Venus and Mercury (1585)
by Bartholomaus Spranger
We’re going to tackle a three day range here – from May 7th through 9th. It’s a nice enough weekend for those fond of Taurus times…the Moon will be transiting Cancer on Saturday and Sunday which will make things nicely home for those who have time, and those who are hot on fire about some project are going to be brainstorming apace, whatever else is afoot.
Taking Saturday on its own, it offers one other highlight as well: Venus and Mercury coming into conjunction at 20 Aries.
Now let’s be realistic here…Venus and Mercury have been playing tag pretty much since the first of the month. And it’s something of an interesting indication this, what with Venus being in Aries. Let’s remember after all, Venus is a symbol of what we like to get from others in return for what we do or who we are (or a return on our investment, be that of time, money or effort)…and when Venus transits Aries, we’re sort of stuck with ‘getting’ that from ourselves. Or looking to ourselves for satisfaction with what we’re doing. Or even rewarding ourselves for good (would you believe ‘decent’?) behavior. Or with putting up with inconveniences.
Or that never-popular looking Self in the mirror thing? You know – when we get real about why we’re not getting where we think we want to go?
Mercury, on the other hand, is quite all righty-roo in Aries. Mental and conceptual, Mercury can express itself a little too self-critically in Aries – or too egotistically. Mercury in Aries is often a sign of impatience, or the tendency to get frustrated overly quickly – at least in comparison with how patient we usually are. (Except if you have Mercury in Aries natally. Then that ‘comparison’ thing becomes a big fat maybe…maybe not!)
Put these two together and you can get a lot of brainstorming (as suggested above) or really harsh critique (try not to!) or clashing of titan opinions (which works well in Japanese horror flicks and not so delightfully in real life) or haste making waste and getting frustrated over that…
This would be a classic time to splurge or act on a whim. And that may work for you – or it may not. How would you know which is which? Probably by why you’re doing what you’re doing. If this is a sudden ‘bingo!’ thought – the ‘aha!’ moment where you see how to do something or fix something or fit that hole and make ‘it’ all work? That’s the Mercury-up side of this conjunction and it proves that you’re thinking.
But this would also be a classic time to try and ‘make yourself feel better’ by buying something or indulging in something or doing the ‘I deserve this!’ pout-pout thing. We all do it, so don’t beat yourself up about it – that really sulky Venus/Aries thing you just don’t need.
The point here is to understand what you’re doing and to do what you do with a bit of sense or sensibility as to boundaries and not going entirely overboard.
Remember, Chiron – the what I need to learn how to do by doing it…even though I dread the whole thought symbol – Chiron is still conjunct fixed star Fomalhaut. And Fomalhaut is the heart and soul of the karmic lesson about ‘no shady deals.’ Where we are above board, Fomalhaut promises success. So if you really need to learn how to do something and you really don’t know how to do it, provided you’re just tackling the job and have no ulterior motives for doing so, these past weeks have been good for you.
And this weekend continues being positive.
But! IF you’ve been craven or covetous, where you’ve been in an ‘I’ll show them!’ mood instead of merely dealing with your own life, where you know you have been unfair, mean or selfish…it doesn’t matter if you think you should be allowed to do so, if you know that isn’t cool, it isn’t. And for you, this would be a bit of a rocky time.
Continuing on with this Chiron theme as we move along to Sunday, Chiron actually ends its act of effusive fusion with Fomalhaut on Sunday. How are we likely to experience this? Probably as a loss of some sense that yes, we really can do this. Or that if we just follow the rules, the procedures, the Yellow Brick Road that we will eventually gain the upper hand, achieve our aims and in the end, succeed.
This does not mean that some mystical “chance” has been lost. No, you still can succeed! You’ll just have to do it without that little voice inside cheering you on – and seeing you through those really (Chiron) hard parts. As Chiron parts ways with Fomalhaut (with it being yet a while before Chiron moves out of orb), that’s when we get the other notice for this weekend – namely Niobe (pride) retrograding back into Libra.
When we say that Niobe is pride, we mean the kind which thinks ‘life has blessed me’ ….in that particularly (Greek tragedy) way which sort of almost taunts life to test your sense of blessedness. In Niobe’s case, she was boastful about her children. She thought her many beautiful children were the most beautiful and the most talented and better even than the children of the gods.
Let’s just say that such boastful pride, such luxuriating in what was especially in those days (when child mortality was so high) such a gift…that was just plain old everyday (and immortally) obnoxious. And when Leto – mom of Sun god Apollo (god of light, music, healing and enlightenment) and Artemis (aka Diana, goddess of Moon/moonlight, intuition, hunting and chastity) – when Leto heard Niobe boasting she SO wasn’t having any of it!
Latona (the Roman Leto) and her Children, Apollo and Diana
by William Henry Rinehart (1874) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)
This woman would have to be dealt with – and deal with her Leto would: Apollo and Artemis were told to take their exalted bows and arrows and to shoot down Niobe’s children, one by one.
So blind was Niobe to the error of her ways that it actually took her until most of her children fell dead around her before she realized what was happening. And with only one child left she began to beg forgiveness.
But it was too late – a last arrow had already left Artemis’ bowstring and Niobe was left with no children at all.
So Niobe is pride. But on a more specific level it is the sort of pride which tempts us to compare ourselves with others. Call it a ‘connective’ sort of pride – there’s always someone else’s something in the mix.
That part doesn’t bode so well with the Venus in Aries thing. Venus in Aries is about the struggle to believe in self, validate ourselves in our own eyes and to be satisfied with our own opportunities. So this suggests that this weekend – while good if and where we can reconcile our internal differences – can be problematic in the relation sense, particularly since Niobe retrograding back into Libra would tend to heighten the me/them tendency to compare.
On a whole other level, this can be a very discerning time. If you have to make a decision between this and that, this quartet of influences would be exactly what you might be looking to find on the celestial menu (providing you can get past your own tendency to want it all – or want things all your way!)
Since Mercury is nearing the end of a shadow cast by its March/April retrograde, there’s also a sense of moving ‘past’ some things. So expect a miscellaneous (even perhaps important!) matter to head towards ‘wrap up’ or ‘settling out’ mode – especially as we move into the week.
By early Monday, the Moon will have moved into Leo and it’ll be time to get a move on and to start seeing what bright ideas we can get moving and bring to reality. Providing you don’t lose your head or perspective, it’s a good time to move on.
Just remember – Chiron and Fomalhaut are still within shouting distance, so don’t do unto anyone else anything you would feel really peeved to have done unto you!
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