Juno Retrograde at 17 Leo

'Wave' by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)

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The mythological Juno was Jupiter, Lord of Olympus’ wife - which to Greek thinking would be Hera as Zeus’ wife. But we’re going Roman for this posting, and in the land of the Pantheon... as opposed to the Parthenon (which is Greekly placed in Athens)... Juno had a reputation for being a matriarch worthy of great admiration even if she was more than a bit of a shrew when it came to hubby Jupiter.

Or at least that’s the Jupiter version of the story. Not that the myths concerning Jupiter include any lofty speeches of complaint (that might not have been the Olympian thing to do) but Jupiter had his way of expressing himself on the subject - mostly while he was having his way with some sinuous young nymph.

For the record - and to Juno as an astrological point - despite all the shrew-ing and Jupiter’s willingness to be a philanderer of literal Olympian proportions, Jupiter stays with his wife - and Juno puts up with Jupiter’s follies. And why one would be able to do that, or perhaps how would be the better term here... that all has to do with story points we don’t hear much about, but which are certainly implied - namely how in spite of all the emotional zig-zag(ing) we could guess at in the Juno-Jupiter relationship, they maintain.

And that’s the word which is at the heart and soul of Juno as an astrological symbol, no matter how you conjugate it, no matter how it gets applied. On the surface Juno symbolizes what we do and what we go through in ‘maintaining’ our Self as we face or go through a process... or just in the maintaining of our Self, our life, things that are important to us and all the rest. As implied by the myth, Juno is a symbol which often refers to putting the brakes on something or objecting to something which we see as having gotten overblown or which has otherwise exceeded the limits - whether those limits are verbal, physical, financial, emotional, legal or of any other nature.

Jupiter expands... Juno seeks to put a functional limit on things - and to keep things functioning in spite of (Jupiter) excesses, real, imagined or otherwise.

Currently in Leo, Juno represents the drive we have to keep on taking care of what’s important in our personal world despite whatever else is going on in our variable life and times as well as the instinct to ‘manage’ those resources which may be needed tomorrow as well as today...and that it’s going retrograde suggests a time when things take a ‘turn’ towards ‘managing’ more personal issues, inner thoughts about how to get things done and where - considering how Jupiter itself has just gone retrograde - where or how we just might have bitten off more than we can chew - which would be in true Jupiter style.

Then again, seeing how as Jupiter went retrograde Saturn timed our moving into our year 2014-2015 ‘lesson load’ (much of which we are still probably less than clear on) perhaps Juno’s turn to retrograde is underscoring some need to ‘manage’ our Self (or what we’re aiming to do, be or become) in light of whatever it is we don’t yet know or haven’t done.

Plus then there’s the 17 Leo influence to add in. Known as one of Leo’s more will-filled degrees and an influence which is direct (read: blunt) and which tolerates neither denial nor defeat until the goal itself comes to appear invalid - if it ever does.

Could it be that Juno going retrograde in this degree is our ‘managing’ to realize how some part of our 17 Leo activity is being or has been devoted to something which is actually invalid? Or maybe we’re ‘turning inward’ to see if we have the kind of strength being referred to here? Do we have whatever kind of strength it is which is needed to persevere... even if that means persevering with some form of letting go?

'Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida' by James Barry

(1804, line engraving and mezzotint on paper)

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None of this has to be bad - or even difficult. Whether it is or not is about our individual relationship to management and the idea of managing things without... and that Self within. With Juno going retrograde there’s a ‘within’ of some type in our future, which with this stationing occurring in Leo suggests that the plus and minuses here (at least some of how we feel about them) is greatly a matter of a.) whether we feel personally under some sort of ‘threat’ - real or imagined, vital or petty - at the moment, and b.) whether the situation is interesting.

Interesting to us, that is. Given that interest, Leo becomes a boon of magnificent strength and passionate endurance, with it mattering not a fig whether the subject is vital or petty to anyone else. After all, wherever we see Leo in a natal chart, we know that’s an area of life the owner of that chart would like to have cooperation and support in. They will even (probably magnanimously) accept adulation, adoration and large numbers of sacrifices (on your part) to assure the success of.

Just don’t mistake any of that for need. Leo conviction is the stuff of defiance and the platinum standard for motivation... all of which have nothing to do with anyone other than the given person and how they deal - or dare we say manage their Self... which may well explain why, as Juno turns to retrograde some of us will mitigate external matters because there’s a little (or whole lot of) soul searching going on.

And by ‘soul searching’ we don’t just mean some matter of conscience - except that given whatever challenge, large or small, that we have at the moment, we are likely to be doing some ‘soul searching’ about why that’s happened, why things “have to work that way” or what we can... what we want to...and what we are not yet in a position to do, alter... or even manage to contemplate.

After all, we have other things to do - which means some will manage their time and some will manage to skirt, bypass or otherwise avoid something now... which could be good and could be bad, depending. There is good news in that the Sabian image for 17 Leo (‘A chemist conducts an experiment for his students’) does bring an air of intrigue and possible discovery to our managing of things - which granted, for some will simply amount to ‘managing’ to reach some goal, whether that means you’re dealing with complicated schedules or managing things well enough to make not enough last because that’s all you have or can get.

Does that mean we’ll run into some ‘shortage’ of some kind? Maybe. If we do, Juno’s turning to Leo retrograde points to our ability to manage things, perhaps by taking a new tact (conducting that ‘experiment’) which may teach others (the ‘students’) while also teaching our Self (speaking of Jupiter retrograde) what we are actually capable of doing, learning or being in this life - or to this world.

Plus there is also the wee little astro-matter about how that symbol of requirements we call Saturn is just about to move into 29 maximal (aka critical) degrees of everyone’s favorite quiver-worthy water sign, Scorpio in advance of moving into Sagittarius on December 23rd (UT/+0).

Saturn and its moon Tethys (which is 600 miles or 1062 km across) as photographed

by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft.

(photo credit: NASA, ESA, ISA, JPL, Caltech)

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And since before anything changes signs it passes through the final degree of the previous sign (at least by astro-logistics), that will endow the whole of the time from December 14-15 (depending on where you are) until December 23rd with a 'critical' experience of Scorpio's necessities and limits, a theme which test our security with-and-within our Self at primary, and some would say primal levels.Whatever will get you to said place of personal testing, you may expect that. And whether the venues seem simple or impossibly complex, whether they concern something which is intrinsically You or some need which pertains to others, whatever your tests are, they are likely to feel important - and they may well be important. Between Saturn and Juno and the fact that the Geminid meteor shower will be reaching maximal rate/effect just as Juno goes on station, we each are going to be facing whatever will cause us (as individuals) to face our own tests.

How am I going to manage this? How will I manage to get through this? 

The reality of what that level is may not be excruciatingly apparent - at least not yet. What you’re into at the moment may well have importance of its own, to be sure... but this is just one of those periods of time when life is likely to leave a recognizable ring around our psyche, even though we may not notice it... at least for a while.

Suffice it to say, in the interim, we’ll manage.

Speaking of which, if you’ve been hanging around astroPPM for any kind of time you may remember the flood I woke up to at some delightful hour like 4 a.m. earlier this year.

That was caused by a broken pipe in the apartment next door which, after filling that (at the time, empty) unit to the depth of around four inches then sent water seeping under both side walls.

I bring this all up because as I write, Los Angeles is to be hit by a very (for LA) wet rainstorm just about as this post gets auto-posted by Google's digital gremlins. And since last week's storm (which folks here thought was far more wet than any rainstorm has a right to be) treated me to a watery invasion at just about midnight, I'm going to hope for arid flooring and a bit of luck.

And no matter what, I'll manage.

But that's rather the point. Dry or otherwise, its likely that so will we all.
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