Venus in Leo

Planet Venus above Boudicca's prancing horse at Westminster

(photo credit: Mattbuck, March 2012)

Once Venus enters Leo, that will bring the number of planets in Leo to four (Venus, Jupiter, Sun and Mercury).

That’s a lot of Leo energy - not to mention that the ruler of Leo (the Sun) is one of those four planets.

Under any (or every) circumstance, Venus in Leo can be creative and fully capable of exuding incredible warmth and charm. This is the kind of influence one might associate with that perfect relaxing day, that effortlessly deft show of skill or that feeling that we’re on top of the world. Venus in Leo can put the spark in sparkle and turn up the light in utterly delightful.

Venus in Leo can also manifest in acts, choices or thrusts which are selfish, unthinking, or downright arrogant.

The difference between these qualities sounds simple: it’s about taking the opinions, preferences and aims of others into account. In other words, should Venus in Leo manifest as some sort of drama with you as the performer, it’s one thing not to care whether you have an audience (that’s performing for the fun of it) another to do your best for a suitable audience and another yet again to have some sort of paying audience whose sensibilities you completely ignore.

It’s not that Venus in Leo necessarily promotes thoughtlessness... although it can. And it’s not as if Venus in Leo is lazy, though there is a tendency to get a bit ‘lost in the moment’ (or in one’s own thoughts) at a moment which doesn’t work for others - and of course since they’re under Venus in Leo as well, the mere idea of being ignored can rub their Leo fur every wrong way in town.

Venus in Leo tends to dramatize things - even in our thoughts. With all the Leo energy going on at the moment everyone has their own (Mercury) idea on and are probably entirely too (Jupiter) willing to explain to you why they’re right... sometimes whether or not what they’re being so ‘right’ about even applies to what’s being discussed. Under Venus in Leo things seem more important than at other times which can be lovely or desperation-inciting, depending on where we stand with ourselves otherwise. Those who are content or in good shape are apt to reap benefits, especially as transiting Venus conjuncts and passes over Jupiter on August 18th (UT/+0) at 7 Leo while those who are having difficulties are likely to react or experience the breaking of dreams that those at the behest of those caught up in the dream of what they consider ‘right.’ This is a ‘transactional’ conjunction which - given that the Moon will be in early Gemini at the time - creates the ability to take a lot on but warns that potential is not reality and that details... particularly those we gloss over... are likely to come back to haunt us in a singularly flat-footed way.

Overstepping limits (‘coloring outside the lines’ or exceeding previously set boundaries) is another thing we’re likely to see and hear about between August 12th and 20th. Such matters will have enormous power of suggestion and should be treated/treated with accordingly, as it will be easy during these days to set forces in motion...and not so easy (and maybe not even possible) to contain or ‘edit’ what others are thinking - which of course means we’re going to hear the good and the bad, the discoveries and fun along with a fresh batch of rumors and trash talk coming at us through various media.  

Put simply, it is our allegiance to whatever idea we are currently holding dear which either motivates us to success...or which confuses us and confounds our success for reasons we tend not to understand but which have everything to do with the Leo tendency to be so involved with making something happen that we tend to not see our actions (present or past) with enough perspective to see what part of reality (or realities) we’ve forgotten.

(Or purposefully ignored.)

And for those who do see their errors or miscalculations, then comes the big Leo flinch. Leo, doesn’t like being wrong. Wherever we see Leo (in this case as a signature for Venus) that’s the area of life we’re not going to enjoy anyone even threatening to find flaws with. Under such Leo ‘threats’ (which may not be real threats even though our ego certainly feels threatened) instinct often triggers us to get all defensive-aggressive - which with Venus often manifests as physical criticism, attacks on ‘how something looks’ or responses, retorts and declarations which are basically ‘I’m so fabulous - never mind them.’

And sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Venus enters Leo

August 12, 2014 - 7:25 a.m. UT/+0 - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

This year Venus is arriving at its Leo ingress on August 12th at 7:25 in the morning UT/+0 time, perfecting a square to Ceres, which having moved into Scorpio on August 7th will still be loitering around at 0 Scorpio.

Venus-Ceres is about having a plan and executing a plan which accomplishes things which are (in particular) important to longer-term considerations. Having come into the 5-degree orb-of-square on last Thursday or Friday (August 7th or 8th, depending on where you are), with Venus then still in Cancer most efforts were about things basic, necessary and supportive of anything or everything else we might want to do in this life.

That quality changes once Venus enters Leo, asking how we can achieve those aims creatively. Cancer’s influence being cardinal (action oriented) we ‘did’ then and now we’re pausing to think what still needs doing and how to do... not do... or undo the next item on our list as Cancer’s watery emotionality gives way to curiosity, imagination and inventiveness - all of which are particularly strong for the first few days of this transit. Once Mercury moves into Virgo on August 15th (UT/+0 time) pragmatic and practical parameters start taking hold, becoming ever more evident (and useful) as the Sun joins Mercury in Virgo early on August 23rd (UT/+0), helping us to make headway on whatever tasks may be at hand.

A few more notes here on what is typically a rather pleasant transit (though if things are going wrong you can expect a good deal of grumpiness!). Are you planning on taking a vacation? Venus in Leo works well for vacations of the restful, recuperative and recreational types, though with so much energy in Leo there are bound to be more than a few people who (vacation or not) are too full of themselves for their own good. Why that is may be about pride... or it may be about some deep-seated feeling of vulnerability to embarrassment, which often comes off looking like pride. At the moment such moments (apart from the purely gleeful) are most likely to be set off when people try to do something they just don’t know enough about.

Bluffing sometimes work. Then again, sometimes it just makes things worse. Leo as a sign is the very antithesis of its polarity sign Aquarius in that Aquarius (and Aquarians) have a near-infinite (and to others, sometimes maddening!) ability to shift into impersonal mode where Leo takes all things personally.

That all of this is happening as Jupiter’s inconjuncting of Neptune comes to its focal point on the 15th (the same day that Mercury moves from Leo into Virgo) emphasizes the fact that there are a lot of people who are living in either an ideologically driven emotional space or a period of time which is emotional because our ideals are being contested by realities we (frankly) don’t like. How we deal with our own [Neptunian] fears on various subjects and whether we are willing to feel our fears and do what is morally, ethically and universally humanistic (in real world, real life, real human being terms) now tends to divide and conflict us, even with regards to that which we have believed in now for some length of time.

There are [Mars and Saturn in Scorpio] things which we will need to face now and deal with, like them or not. In dealing with such matters we will ‘steel’ ourselves, with most choosing ‘duty’ over humanity.

Where such choices (and all they lead to) express our personal internal standards with truth and accuracy things will be simple and direct. 

Where we are essentially in violation of our own inner core of mortal standards however, we will do what we must do with even greater vehemence, hoping to convince ourselves through the reactions of others.

And as always, we will project. The more married we are to our own ideas and ideals, the more we will come to this time feeling alienated or envious or simply regretful...the more we will tend to look to others without taking stock of - and learning (or relearning) how to utilize our worth.

But then, that’s one thing Venus in Leo is very good at. Venus in Leo can be the heart of showiness or an influence under which we are ‘shown’ what we yet can do and excel at. The native instinct under Venus in Leo is to do what we want while aiming to please our Self (or fulfill our dreams).

And often that works just fine.

Yet as with all things Leo, what we do which contributes to a greater whole (or purpose) is far more lasting and powerful. We are all being faced with a series of situations which seem to be all about the ‘other’ and what they like or even understand, with much in the way of challenges coming from areas of life or concern where people are embedded or ‘conditioned’ by some established position.

But that’s not what Venus in Leo is about. Venus in Leo is about who we want to be (or be seen as). Some such efforts are working, others are not.

And still we’re reluctant to change. Why that is may well become a bit more clear over these next few weeks - at which point we’ll decide what we want to improve upon.

Or not.
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Manti Te’o and Princess Diana: Jupiter, Neptune and Neptune / Mercury

 Jupiter's Great Red Spot as photographed by Voyager 1

(photo credit: NASA, February 1979)

Just about the time Lance Armstrong’s two-part Oprah interview hit the airwaves, a weirdly convoluted discussion about American (grid-iron) football player Manti Te’o and his ‘phantom online girlfriend’ also erupted.
 
From an astrological perspective, is this about sports stars? Or just celebrity?

I’d tend to say maybe both. And here’s why – starting with an Aries wheel of the zodiac indicating the current transiting positions of major planets.

Athleticism and the urge to compete are astrologically two different things. The physicality is Aries – the physical body, the “I Am” of corporeal existence. But the development of the body and the urge to test ourselves against others (otherwise known as competition) is a Leo trait. The real object of Leo is as part of the fixed sign cycle: Taurus, self-worth/resources…Leo, development…Scorpio, learning the worth of your resources or the current ‘state’ of your development process…and Aquarius, finding your place in the world, in the public, in the marketplace – and earning what can be earned depending on what you’ve developed in (or about) your Self.

All that is supposed to ‘complete’ the cycle and bring us back to Taurus having learned how to earn an internalized sense of self respect and self worth. Those who go through all the steps learn a lot. Those who avoid steps along the way, or who maybe inherit a lot of money or a position in the world which ‘allows’ them to ‘shortcut’ the process have an iffier time of it.

(No, we don’t like it, but evidently humans need to strive in order to end up feeling secure with themselves and within their Self.)

Celebrity is also a Leo trait. Leo – among other things – tests and teaches us how to deal with what might be loosely referred to as the ‘narcissism scale,’ hence those who become famous for nothing or famous for being famous, or the fact that we all know the difference between the person who is just ‘well known’ and the person whose depth or artistry or ability to touch our hearts makes them someone who will be known for all time? Not meaning to slight any reality star in particular, many of them are well known – they’re celebrity. But the enduring fame of DaVinci or Gandhi, that’s another thing.

Enduring fame is Piscean, Pisces is the sign of ‘universal emotionality’ where Leo celebrity is more the ‘entertaining image.’

This matters why?

This matters because it appears that a lot of what’s going on at the moment is life getting us to separate fame from celebrity through causing us to see how mortal some of our sports heroes really are.

Uranus is currently transiting Aries. And wherever we see Uranus, our lives in terms of those concepts gets (Uranus) ‘shaken’. Uranus symbolizes change – and all the forces which get us to change or which power that change. So whether the subject is Hurricane Sandy, the terrible doings in Libya, the saber-rattling of North Korea, the shootings in Newtown or the fall of sports heroes, there is an aspect of all of these things which is decidedly about our getting ‘shaken’ at some very primal and personal level, be that totally physical or through the other general aspect of that simple Aries phrase: ‘I Am’ which is so very much the essence of consciousness.

Life shakes us up so that we become aware. So that we will recognize that we value. And that what we do – or don’t do – in or with our lives matters. We all certainly have our ‘stuff.’ We each have a ‘personal mythos.’ And how we feel and relate to that mythos is – astrologically - made up of various symbolic parts. But when it comes to how we feel about sports figures and celebrities in general, there’s the part of that which is about them…and the part of that which is about us.

And that’s absolutely Piscean. Pisces, the sign of two fish headed in opposite directions is about reflections and the tendency to separate reality from the expectation.

 One of the stained glass windows of France's famous

Chartres Cathedral pictures the image of Pisces

But the success of that? That depends on whether we are having faith or supporting someone else (a connective urge) or whether we are avoiding being realistic about life…or our life in particular.


And that’s Jupiter-Neptune, the two co-rulers of Pisces.

One of the things to recognize about Jupiter and Neptune is that as planets, these are the two objects in our solar system which astronomers and other science-types tell us influence other objects. Neptune, as we’ve discussed, has an incredible quality called ‘magnetic resonance’ which literally controls the orbits of many other objects – the most famous of which is Pluto.

Jupiter’s magnetic resonance isn’t quite as obvious as that of Neptune (at least astrologically) but Jupiter does evidently affect the orbits of more than a few objects, notably those with orbits which cross various orbital tracks of planets without ever actually circling around the Sun.

Interesting, eh? Well, that’s what we get when we have a planet – Jupiter – which had it been just a wee bit bigger, might have been a sun.

There’s much to be said about Jupiter and Neptune as co-rulers of Pisces, but let’s go with the basics: Jupiter’s basic symbolism is about learning and knowing…which in Jupiter’s primary sign of (sole) rulership – Sagittarius – is about that vast bank of data we call knowledge. Seeking to know more, learning how ideas work in the world, education, new experiences – that’s all the Sagittarian Jupiter.

But as the ‘in’ door in Pisces, because Pisces is an emotional sign all about not just how we feel, but how we feel about our feelings, Jupiter poses the question ‘do you know your own feelings and why you feel as you do? Is that a valid premise?’

Thus, Pisces becomes the sign of all experiences and things which evoke or promote emotionality, and thus test our knowledge of our own emotions and the validity of those emotions – which is why Pisces is associated with delight as well as despair, and faith, spirituality and idealism on an equal basis with abandonment, loss and rejection.

All these things are coming to the fore now in the form of dozens of issues we’re facing and hearing about. The facts, the ideas, the learning about them and being presented with things which get us to scratching our heads and thinking is as I said in last weekend’s post a demonstration of Jupiter specifically being positioned at 6 Gemini over a period of time in advance of going direct on January 30^th.

Link to:

Armstrong, Assange and O’Neal:

Illustrating Saturn / Neptune Connections

But the ‘well there’s this, but…’ factor which seems so pervasive whether the subject is Lance Armstrong, national economies, climate change or the current debacle in the life of Manti Te’o – that’s a state of emotional confusion which is being signaled by Jupiter (in Gemini) currently being in square (by sign) to Neptune in Pisces.

Both planets are powerfully placed, though what ‘powerful’ means in this regard differs. And how that differs is best seen through a handy-dandy chart illustrating what astrologers call ‘Essential Dignities.’

Here’s a version of same, showing the two basic types of planetary dignities:

Neptune is in its sign of rulership: Pisces. And Jupiter is currently in a sign of detriment: Gemini. To make this easy to understand, both planetary effects are STRONG. But rulership versus detriment? That’s more or less about ‘achieving the optimal aim.’

Neptune in Pisces is going to push us towards the optimal aim represented by the sign of Pisces: emotional realism and separating the fantasy from reality so that we know when we’re fantasizing and know not to substitute fantasy for reality. Given Neptune’s reputation for ‘dissolving’ that which isn’t ‘real,’ it’s thus not surprising that all the things we have wanted to ‘just think true’ which aren’t so true are melting away at a rapid clip.

Or at least our veneers are. The ‘thing’ probably won’t change. But our regard for it? That will.
And that’s what begins to shift our regard for celebrity. That’s where ‘famous’ can become ‘infamous’ and where notoriety becomes somewhat tarnished in the light of real ability and fame which is earned.

By the by…we tend to LOVE (love, love, love) people who have been one thing and evolved to be the other. Princess Diana, for instance, was initially a celebrity. But through the oh-so Piscean experience of ‘marrying the Prince’ and finding out that life as a princess is not a fairy tale, Diana’s disappointment didn’t stop her from turning around and going out to work with people dealing with the darker Piscean manifestations: poverty, illness, abandonment by society to a life among land mines.

Princess Diana in Bristol at the official opening of the Whitehall Road community center

(photo credit: Rick, May 22, 1987)

The ‘detriment’ of Jupiter in Gemini is that the Jupiterian tendency to expand on what we know may go in the wrong direction. Or overstep bounds of decency or legality or anything else. Through sheer mental (Gemini) strength we may decide and determine to make a choice or to hold onto a choice – even one which patently doesn’t work - come what may.

We may even learn too much. With Jupiter in Gemini, decisions tend to be big. Ideas are big. We’re all pushing ourselves to do more, and maybe too much. Or maybe we won’t listen. Jupiter in Gemini can turn what you want to hear into all you’re willing to hear. And when we add in the square to Neptune and the Piscean quality, in come the feelings. So ideas become convictions and we’re so afraid that we might be wrong that we may end up nailing ourselves to our own proverbial cross.

Pisces has a weird astrological reputation for a reason. We’re all about what we feel, but WHY we feel what we feel? Where that comes from? Why we something scares us? Why something turns us on? Why we deny this or ignore that and give in when we know darn well we should be standing on our own? Those are Pisces questions.


And Pisces being Pisces, the easiest thing to do is point at something or someone, whether it’s your parents or your culture or your faith (or scripture) or something and avoid working to understand your own feelings on the subject because…gosh, that’s so darn scary.
 
Admitting that under the skin being human is hard and challenging and far more so the more technological and complicated things get? That’s Pisces in a nutshell. (Or clamshell, if you prefer.) And none of this is made any easier by our living in a period of shifting astrological ages.

The Age of Pisces is ending. So being virtuous is on its way out.

 In the Age of Pisces, Pisces (color coded to the

picture's border) is on the first house.

But that doesn’t mean virtue and Pisces values are gone. Far from it.

 In the Age of Aquarius, Pisces (color coded to the picture's border)

is on the 2nd house

In the (incoming) Age of Aquarius, Pisces moves to the 2^nd house of the wheel. In the Age of Pisces, Pisces on the first house of the wheel was the manifestation of humanity as being a vulnerable species. Now, in the Aquarian age, Aquarius – the sign of technology – is on the first house. We are our technology. We are our universality. To be elitist or apart or alienated is the vulnerability of the next 2,160 years (that being the length of an astrological age.) And with Pisces on the 2^nd house, the Piscean ability to understand our own emotions and emotionality and to (2^nd house) value that and utilize emotionality as a resource becomes the basis of the new ‘fixed house’ cycle.

I’ll write a blog just on that sometime. But at the moment, back to the current transiting Jupiter/Neptune square.

Neptune is where inspiration meets fantasy, where faith meets foolishness, where charity meets self-abandonment. Jupiter in Gemini wants to know. And the square between them says that where we can’t know, the high road is tolerance, ambivalence and caring interaction. But let’s face it – this is tough stuff. So in the absence of hard facts, people are going to try to make them up. With this Jupiter squaring Neptune with Neptune in Pisces, life is conspiring in a hundred different ways to get us to feel what we feel and why we feel that way. Or why we feel we need something. We’re being challenged (that’s the square aspect) to not just ‘go with our normal flow’ but to reconsider. 

And yes, maybe to change.

Adding in Saturn, planet of reality and hard facts, passing through Scorpio and we know that most of what is going to happen is going to come at us through others. Manti Te’o’s situation is a really good example of how things can be personal, social and societal all at once. That’s the combination we can expect since Gemini is in a purely personal sign (Gemini), Saturn is in Scorpio (an interactive sign) and Neptune is in Pisces, a global, universal, mass quotient sign.

If you didn’t read the blog on Saturn in Scorpio, you might want to read it. I got a lot of mail on that post, all of it saying it explained a lot of things. So here’s the link:

Saturn enters Scorpio

As of last Friday (January 25, 2013) Saturn moved into 11 Scorpio, the degree Saturn will go stationary-retrograde at come February 18th. This means we have had Jupiter sitting at 6 Gemini and going direct on January 30^th while Saturn in now at 11 Scorpio, about to sit there for something just shy of two months, in the middle of which it will go retrograde.
 
This IS a significant overlap as Saturn and Jupiter as signatures of what we do and build in this world and in our life. Their retrogrades don’t always overlap. But sometimes they do, as shown in this diagram.

Right now we’re in a section of the Saturn/Jupiter synodic cycle which has the ‘expansive spin’ of Jupiterian lessons (Jupiter being just about to come out of retrograde) overlapping Saturn’s moving into position to go into retrograde. So this is a time where the (Jupiter) lesson is being brought into (Saturn) reality focus.


And then (she said, feeling a bit like Rod Serling narrating an episode of The Twilight Zone), then we add in a bit of celestial hocus-pocus. What’s that? That’s about 11 Scorpio – Saturn’s station degree – being the degree of the November 2013 solar eclipse.

To borrow from today’s sports theme, that’s a bit of a celestial lay-up. Put most plainly, those who say ‘that can’t happen to me’ are kidding themselves – a fact underscored by the fact that in going direct at 6 Gemini, Jupiter is activating the ‘Aldebaran Quotient.’

Link to...

The Royal Stars of Persia (Part One): Aldebaran

That means this moment is not just about Lance Armstrong or Manti Te’o’s integrity. Or the integrity of those they have dealt with. It’s about what integrity is. And Manti Te’o is a premier example of how you can get in trouble for trying to play the ‘integrity card’ blindly.

 Manti Malietau Louis Te'o

January 26, 1991 - (no time) AHST/+10 - Laie, Hawaii

By all accounts, Manti Te’o is either a spiritual or religious person. I make that clarification because religion is Sagittarian: it’s a body of doctrine, a codification of ideas (and rules) which in theory are supposed to help us to learn about being human and being better humans.

Spirituality is Piscean. It’s emotional. Some people are very spiritual but not particularly religious. Some people are by-the-book scrupulously religious. They’ll follow every calendar date and ritual, but the spiritual part of religion, the carrying the idea in their heart – that’s not their orientation.
 
In Manti Te’o’s chart, a couple of things leap out at us in this regard. One is that his 20 Scorpio Pluto is in opposition to a 17 Taurus Vesta. Scorpio – as we all know – is the sign of sexuality. (Pisces is also related to sexuality, but it’s more of the sexual fantasy or sensuality quotient we think of as sexual.) Vesta is what it takes to keep our promises. In Taurus, Vesta is about tests of self worth and self respect. So it’s easy to see Vesta opposition Pluto as a person who questions who the right sexual partner is, and what sorts of alliances (sexual and otherwise) to get into.
 
But with Medea conjunct that Pluto, we have the signal that this is loving the idea of control to the point where it undermines your control. And with Echo within a degree of Vesta’s position, there is going to be a quality of following that you are told to do which ends up creating trouble.
 
Mind you, Princess Diana also has an opposition to Vesta, but hers is from Neptune. 

 Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales

July 1, 1961 - 7:45 p.m. (-1:00) - Sandringham, England

The challenge here is different. Diana’s Neptune is conjunct Atlantis, and Atlantis is the signature of that we have to give up fighting before we can find our bliss, our happiness in what we find through letting go of – in this case Neptune, the dream.

The opposition to Vesta is also from Scorpio, but Diana’s Vesta in Taurus is conjunct Polyhymnia and Menkar: reconsidering (Polyhymnia) the cost of bad advice or unworkable associations (Menkar) which in her case would have been driven by Neptune, so long as she was ‘clinging’ to the idea that ‘all would be well.’

Once Diana accepted her Neptune quotient – the fame and the fact that the royal commitment wasn’t working – she got her divorce, got her (Taurus) self-regard back on track and that was when she began owning her power.

Menkar is a challenging star. Until we own its temptation to do the easy thing or take the easy way out and convert that power to doing the right thing and standing with those who deserve our support instead of those who merely like it…until then we stand to stumble from one difficulty and rejection to a next. But once we become willing to ‘divorce life’s trappings’ and take on doing what we are truly capable of instead of what others might like us to be, then Menkar becomes a great symbol of the power to do good.

Manti Te’o’s Sedna is at 10 Taurus and his Vesta is at 17 Taurus. With Sedna being the ‘stormy waters’ we each encounter before we ‘take the plunge’ and live as we should, not as we had expected to, between these two points lie Echo, Sappho (universal poetry), Chaos (the endless supply) and Menkar.

As someone who has watched a lot of charts over a lot of years, at a guess, Manti Te’o will probably stub his toe a few more times before figuring out how to let go of thinking he can control life. But it won’t come easily. With Niobe (pride which precedes the fall) at 9 Taurus and conjunct Sedna, this is a proud man who may well express his pride through humility.

The current fracas seems to have come to its raucous head late last year (prior to being exposed now) as we came into and experienced last November’s solar eclipse at 21 Scorpio (conjunct Manti’s Pluto).

That, plus transiting Pluto’s trine of his 9 Taurus Niobe and 10 Taurus Sedna coinciding with this very public debacle may indicate the turn in Manti’s affairs.

But there are at least two more very potent figures in Manti’s chart to be aware of.

The first is that he has Saturn/North Node in opposition to Chiron/South Node. This is a very hard lesson about the practical and pragmatic realities of life which in all likelihood Manti is not going to begin realizing the full parameters of until Saturn approaches and makes its return to its natal position. And that isn’t due to happen for another six years or so.
 
Before that happens, Pluto will arrive at what may well be the core configuration in Manti Te’o’s chart – though that’s hard to say in the absolute sense, given that we don’t have a birth time. Manti Te’o has Neptune, Mercury, Tantalus and Vega ALL positioned at 15 Capricorn.

Vega is a fixed star all about the powers of charismatic speech. Or powerful ideas. When Vega is activated, we are moved deeply – at our core. In Capricorn, Vega is ruled by Saturn. Hence we know that Manti’s Saturn return (like all Saturn returns) is hugely important, and probably more important to him than others as it’s to-the-degree conjunct his North Node.

Tantalus being ‘temptation,’ the real issue here is Neptune – the ideal versus the illusion – being conjunct Mercury, the symbol of mentality.

This is what everybody is asking about: is he lying? Or was he just lied to?

Neptune conjunct Mercury in the natal chart – in any sign – is a thought process which is ‘ruled’ by whatever sign, house placement and aspects are in play. We don’t know the house, but we know the rulership by Saturn. Manti will have a tendency to idealize and idealistic expectations for himself; how well that works/works out for him would be astrologically told through the house in which the Saturn/North Node fall. But with this Neptune/Mercury configuration trine to the natal Vesta (not the Pluto, just the Vesta) we do know Manti will spend some percentage of his life dealing with internalized ‘expectations’ for himself (fostered by others or societal forces) but that with Pluto opposition Vesta, at some point that mechanism is going to be – or get - altered.

Self determination is the goal here. But what that means is going to be – and to some extent remain - in flux. If and when there comes a day when Manti Te’o makes the same sorts of self-discoveries Princess Diana made, he’ll start working towards his goals for different reasons.

And those reasons will become his fulfillment.

 In a moment of playing weather satellite, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft

photographed clouds at about 29 degrees north on Planet Neptune

(NASA- JPL August 1989)

Few notes on Jupiter’s current cycle. In going direct at 6 Gemini, Jupiter is obviously activating Aldebaran (at 9 Gemini) but has not yet reached Aldebaran’s position. After going direct on January 30th, Jupiter will slowly begin to pick up solar systemic speed (relative to Earth’s position), and that means it will reach Aldebaran’s celestial position in mid-March of 2013.

We can all look for ‘Edition 2’ of this ‘outing’ of ourselves at that time.

One of the things we may do well to remember is that with Neptune in its ruling sign of Pisces, our current Jupiter-Neptune cycle (the synodic cycle of how these two planets interact with each other as timers of our personal growth) is going to be ‘ruled’ by Neptune, as Neptune is always the ‘outcome’ ruler of Pisces and is currently doing a resident transit of Pisces.

That transit won’t end until 2025, which is the year of Jupiter’s next transit of Gemini.

But getting back to essential dignities, it’s this 2012-2013 Jupiter-in-Gemini and the 2015-2016 Jupiter-in-Virgo transits which are going to have everybody overstepping the(ir) bounds. But if we remember that the whole of Neptune’s transit of Pisces is about creating circumstances which promote those feelings and emotional situations through which we learn the difference between expectations and realities (or maybe the possibilities as opposed to unrealistic impossibilities) maybe we can all accept life with a little more grace…and in that, be kinder to ourselves and others.
 
At the moment, between Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune, it would seem that we’re getting something of a lesson about fame – and about how famous people are just as human, just as insecure as we are…and just as frail when it comes to making good choices.

Which leads to the other part of the question: is the fact that being human is to be imperfect any reason not to try our hardest or hold ourselves to standards?

That’s one of those Neptune/Jupiter questions we each have to ask and answer for ourselves. But it surely is part of the cycle. And for us to be finding, witnessing and experiencing our flaws, our vulnerabilities, our mistakes now? That’s entirely apt, as Neptune is at this point moving forward and rolling over royal star Fomalhaut.

Remember Fomalhaut? You know, the star which promises success ONLY if our dreams and efforts aren’t corrupt, corrupted or corruptive?

Link to...

The Royal Stars of Persia (Part Four): Fomalhaut

The Jupiter-Neptune synodic cycle is 12.7 years long and the last conjunction was on December 21, 2009 at 24 Aquarius. As a degree, 24 Aquarius speaks to tragedies we experience (or witness) which are caused by not thinking things through.

Or maybe…since this is Neptune and Jupiter (the co-rulers of Pisces) we’re talking about, could that be because we don’t want to know?

There is a quality of ‘experience is the best teacher’ which goes with 24 Aquarius. But those experiences? They create hurt and harm and trauma and sometimes just more avoidance.

You know…avoidance which is going to deepen and get routed out in the next Jupiter/Neptune cycle.

The date of this last conjunction (December 21, 2009) was also when royal star Regulus was still at 29 Leo – in direct opposition to Jupiter-Neptune at 24 Aquarius. That adds in the lesson of Regulus, a star which says success will happen (or be lasting) ONLY if or where we avoid vengeance or revenge.

Considering Aquarius’ association with the internet (hello? Manti?) and income (anyone for a down-and-dirty economic discussion?) my thoughts point to the sense of perspective…the learning to feel dispassionately which difficult economies and hard moments like that Manti Te’o (or Lance Armstrong, for that matter) are going through.

This Aquarian idea also brings in why we should be keeping Saturn and Uranus (the co-rulers of Aquarius) in mind when we discuss any sort of current Jupiter-Neptune connections.

It all begins making sense. Strange, startling, evocative success. Where Aquarius is universality and humanity, Pisces is the humanness of our human condition: our vulnerability, our sheer mortal fallibility...and our willingness to forgive, accept and grow from what we learn not so much about others, but about ourselves.

If you care, the Jupiter/Neptune cycle prior to the current one began on January 12, 1997 in the late Capricorn. And yes, this does mean that these conjunctions go forward sign by sign by sign. So the next one will begin

Yes, it does. And that means that the next Jupiter-Neptune conjunction will be in Pisces…which would be with both of Pisces’ co-rulers in Pisces.

Think about it.

To accept reality is the Neptunian lesson. Wherever we see Neptune, we experience tests to see whether we can appreciate life’s most essential qualities. There is – and will be - no black and white here. You can make real friends and never meet them, or see someone every week and end up betrayed.

In the big blue world of Jupiter-Neptune, the question isn’t what happens, its whether you have faith enough in yourself to go on, accept the truth and be a bigger and better person for the experience. Neptune denies ego just as dearly as Jupiter teaches us to utilize our ego in the pursuit of ever-greater understanding. What other people think of us is never as important as what we know we feel about ourselves.

And what we’ve learned about why we feel that way, and that our feelings are real, valid and eternal. Being famously happy is not just the only real kind of fame which works, it’s the only kind of fame Neptune honors – and apparently it has to be earned through the effort to grow in appreciating the value of that which pushes us to the edge with ourselves.
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Venus enters Gemini: Valuing Our Ideas

 Venus in Mirrors by Nevit Dilmen (1999)

As 2:24pm (UT/+0) on June 9th arrives and Venus enters Gemini, some of the reasons for things being as they are become plain. (Or at least plainer.)

At the same time, many a new thought will occur. Options and the desire to have options seem far more…interesting. Satisfying. Necessary.

Traditionally, Venus in Gemini is period when life focuses on the opportunity (or need) to plan out how to get to our goals, picking and choosing from this and that in creating a construct which suits our aims, priorities and abilities. It’s a good time to figure things out and therefore a good time for asking questions so long as we are willing to consider and treat the information we get with respect. There’s just nothing more annoying now than someone who is simply asking questions for the sake of asking, someone who is plainly acting out or showing off, someone who has no real interest in learning anything.

For some, Venus in Gemini manifests as a lot of things to choose from and feeling like you ‘can’t make up your mind.’ But that in itself is a call from your mind for you to stop and think about what’s important.

Gemini always asks us what’s important. Gemini asks that we think. Thus, during this rough month or so of Venus’ transit through Gemini, we can expect life to prompt us with situations which in one way or another prompt us to consider and sort through things, finding out what’s really important and what’s not.

Now for some people, this is purely mundane. I have a cousin who’s in an eternal battle with her mail box. Mail piles up on her counter and to listen to her discuss what it takes to go through it and throw things away you would think she had the future of a small nation hanging in the balance.

Yes, her aim is to take good care of her family. But really…does one coupon (which you know you’ll get sent again in a couple of weeks) really matter? Before you answer yes – that fifty cents really does matter, let’s remember that year in, year out her family has to deal with her being aggravated about the mail. Now is that coupon worth it?

Venus in Gemini asks that we figure out what’s worth it not only in the thing itself but in terms of what that means as part of the whole of our life. 

And as part of how our life fits in with those around us. Priorities aren’t only about what we do with our lives…it’s thinking through the whole of the Gemini/Sagittarius polarity: is this ‘thing’ (whatever it may be) important in the bigger scheme of things? Is my dealing with this more important than what I might be doing otherwise? Is my mood affecting others and how well they are able to operate in their life? 

 Lady in Blue by Raile

With Jupiter sextiling Neptune (in retrograde) today, this is a really good time to just take a moment and see the ‘bigger picture’….your life as a whole…your life as it affects the life of others…your life as part of a far greater world.

Considering how asteroid Kassandra is just moving on station, you may not believe that what you do matters.

Then again, you may get news which you ‘just don’t believe’ which informs you very clearly that you do matter. Or that what you do counts for something. Or that what you do (or have done) has far bigger consequences than you might have guessed.

Added to all this, we shouldn’t forget that dwarf planet MakeMake is already on station. And that Saturn is bearing down on the moment (next week) when it too will go direct.

What are we to think of all this?

Probably a lot. To focus on the Venus end of the discussion, since the combination of Venus and airy Gemini tends to highlight many facets of any given subject we could simply get distracted with discussing the possibilities. And of course with Venus in Gemini there is some benefit to considering things from various perspectives.

The Saturn part? Well, considering that Saturn is in Libra (a Venus-ruled sign) and in a degree which as previously discussed (LINK to BLOG) has a ‘separating,’ ‘separate,’ ‘individualized’ or ‘isolated’ point of view, there is “the thing” by itself and then again, there is that question of integrating present concerns with greater pictures. Saturn nearing its station is a sure sign that we are aware of greater life considerations whether we’re concentrating on them at the moment or not.

And with Kassandra – she who speaks the truth but is never believed – going on station, there may be some tendency to ignore the truth.

Or to feel like you’re not being heard.

Either version of this ‘Kassandra vibe’ would seem to fit (unfortunately) well with Saturn’s position at 10 Libra. And with MakeMake on station set to go direct, there’s also likely to be some feeling that there’s a wanting something to be or become and it’s…it’s…it’s just not happening yet! 

(The important part is that ‘yet’ bit, right? Let’s not forget that!)

Oddly enough, Jupiter sextile Neptune (retrograde) is likely to be one of the biggest crayons in the box – at least over the next few days. Those who can use this combination for insight and a willingness to listen ore remain open to possibilities…it would seem quite possible to gain ground and create positive influences now.

 Vénus de nuit by Teledelard

But with Jupiter in Venus’ other home sign of Taurus…? This increases the ‘wanting everything to be okay’ thing. And yet…its more than likely that, given what we know of Saturn (limitations against effort and Neptune (internal doubt versus faith)…well, let’s just say that there’s every chance that simply because this isn’t necessarily a pot-of-gold moment – at the moment that’s enough to launch many of us on an up-and-down rollercoaster of resigned understanding against discouragement over this next couple of days.

And yet…with Venus entering Gemini it does seem sensible to ask ourselves where Mercury is. After all, Mercury rules Gemini, right?

Answer: at this moment Mercury is at 14 Gemini. So we know things are busy – at least mentally. In addition to that, Mercury is conjunct Edisona (the new idea) and Dionysus (sacred celebration).

And that suggests that one of the things we can do to make things work better is to think over how we can better treat ourselves - and others – with what we might call ‘reverence of the mindful’ type. This isn’t worship, this isn’t about kowtowing…this is about being aware of who we are and who others are and that in the end, we aren’t stereotypes, we aren’t jobs, we aren’t just about our age or our background or our current situation…

…we’re human. And that’s worth celebrating and working on and thinking over so as to make the most of.

We’re only here for a certain amount of time and we each have very special gifts and qualities. Don’t limit yourself – and don’t limit others! If we would all concentrate on figuring ourselves out more and being supportive of instead of dictating to others, we all might get on not just a bit better, but feel far more loved and between the two, live lives which whether or not they were more  successful, would seem more satisfying.

And wouldn’t that - rather by definition - be the definition of greater happiness?