you ask? On November 18th - which means, given the 'standard' "station allowance" of two days before and two days after, that means that station effects on all three (count 'em - three) markers begins today, November 16th...and they're not over until November 20th.

Big gasp? Seriously delighted applause from everyone who is just sick to frustration with this Venus retrograde thing?

Oh yes, I hear you! Venus retrograde - to use the vernacular - sucks. It's wretched, rancid, annoying, frustrating, sticky, ikky and in general, just SUCKS.

So we are so glad it's over! Yes! Let's hear it for Venus going direct!

Not that Venus retrograde hasn't had its purposes. During this past truly sludge-filled six weeks we've all learned a bit more on the effect we have on others...and the effect they have on us.

And since Jupiter went retrograde back in late July we've all had a lot of things happen (or in most cases, not happen) which have asked us to reconsider who/how we're going about our lives. Getting ahead has not been so easy. We know we need to open a next 'door' in life but someone switched the keys and now we have to find the door that new key fits. By habit we keep going back to the old door, but the old key (way of being/doing things) doesn't fit.

As these two symbols come to station now together, we recognize necessity. Every person, piece of mail, every situation, glance at our bank account, every interaction, news report and passing birdie seems to sing to us of where we need to go.

Our tendency is to focus on the thing. But astrologically, the lesson really is who are we? Astrological passages are about situations and dynamics which, in arousing reactions in us TEACH us how to be that more effective person we want to be. 

So it's not about what 'the thing' or person is doing to or for or even against us. It's what is my reaction to this moment? That's where the real advancement takes place.

Jupiter as seen by the ESO Telescope

Or at least it should. Those who refuse to see, feel or take the lesson to heart (you know, the 'I'll just get past this and everything will be all right' crowd?) ...they're just postponing the lesson. And in doing so, they are spending the most dear capital of all: their time on Earth.

Maybe that's what we need to learn now from the Polyhymnia part of this equation, seeing that Polyhymnia is not going direct, its going retrograde. The poetry, the eloquence of our life is indeed within - and until we recognize the poetic beauty of our souls and the eloquence of our very creation...the fact that we're alive not for the effect, but for the being...can we expect to really be happy?

Those whose charts are precisely 'hit' by these transits will like as not experience events of major import during the days to come.

And a note on station effects...for some, they can be a little more than two days. It depends on how any given object is positioned and aspected in your particular chart. Beyond that however, there is the theorem that events which happen going into the station are about things yet to come...and things which happen right after the station have to do with the further developing of something which has already happened in your life.

Whatever happens - large or small - the recognizing it as something which is about you and not 'the thing' is really the biggest of big deals. Life does not happen to you, it is a cause/effect. The reason why so many people espouse 'positive thinking' is because they believe the 'good thought' can only attract a like 'good thought' under the theory of like attracts like.

'Like attracts like' is a one-hundred percent metaphysical lesson - but good thinking does not under this maxim attract only the good. It is the good we are and the good we are willing to be which attracts good...which by the way, angers the bad. People who don't like themselves or who have no intention of working on themselves delight in injuring those who are willing to hold themselves and/or their lives to an internal standard. That's craven guilt - and there's plenty of it going around these days.

But the temptation to just 'do for self' and say 'nuts' to a world which isn't helpful or supportive is yet another way of coping out not on the world, but on our potential. To use a word a friend of mine uses, it's 'slothful.' (I laugh when he uses that word!).

When we give up giving and focus only on what we need or want, we forecast our own decline. When we want others to meet our standard but are not willing to meet them half way to theirs, we are the very breath of coercion. And while we may win in the short run we lose utterly in the long rung, for it is exactly this kind of thinking which divides not just 'haves' from 'have nots,'  but more important (maybe) is the corroding of  Venusian satisfaction and Jupiterian life functionality.

You know, in the overall sense. After all, what's the fun of having all your goodies in a world so filled with ills of every kind?

On a cosmic, karmic level, that may be why Polyhymnia is going retrograde as Jupiter and Venus go direct. No, evidently we can't have it all. Nor - evidently - are we supposed to. At least not yet.

After all...you do remember that Venus is going direct in late Libra, right? That means it will soon be re-entering  Scorpio. And it will be in Scorpio through New Years, leading us all through a period of emotional reconciliation - most of all with ourselves - leading into the powerful Solar Eclipse yet to come in early January.

Time to concentrate on that Polyhymnia thing, maybe?