Saturn in Sagittarius

Taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, Saturn looms large in the foreground with

our beloved Terra Earth but a distant dot in space.

(photo credit: NASA, JPL, Caltech, 2013)

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As Sagittarius is the 9th sign of the zodiac, Saturn’s entering Sagittarius indicates a shift into the 9th derivative phase of everything which requires focus, discipline/self-discipline, structuring, responsibility, dedication and/or diligence.

It’s also the place in our individual Saturnine process where (and when) we come to feel like we can finally see our goal. It’s right there. It’s right ...

And then something happens.

Why would something happen? No, it’s not because Saturn is out to get you (even when life feels like it) and it’s not because anyone just wants to rain on your parade.

So why would something happen? That’s because Sagittarius, being the 9th sign in the zodiac is the sign right behind Capricorn (zodiac sign number 10), Capricorn being the sign of accomplishing the success which then ‘pays off’ in Aquarius (zodiac sign number 11). And that’s important because Saturn rules Capricorn, which makes Sagittarius the 12th derivative sign to a sign Saturn rules.

The 'natural zodiac' wheel

To work with derivatives, start with the sign you are looking to find the derivative of. Counting

that as "one," go counter-clockwise around the wheel (as the signs are numbered here) until

you arrive at the 'derived' sign of influence.

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Sagittarius is about expansion - the expanding of what we know, what we want to know, our sphere of influence, our understanding of our Self. In being the opposition sign to Gemini (the sign where we are asked to think things through, make a choice and construct priorities and plans) Sagittarius is also the sign where we meet up with people and things which may further contribute to our (Gemini) choice-and-plan ... or which may challenge it or point out it’s chinks or flaws, causing us (more often than not) to go back and review all our Gemini (and 3rd house natal) choices.

Sometimes we return to Sagittarian mode and stand up for ourselves, which wouldn’t be unlikely moving forward as Saturn is all about standing up for Self and the ‘standing’ of the Self as Saturn is astrologically all about structure (including backbones, real and proverbial) and the process of re/structuring ... some of which will happen over the next couple of years as we (Sagittarius) expand what we know or understand and see the benefit of building for a future, or bringing our past up to date.

(Or at least working on it.)

And about that ‘Sagittarius as the 12th sign to Capricorn’ which was cited because Saturn rules Capricorn. First of all, ‘rules’ are a big thing with both signs: Sagittarius covers the theory of law and Capricorn (hence Saturn) represents the reality of it - the rewards and consequences both for breaking a law and whatever the consequences for a given law may be whether planned or otherwise.

What isn’t in this mix however is politics, politics and all of its highly verbal operations being Aquarian and 11th house. (Which yes, does mean that the age we are now entering - the Aquarian Age - is going to end up being highly political and less based on the universal faith or the universality of faith, that having been a ‘last Age’ theme).

However ... Saturn itself (as opposed to Capricorn) is quite often a tinge political - and being the ‘in door’ ruler of Aquarian, that makes sense.

Why bring all this up? Because Saturn will be traversing the 12th house to its ‘sole ownership’ sign of rulership (Capricorn) at the same time as Saturn is - by moving through Sagittarius - also in (and therefore activating the 11th derivative to the other sign it rules: Aquarius.

What this amounts to is a crib sheet which says that during the whole of the period which starts on December 23, 2014 (at 4:34 p.m., UT/+0) and which ends on December 20, 2017 (when Saturn moves on into Capricorn) we can expect substantial successes and structural challenges where/when we test our own limits and our own (Gemini) ideas. And since wherever we see Saturn we earn what we get and get what we have earned, there are likely to be any number of debates both with our Self and with others - often in public as the public airings of opinions and getting ‘out there on the record’ are essentially a Sagittarian forms of sport.

But more to that derivative concept: the 12th to any sign being where we are emotionally tested or tested on our ability to accept our own feelings and our feelings about emotions (got that?), with Saturn moving through the 12th sign to its own Capricorn ‘home base’ (so to speak) is to virtually guarantee that we will - each and every one of us - have, or run across some sort of gap or glitch which we will react to for however short or long a time depending on your personal relationship to that which is hard for you to face. When that happens, the extremes of response will be at one end a fervent sort of frigid rejection and at the other a determination to accelerate some process in the name of necessary in spite of how we may or may not feel about it or about how it might affect us personally.

At the same time that that’s in play we will also experience Saturn being in the 11th derivative sign to its other sign of rulership (Aquarius) makes a reference to earning results, inclusive of whatever might prompt us to want to work towards some particular result and all that we are challenged by along the way. As with all eleventh derivative signs we will all be called upon to balance that which distinguishes us against that which distinguishes us from others. And at the same time that we’re doing that, we’ll also be having to satisfy that uniquely  Aquarian requirement that we balance the idea or ideal against everyday practicality and universal functionality - all without fracturing or breaking society’s structures into layers, classes, castes or anything else which embodies some sort of exclusion.

Saturn enters Sagittarius (first ingress, glyph chart)

December 23, 2014 - 16:33:59 (4:33:59 p.m., UT+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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Saturn enters Sagittarius (first ingress, glyph chart)

December 23, 2014 - 16:33:59 (4:33:59 p.m., UT+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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As Saturn enters Sagittarius it may well also be useful to note that Saturn will be making this ingress not once but twice, as Saturn will reach 4 degrees of Sagittarius by next March, go retrograde, and then back into Scorpio...

Saturn retrogrades out of Sagittarius (glyph chart)

June 15, 2015 - 1:35:31 a.m. (UT/+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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Saturn retrogrades out of Sagittarius (text chart)

June 15, 2015 - 1:35:31 a.m. (UT/+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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...for just about three months between mid-June and mid-September before going direct on August 2nd (UT/+0) and re-entering Sagittarius on September 15, 2015.

Saturn's 3rd (final) Sagittarius ingress (glyph chart)

September 18, 2015 - 2:49:12 a.m. (UT+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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Saturn's 3rd (final) Sagittarius ingress (text chart)

September 18, 2015 - 2:49:12 a.m. (UT+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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Looking just at the first ingress, Saturn is conjunct dispassionate Pallas in a degree which speaks to ‘mastery’ (28 Scorpio) whether we have it or not - which again points back to that Saturnine ‘have you earned it?’ quotient. With Sedna at 24 Taurus (and retrograde) in opposition to Pallas but not Saturn, we all have something we’re unwilling to give up which is holding us back, just as we’re all perfectly able to see someone else doing the exact same thing - and guess who we’re pointing fingers at?

Right ... probably ‘them’ for something we are in our own (perhaps distant) way equally enmeshed in, consumed by or (self)righteously devoted to - probably for reasons which go back to the basics of who we are, how we were raised and with what values and so on.

This ‘inner’ knowing or perspective on something we are doing ... and probably something we’ve done in the past as well ... to some degree this holds us to standards now just as to some degree we are proceeding in spite of not yet having sufficient experience or ‘maturity’ with something to be completely sure we know either what we’re doing - or that how we’re doing it is going to get us where we really want to get to.

We also know (this being purely Saturn) that it’s going to take time to get anywhere ... even if once we get there we realize that’s not where we want to be, at which point we’ll pack up our lesson learned and move on.

In keeping with regular astrological theory, retrograde passes (such as the one we’ll see this next June as Saturn moves back into Scorpio) tend to be personal - and this one is unlikely to be anything different, although with Saturn itself now in opposition to Sedna while also in opposition to the Moon and Mercury at 4 Gemini (a degree known for insight and interactive perception) even though Sedna isn’t conjunct the Moon and Mercury suggests being of ‘split mind’ - or at least attention - though why that is would be up to specific circumstances, specially as Saturn is also trine Vesta and the lunar South Node as this ingress gets made.

It would seem a moment of inner caution, though why that would be is entirely personal. It could be something small like dreading having to clean out a garage or going to the dentist. Then again, it could be something which - especially with a lunar node involved - plays on or through some relationship, be it person or that you have to some subject, effort or avenue of undertaking which has for good or not-so-good gotten out of hand.

It will take a couple of months from June for Saturn to finish retrograde and get back to it’s Sagittarian ingress, but once it gets there come September 18th, we will certainly know some form of ‘workable versus unworkable’ (Saturn trine South Node at 0 Aries) and that we are either ready to proceed with some furthering of some cause or that we need to proceed according to some new tact or tactic, the Saturnine reality of which we are ready to begin working on now. However ... that Saturn is not just opposition Sedna (which in its own grand trine to Ceres and the Sun reads rather as a status quo, personal allegiance (or) vision or tradition which we don’t want to let go of but may need to)... but that Saturn is also in square to Mars at 25 Leo?

Saturn and its largest moon, Titan, which is some 3200 miles or 5150 kilometers across.

(photo credit: Cassini - NASA, JPL, Caltech, SSI)

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Well, this is Saturn coming into Sagittarius and ‘committing’ to the full transit of Sagittarius as the object of a t-square with a Leo Mars as some ‘hurdle’ we have to get past - and in this case the hurdle is related to not just an individualistic highly biased (whether pro or con) Mars expression with regards to problems of pride, ego and luxury and/or luxurious self-indulgence, often to such an excess that the gift itself runs out.

Thus some come to Saturn in Sagittarius to forge ahead while others come to Saturn in Sagittarius to pay the price for what they’ve done ... a thought which leads to why those responsibilities spoken of in connection with Saturn must be those we owe others because we owe it to our Self.

That's the Saturn if Sagittarius premise - that we owe it to our Self to be someone who not only learns what they need to learn (i.e., to survive or get ahead) but how to their utilize skills, knowledge and conviction such that by the time Saturn reaches Capricorn and Aquarius, things we have put to work (and worked through) during this learning phase become the foundation for becoming someone capable of manifesting greater successes as a human being ... not merely as someone others see as manifestly successful. 
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Venus in Capricorn

Named for the Egyptian goddess of truth and justice (Maat), Maat Mons on Planet Venus is an

8 km (5 mi.) high volcano situated at 0.9 degrees north  Latitude by 194.5 degrees east Longitude.

(photo credit: NASA-JPL)

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There’s something quiet... sometimes even somber about Venus in Capricorn. Some of that is no doubt due to the fact that the sign prior to Capricorn is Sagittarius, and under Venus in Sagittarius things can get wild and woolly, unpredictable and unexpected. That’s what Sagittarius is all about - the new, the growth, the testing of a theoretical limit (if not the limit itself). So while Venus passed through Sagittarius, results of various doings (results being the Venus thematic aim) while there were pluses and things to be happy about, there were also a lot of surprises and things which got out of hand in unexpected ways.

So part of the change we’re likely to feel once Venus is in Capricorn is just about comparison. After all, in comparison to Sagittarius, Capricorn can seem downright staid. Or slow, as the pace or frequency of things does seem to pick up under Sagittarius - which means that if they slow down now they may be simply be going back to what's generally our more 'normal' pace - but in comparison, there's a difference.

That means we shouldn't think things can’t - or won’t get done now. They can - Venus in Capricorn is often a very  productive time, especially where we need to deal with obligations to others... or even our Self. Venus being all about trying to produce the result/results which will make things easier, as it passes through earth sign Capricorn we're all going to be looking for, working with and seeing real results come to be in real-time, in-the-flesh life.

Will they be what we want?

Well, maybe yes... and maybe no (what else is new, right?). But seriously...ruled by Saturnine precepts (those being about hard work, having/taking direction, regard for others/the world around us and in general, The Responsibility Principle) Capricorn is a sign which is about what we earn as a person (or for a nation or company, as an entity). It's about the 'reality' of our 'standing' in life - never mind the money or the bank account(s), though this is a pairing of sign and symbol considered good for the conducting of business, if not specifically or directly as an indication of income.

Think of it this way... getting the job, the 'business of business' - the Capricorn part of the process - has to happen before you get a paycheck, which makes the receiving of income as something intrinsically Aquarian far more understandable: Capricorn precedes Aquarius just as getting the job precedes getting the income from that job. 

Under Capricorn, it's our reputation (being known for who we are and what our abilities and capacities are) or what we are thought of by others (and the world) which garners whatever 'response' we get in said world, whether that amounts to respect, money, accolades - a job offer - or anything else. And that means Venus traveling through Capricorn is all about who we want to be in this world versus who we are being or being seen as in this world (inclusive of who we may have been)...and how well all of that is working, or not working, in good, bad or iffy Venusian style.

And for those who have issues? This is also a good time to think about or work on seeing what you can do to improve things. It may take time (hardly anything we initiate under Venus in Capricorn yields instantaneous results) ... but if we started doing something some time ago, this may well be a time of stabilization.

There is a touch of 'let's keep the status quo status' with Venus in Capricorn (more than a touch, actually...) yet risks - though not seized upon with the glee one might see if Venus was in a fire sign - are still acceptable.

Well, maybe. Venus in Capricorn signals moments and situations which ask us how important something really is. We end up thinking about risks to what we have, and we'll tend to 'protect' or look at providing for things as they are first under this influence where at other times (read: while Venus is in a sign with less allegiance to less hard-core practicality) we might think the situation merits taking a risk in order to protect or provide for our 'status quo' as we go forward. And when we think of Capricorn in its 'what we are seen as' mode it's easy to see Capricorn as a sign of (or about) consequences in life... and life consequences, which in the sense that 'consequence' and 'result' are words which might be thought of as non-kissing cousins means Capricorn's 'style' meshes rather seamlessly with Venus as whatever situation, action or connection brings about some 'response' or 'result.'

Though granted, those results aren't always what we want them to be. Sometimes we get what we want under Venus in Capricorn, even though we always get what we've managed to earn - at least on a karmic level.

And why karma? How did karma get into this conversation? Answer: that very special 'karma' quality brought to this discussion courtesy of Scorpio, as Capricorn is - and ever shall be - the third derivative sign from Scorpio..

Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn show in terms of their position on

a 'natural' (i.e., unmodified) zodiac wheel.

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All third astrological derivatives equal the 'voicing' - the 'putting it out there' at least in theoretical form, which makes Capricorn - and transits of planets through Capricorn - times and indicators of situations which though totally Capricorn in nature embody something of a Scorpio 'voice,' that 'voice' being the heart of the challenge we all face as we achieve (the Capricorn thing) and through that achievement acquire power - or a powerful voice. Or the power to speak - and be heard.

This precept - by the by - has great implications for the next 2,000 years or so as Scorpio will be on the 10th house (the native house of Capricorn) for the whole of the Aquarian Age... and also why we are seeing - and likely to see - this struggle to maintain internal (Scorpio/Taurus) balance/s of worth in worldly institutions and on the worldly level appearing first in or through natively 10th house institutions. We're going to see the other side of this too - the 10th house professions which 'embody' or hold power over our mortality, the most obvious of which would medicine, food and anything connected to weaponry, war and/or the civil sector entities which embody a governmental power (tax, spy, policing agencies, etc.).

The wheel of any given Age has the sign of that Age (in this case, Aquarius) on the Ascendant

of the wheel, rotating the rest of the signs counter-clockwise from there. Because of that, Scorpio

is on the 10th house of the Age we're now in/moving into, which explains to a great degree many of
the problems we're encountering in our life and which we see in our world. During the Age of Pisces
(that which is now over) the great emphasis on learning, religion and the idea that there's an ethical
responsibility which goes with being in power or having power was tempered by what we might
think of as a 'spiritual-moral' clause. That clause - the Sagittarian clause - now moves to the 11th house,
meaning it now resides (and will reside, moving forward) in the hands of 'marketplace systems'
and various mass and social  movements, meaning that governments and those 'in power' (whether
embodied as corporations or as a household) will tend to 'act' from the Scorpio basis (whether
or not they are claiming to be acting from a moral (Sagittarian) position) until a new paradigm
about the relationship between power and security based on the needs of populations as opposed
to Scorpionic desire/will of those 'in power' is developed. This may take time and does not say that
those who haven't made the change are "evil" - merely that things are changing and that such
people or institutions (or some of the means through which they operate) are destined to change
even while we all move forward, together manifesting that beginning of Aquarian Age evolution
which over time equates the (Taurus) security of power, use of power and those with (or in) power
with the opportunity to learn how to (Taurus) value, develop and wield power in one's own mortal
and individual life in and as the whole of any global and universal (Aquarian) system.

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Venus in any sign is about whatever makes something plain, evident or obvious. We even have expressions which cover such times: Venus in an air sign 'brings things to light' and Venus in an earth sign like Capricorn 'makes things concrete,' none of which guarantees we'll like something, not like something or that it's even the end of a given process. Sometimes realities please us and sometimes they just prove how what we thought we would want isn’t what we really want at all.

That's also rather Venus in Capricorn, just as in 'solidifying' certain situations under Venus in Capricorn means we've been 'validated,' approved or given some go-ahead which we will begin working on now and see about capitalizing on once Venus moves into Aquarius (read: after New Years). For now we're looking for opportunities - and among those we will find some which give us a chance to turn disappointment into understanding in such a way that we are then able to change things.

You know...once Uranus goes direct and the 'changes' in life become more external than internalized?

How life works, and who we are in our life gets a bit of quality attention during this time. And because perseverance is another Capricorn trait, while Venus moving through Capricorn that path which needs long(er) term effort and the best our determination and patience can offer may not seem as annoying as it did just a couple of weeks ago.

Or rather, it may seem just as irritating, but also the path we need to take because we really do want to reach that personal goal. So don't be surprised if what you focus on now is something bigger, more substantial or more 'consequential' (read: full of potential) than what you've tackled up until now: Venus in Capricorn often stirs us to demonstrate our abilities and capacity - most of all to our Self.

Yet in spite of this, we shouldn't expect everyone to be in a nose-to-grindstone 'give it your very best effort' sort of mood - which isn't surprising, as it's holiday season. But maybe that's the point. Nothing we've said here says the period between December 10th (when Venus enters Capricorn at 4:43 p.m., UT/+0 time) and January 3rd (when it moves on into Aquarius) can’t be warm, wonderful, rewarding and well worth savoring.

It’s just that with Venus in Capricorn, success is more human - think less razzle-dazzle and more time-tested, classic or dignified.There's also a reflective sort of quality to Venus in Capricorn which tends to lead to quiet admissions - even if they're only to ourselves. We're aware of losses... and where we stand with regards to those things we want to achieve in life, whether that's a professional or personal aim.

As for the reputation for fiscal caution which goes with this combination. Under Venus in Capricorn we would expect less experimentation and risk rather across the board than that we’ve experienced of late...or what we would have more comfortably tolerated under Venus in Sagittarius.Part of this goes back to the essential yin-yang quality of the zodiac - a quality which we see in every part of life: we breathe in, we breathe out... the pendulum swings in one direction, and then swings back. Starting with Aries (an assertive and yang sign) the entire zodiac goes back and forth between this yin and yang, metaphorically hot and cold pattern, which is why we experience Scorpio’s tendency to try to hold onto things (or keep them as they are) which is followed by Sagittarian fervency which is again followed by Capricorn’s classically cool control.

And please note: that reference to control under Capricorn (or in the 10th house sense) starts and ends with control of Self - not others. As much as it is a sign of achievement, Capricorn is also the sign of governance and governments, both of which in this metaphysical sense are said to work well only  when the Capricorn drive to ‘structure’ durable things which provide what is needed so everything else about our human lives can function successfully.

Given this - and the Venus reputation for producing results, this Venus in Capricorn time is likely to show up/bring out how well (or not well) our efforts to reach our current goals is really doing.

Or not doing.

Whichever way things go, there's going to be some emphasis on maintaining a status quo even while needing to look forward with an eye to the lessons of history.

(Welcome to your next little exercise in unlikely balancing acts.)

Imaged by Venus in Capricorn and Mars in Aquarius, these next few weeks are a time when things may (and can) be sparked... or they can just fizzle, or even short circuit. Since the astrological Mars and Venus are also thought of as primary symbols of lunar/feeling 'modification,' even without anything untoward or specific going on, staying in emotional balance within the Self and with others is one of those places which will take a bit of effort. This isn’t necessarily bad and there's nothing Herculean necessarily indicated. Some of us will take some time off, some of us will pull back a little in some way and all of us will be thinking 'what next?' about something, whether we're in our career planning mode or standing in the kitchen thinking about when to put cookies in to bake considering everything else we need to do.

With Mars having changed signs (into Aquarius) a few days before Venus enters Capricorn, Venus (the faster moving planet) will do a bit of numerical degree catching-up for the first few days of its transit. Then as of December 14th, the real heart of the semi-sextile effect resulting from Mars and Venus being in adjacent signs increases. And though this semi-sextile won't last more than a couple of days (suggesting that only a small tube of mental anti-itch ointment might suffice), because those days are the specific dates which lead into the Uranus’ station-direct/Capricorn Solstice moment of December 21st, changes and challenges are likely to interrupt, distract or disrupt our focus.

Moreover, the degrees at which Venus and Mars will proceed in numerical (not sign) tandem start at ten and continue on through fourteen, we know that emotional drives and those motivating forces which lie below the surface are causing some of this, with that 'hidden' or 'unspoken' factor creating a lack of clarity, whether or not there's true insecurity.

Venus conjunct Pluto in Capricorn (glyph chart)

December 20, 2014 - 11:02 a.m. (UT/+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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Venus conjunct Pluto in Capricorn (text chart)

December 20, 2014 - 11:02 a.m. (UT/+0) - Aries Wheel (Location Not Specific)

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Some want to act, some are dying to react. We know something needs to be done...but we also don't want to act in haste. With Venus conjuncting Pluto there's no question but that we're each being driven by what we want to happen (which is natural) and let's not forget: any astrological contact between Pluto and Venus indicates some level of passion... or for those prone to same, obsession.

And that's what's being tested about now through a configuration we know of as Uranus squaring Pluto from 12 Aries with Uranus slowing down to take its station.

That's a lot of pressure. Internal pressure which is seeking a way to 'break through' whatever is holding it back.

This transiting Uranus-Pluto square has been with us now for a while, and its many manifestations have not been altogether pleasant. Uranus first came into orb of square to Pluto (this time around the zodiac) back in June of 2009 - a fact which may ring a bell for you and which certainly will set off chimes in the heads of those who watch domestic and international politics and economics. Since then life and our times have ... with increasingly shorter breaks ... been trying to get us to change, and where we don't change (or where we don't flex and/or change) change - sometimes drastically dramatic change - has been thrust upon us.

To put this in Aquarian Age terms we all have been being challenged to move out of some ‘past’ - most likely personal and global - into a more present-and-future mode, and we’ve probably all done some of it, but then again... probably not.

And that part we would know because Uranus is still transiting Pluto. The active square having begun in June 2012 (June the 24th, to be exact) it remains with us with the next edition of exactitude occurring on December 15th at 6:15 in the morning (UT/+0 time) with March 17, 2015 marking the last such event we will experience for a while, though it will be early 2017 before this influence fully dissipates.

So what is Uranus squaring Pluto - and why do we care amidst a conversation about Venus entering Capricorn?

There are a hundred different ways (at least!) to describe Uranus square Pluto. But since they all seem to fall within one rather indistinctly succinct outline, we’ll just go with that: Uranus squaring Pluto by transit is the need to change coming into balance with the willingness to be transformed.

In this textual word equation, Venus conjuncting Pluto represents the attracting of the result (that being the Venus factor) which will prove transformational. Occurring in Capricorn, we know the nature of this Venus/Pluto coloration is a reality - maybe one we want, maybe one we have and want to keep. We want to have things as we want them, we are fully vested in whatever it is we’re convinced of our focused on.

And yet... we’re changing. Things are changing. We know it - and yet we are unlikely (at the moment) to show it - that being part of the nature of 12 Capricorn, a degree which represents the ways we (at least some of us) get so very clever that we sometimes outsmart ourselves.

Firmness is called for here, lore tells us - but with Pluto in conjunction with Venus, though some will fight to the (literal or proverbial) death for change, just as many are likely to be tenaciously invested against some change they feel is being ‘thrust’ upon them in such a manner as to rankle their (Uranus-in-Aries) imperatives.

Read: survival...and surviving our mistakes.

Not necessarily physical, though. No, thought this could refer to physicality it could just as aptly pertain to anything any one of us is ‘being,’ doing, aiming to do...or even that which we are known for, whether in our career or personal life. And with the Sabian symbol for 12 Capricorn being ... ‘A fire worshiper meditates on the ultimate realities of existence’ ... we also know that this Pluto/Venus contact is generating something we could ‘get’ and learn a great deal from. To have this conjunction occurring in Capricorn speaks to the basic nature of that we will consider and confront - and with fixed star Vega in orb of this conjunction there is a definite aura of something which had held 'charm' which now doesn't seem so all-fire important.

So...will we change? In the long run, yes.  Are we willing to be a participant in our own transformation at this very moment? That depends. Some will see necessity and rebel where others will loathe the necessity but see pragmatic (Venusian) value in changing our mind, our position, our aim, our priorities - or anything else which needs to be changed.

People tend to attach huge importance to the transits of Venus because we think in terms of what we want to be true - or valuable to others because we like it so much. Venus is all about that sort of energy - but it's not the 'thing' which always counts as much as the connecting, however and whatever that effects.

Venus isn't about what we get, have or look like, it's about that part of us which motivates this or that, learning about our own "Venusian attractiveness" through how things work, through how others react - and in the end, by how happy with our own estimation of who we are we end up being.

While in Capricorn, that experience comes through life, through our comfort and satisfaction with our world - personal or global.

Or our lack of same, of course.

And yet...sometimes we're happy enough with that. 
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Sun in Virgo / Eclipse Effects Begin

A mirage sunrise over Lake Superior

(photo credit: Tom Ruen, July 2002)

Believe it or not, everything that we have been going through and seeing around us in the world is something of a prelude (or prequel, if you prefer).

To what?

To understanding what it’s all about, which at some level and at some point isn’t about ‘them’ or ‘that’ or whatever. It’s about us. It’s about how willing we are to grapple with what’s wrong - not with life, but with how we’re responding to life. How we’re treating ourselves through whatever we choose to do with our days, our life, to this world and (so we think) to others. All the fighting, all the despair and disregard, all the name calling and ill will, all the shameful neglect for our own standards with regards to anything or anyone who would dare disagree with us...

Metaphysically, none of that is about anyone but us.

Yes, it’s you and me and everybody else, individually going about stirring up our own karma. There is an argument to be made here that things have gotten so bad that there is some underlying knowledge that we need to do some purging of the malicious sort of toxin which has been eating away at our world.

It’s just that very (very) few of us are yet at the point where we realize that the ‘bad’ out there is what we apparently need.

Need? Who needs grief?

Evidently we do.

Why?

Simple: because we’re human, and humans generally don’t learn all that much through the good times. We would like to think that we do, but then there are all those expressions like ‘the burned hand teaches best’ (and a thousand others) which admit what we know deep down in our gut: we learn best through pain. That which carries too high a price, we tend not to repeat - just as that which we keep doing over and over again must have some benefit.

Think about that for a while and then think through what’s going on in our world. Humans don’t seem to be in the habit of ‘committing’ peace.’

But why would that be?

Astrologically - which is to say metaphysically - the reason we would be looking for here is described by Scorpio, the sign which wherever it manifests is always about the feelings we are confronted with through our experience of others or emotionality connected with some process, choice or situation.

When it comes to anything Scorpio, we like to feel not that we can win but that we’re going to win - a quality which tends to manifest in Scorpio’s intensity of drive and personal focus. But let’s be real here... as convinced as we might want to be, the reality is that if there’s a question of winning, there’s also a possibility of losing.

There are three water signs: Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. With Cancer there’s always a candy coating of innocence. So Cancerian mistakes, as flinch-worthy as they may be are generally of the ‘fool me once, shame on you’ type.

But with Scorpio there’s a knowing - at least an emotional knowing. Plus Scorpio is a sign which belongs to the public and interactive quadrant - as opposed to Cancer, which is personal and mostly hidden from the greater world at large. This marks the Scorpio mistake as the one which isn’t just annoying, but possibly embarrassing...even humiliating.

And when people are threatened with humiliation, most don’t take it very well...hence Scorpio’s reputation for manipulation, vengeance and badgering, browbeating and other forms of waiting out a ‘foe’ - which is the point here: in representing where we intersect with others, as part of its polarity to Taurus (sign of personal security) Scorpio also represents how we defend our internal Self...or whether we need to.

This becomes important now as the Sun reaches 0 Virgo on August 23rd (at 4:45 in the morning UT/+0 time) simply because 0 Virgo is in perfect sextile to 0 Scorpio, and 0 Scorpio is the degree of this October’s solar eclipse, a solar eclipse which will occur on October 23rd (UT/+0).

In other words, with the Sun moving into Virgo (which obviously begins with 0 Virgo), this is also the moment when a celestial timer goes off as we enter the two-month ‘breaking down’ period which precedes any given solar eclipse. This ‘breaking down’ process has to do with us - the breaking down of our resistance to things, whether that amounts to something we need to know (and/or accept) about our Self, or something we need to understand about life, our world, or something going on in that world.

As Mercury moved into Virgo last week on the 15th we started thinking about things. Now, as the Sun moves into Virgo, the ‘thinking’ as something apart from real time efforts fades or even vanishes - a quality often seen when Sun and Mercury are in the same sign. Mercury alone is the thought...Mercury plus Sun becomes the theme.

With Mars in the 3rd sign to Virgo (Scorpio) throughout most of the Sun’s transit of Virgo we can expect to see efforts, denials and threats over the next few weeks, all of which are diversions of sort considering there are things coming to the surface in everyone’s life which are too real to ignore even if dealing with them is difficult at best. Eliminating things (and people) is sometimes necessary and yet often simply the easy way out - one which we are likely to find cuts us short in the process.

This year’s annual Sun in Virgo is likely to have  financial implications. Such matters do not have to be negative, but they should be taken into account. That this Sun/Eclipse positioning forms both a one/eleven...

...as well as a one/three...

...harmonic note speaks to communications and responses, acceptance and whatever earnings our successes are due against that tendency we have to segregate, separate, differentiate or unify, whether actively or passively, whether financially, mentally, systemically, societally or through any other means we might think to associate with ‘identity,’ ‘identification,’ ‘individuation’ or ‘ideation.’

...All of which is not only its own little pot of things to stew about (stewing can be nourishing), but also a means by which we will begin to process and either a.) attract, or b.) manifest those situations which represent our individual Scorpio test of personal security.

(Oh joy, oh rapture...)

With the Sun entering Virgo, the eclipse sits in the derivative third sign (1. Virgo, 2. Libra, 3 Scorpio), eliciting everything and anything which has to do with the generic third house...or the individual third house of your natal chart, which we obviously can’t talk about in detail. But we can consider what it means to have an eclipse ‘blacking out’ that which we have thought of as our ‘norm’ or ‘modus operandi’ for however long, tra-la-la.

The third house/sign points to mentality, choice, consideration, information, organization, intelligence, record-keeping, accounting/accounting for, siblings, communication, cars-trains-planes-telephones-computers and whatever else ‘communicates’ us or our ideas to anyone or anywhere else. To have a solar eclipse in this aspect to Virgo speaks to a desire (or) need to let something to... which may mean a real (tangible) something - or it may be our attitude which makes us think getting rid of someone or something will some a problem which in reality is about our personal perspective.

In other words, as the Sun reaches Virgo and as all comes to be as it is at that time and moving forward, something about our (Virgoan) efforts is either eliminated... or comes to be causal in some sort of event or experience wherein life is asking us to not just deny but actually let go of (in reality) something we have long used as methodology, justification, moral position - something.

One slightly unusual quality about this Virgo ingress chart is the fact that as the Sun enters Virgo it  doesn’t actually aspect any other standard planet using standard (Ptolemaic) aspects and standard orbs - a quality which in astrological terms accelerates or multiples the general effect of any placement.  Yes, the Sun is certainly in aspect to fixed (royal) star Regulus at 0 Virgo as it conjuncts it, but this rule only applies to the 'standard planet' list (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto).

As for Regulus, this is the point which gives us royal notice about how in all the things we may think of doing, revenge had best not be not a part of any of it.

No, don't even think about it.

You’re free to do what you want to do about this, of course, but Regulus at any degree promises success only where we are not embodying or utilizing the concept or qualities of revenge (otherwise known as vengeance). At 0 Virgo this speaks to a combining of two rather different influences, one being a burning confidence and the other being the humble servant, suggesting all sorts of ways we may move forward through requiring of ourselves that we lead through earning the respect of all those we would like to have as supporters and/or followers. It not being in the general Virgo play book to do much but drop a hint as to what may be coming at us, this unaspected Virgo Sun may well represent matters or issues in life which we don’t pay much attention to.

It may also represent our not wanting to pay attention to something which doesn’t tickle our fancy.

There is no pre-determined ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ chiseled in stone here. Furthermore, there is just that odd but karmic chance that something highly focal at the moment may be just the thing which the universe has made (in true Scorpio and Scorpio/Virgo style) irresistible so that it will elicit the behavior or choice or realization or victory or complete and utter loss which for some of us will be the 0 Scorpio black rabbit hole we drop rather in slow motion between now and October 23rd, the to-be-hallowed (in short order, no doubt) date of the incoming eclipse.

The March 2006 Solar Eclipse at 8 Aries

(photo credit: Aliparsa, March 2006)

As a side-comment here, if you’re thinking that you should start dreading now and avoid the October solar eclipse rush, there really is no hurry.

Why so?

Well, it’s not like we’re not already on slippery Scorpio ground with ourselves. We can tell that - just look around: wars are raging and death is stalking among us overly openly. Reason has become subject and subjugated to ensnarled passions we haven’t come to grip with yet.

We think we have, of course. But we haven’t. That’s what the next two months are about, with the first part of that process to be lived out under Sun in Virgo.

Oh yes...before I close, the other part of this Scorpio-Virgo relationship - the Virgo-to-Scorpio (one/three) derivation. We can expect a lot of demanding, a lot of manipulation, a deal of denial, much begging (real and otherwise) and a whole host of human beings attempting to manipulate, corner and browbeat others (often through sheer volume or repetition) over the next few weeks.

Be aware: those who fall to such tactics are showing you their vulnerabilities. Treat those issues with kind respect and both sides will win. Take advantage of such chinks in armor and the karma will be yours.

So...do you really want to try that fate on (of your own free will) as we go into the prelude to the last and most primal of all Scorpio solar eclipses?

That would be the question.
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Neptune Directions: Right vs Real

Ephiphanie

A triptychon by Hieronymus Bosch (1475-1499)

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Just about the time we feel like we’re going to move on and get past whatever we’ve been dealing with, suddenly life takes a turn.

No, you’re not so sure, life says. So are you sure you want to…(choice of one or more: let go of, start to do, look at, talk about, ignore, go about being)…that?

There are two sets of metaphysical concepts involved here…the first being all about our relationship to reality. Do we see only that part of life we want to see? If so, why would we do that?

Whatever your coping mechanism (and we all have one or two)(or three or four)…the ‘why’ behind why you even need to cope is the sort of discomfort with how you feel about life which is plainly and uniquely Piscean.

It’s also 12th house. And yes, sort of Neptunian.

In this triad, Neptune is the verb – the ‘to 12th house’ where the 12th house (of any chart) is where the sign on the cusp describes the situations we set up in life in order to test our own vulnerabilities.

Why would we do that?

Answer: so as to grow. There is a wellspring of spirit of life seeking to exist which animates our existence in this time and moment. And that quotient both knows that we can survive most of what we fear and that we need fears. Fears are what allow us to feel ourselves feeling our feelings and reacting in real time…and in highly memorable ways.

We learn a lot through reflecting on own own emotions. Good or bad, we learn.

Considering how Neptune is going direct so soon after the Scorpio solar eclipse, whatever else is happening in your life it is likely that ‘structures’ are now beginning to crumble or become (at some level) less viable. Or maybe less ‘strict’ by definition.

In fact, Neptune going direct about a week after Jupiter goes retrograde is somewhat akin to whatever process in life is melting (Neptune) away some of the barriers which have stood in your way.

And yet…at the same time, that very same Neptune-Jupiter relationship also recalls some of the ‘unveiling’ qualities which suggest we may (Jupiter retrograde) learn something worth thinking about… often through others.

Probably most tempting-taunting-beckoning of all, however is the fact that Neptune is going direct on November 13th with Mercury having gone direct on the 10th.

This sort of begs a personal question: are you on the verge of creating something magical? Or maybe you’re someone poised to experience several very personal-feeling days where you find out you’ve lied…most of all to yourself…about something.

Oh, the good and bad of life. How often they coincide.

(Augh.)

(Yes, I just had to slip that in.)

Mercury-Neptune connections are famous for illusions, delusions, lies and deceptions. But all is not lost here: Mercury-Neptune…especially as presented here in Scorpio (Mercury) and Pisces (Neptune) is equally a representation of deep, emotionally resonant,

And this is no entirely uncommon common water sign trine we’re talking about, neither. No…this one i s where both participants are at 2 degrees of respective signs.

So…whatever else happened between…well, between November 8th and 15th (taking both stations into account)…it would be likely for these days to just feel personal. Everything may feel like it’s a critique. Or maybe you’re feeling the tug (good or bad) of everybody needing you. Or maybe you’re behind on things you had wanted to get done by now.

Some of us will experience these days as frustration, others as a revelation. Some of us will go through these days just happy to be reasonably invisible. Neptune-Mercury effects can herald the terribly good day, the inordinately magical day, the utterly helpless-feeling time.

It all depends on where 2 Pisces (Neptune’s position) and 2 Scorpio (Mercury’s degree of station) fall in your personal chart. And where both planets are in said natal chart.

Beyond that, there is the matter that Neptune is also in opposition to Pallas going into this station – with Pallas having entered Virgo just as the eclipse moved through.

It would seem to be a time which is whispering to us about all and everything we need to be smarter about with regards to the ‘who it is’ we’re being.

And how important it is to be that person not superficially, but genuinely – at your core, no matter how difficult that feels like it is.

One way or another, we’re going to get there. With and within the uncertainty and illusory delights of a Neptune station so closely associated with the kind of human ties emotional…evocative…thought provoking…which we experience with-and-through our ties to others now, at this turn of a Mercurial tide…

It could be one or many things. You may become overly aware that your life is driven by one or many things…and how some of them are assumptions.

Or realities never dealt with properly as realities. Wherever we have kidded ourselves, particularly where that concerns relationships and what parts of our own psyche we are willing to experience through our relationships with others…maybe not the actual situation, but the feelings which remind you of ‘something else’ now echo again through life.

It’s a freshly bitter rain. There are times when we need to be strung along the ragged edges of our soul so that we can experience growing up through coping with trials and disappointments, whether big or small.

As represented by Ceres at 3 Libra, plans (Ceres) now reach a moment of (Neptunian) uncertainty. There are lots of questions you could ask yourself about your uncertainty, yes. I suggest putting ‘what can I learn which will help me going forward through not just the responses I get, but who I get them from?’ on the list.

The other way to see this is in the Neptune-to-Ceres (8th derivation) sort of way. There, all Neptune’s ‘dissolving’ qualities would seem to be highlighted in a (Pisces)water-on-air(Libra) sort of way.

Water, meaning emotion...plus air, meaning communication?

One wonders what will come of that. I could hope for plans on how to deal with feelings or feelings about things, but how many people are actually that constructive that often?

I can hope, yes.

And yet, having learned so painfully and completely that even someone with strikingly good intentions can fall off the face of their personal Earth when they least expect it…I wonder.

Mercury in Scorpio expresses a certain kind of strength, a certain kind of emotional strength with others and with ourselves. Theoretically, we are now capable of great achievements moving forward providing and to the degree that we are willing to get our Neptunian ego – including ego-driven fears for/about Self – under control.

Or better yet, released. You know, so we can fly away on our own wings, wings unencumbered by our own sense of the improbable reduced to impossible by our unwillingness to try. 

Though a graveyard is just another piece of land, the feelings about them and the

indescribable senses we get when walking through one are very real... and very Neptunian.

(photo credit: an Easton Maudit church yard by R. Neil Marshman, November 2005)

The thing hardly anyone talks about when they talk about Neptune is its relationship to Saturn. I wasn’t surprised when NASA (bless their chip-driven heart) released news that Neptune has rings. And I don’t have to do a bunch of fancy math, though you know me, I’m devilish.

Maybe my favorite portrayal of the Devil ever to grace the silver screen, the above photo is Elizabeth Hurley as the satanic one in the Warner Bros/Regency film

'Bedazzled.' I'm pretty sure every woman has wanted to be her kind of

Devil at some point!

I like a fair slosh of math here and again, just to wallow in the glory of universal communication. (But I do know – generally – that that’s just me. I’m muy geeky. About my only question there is whether I’m a nerdy geek or a geeky nerd.)

Back to the metaphysical point, a point maybe best illustrated by a question I fielded years ago (and yes, I still remember it) about the ‘allowing yourself not to know’ quality which is so very and innately Neptunian.

Question: can’t we ever know anything Neptunian?

Answer: No. Once we can identify it, it’s no longer a Neptunian precept – it’s Saturnine. Neptune is ‘non-reality’ and Saturn represents reality and all you ‘know’ as real…right down to the realities of life created through how well or how badly aligned we are with others in relationship/s (….which would be why Saturn is exalted in Libra and the “LIbran” 7th).

This is the concept which defines this time as a time when nothing is really….defined. It’s all in flux. 
Everything is up for being…redefined.

And that’s just the thing – this is a time about the flexing and the fluctuating, the eternally knowing that you’re about to know how to make ‘it’ work…with only the barest sparkle of humor most painful at the thought that in you dedication you may also be seeding, building and carefully tending to that which will blossom into your very worst friend.

You just don’t know. None of us knows – that’s the Neptune issue. So long as we are focusing on our Self (or that which will benefit that Self) Neptune becomes the soggy mass of self-tying rope which has just planted itself around our feet.

So maybe you really want everything to not only just be right and run right and go right and feel right (and all that)…but that doesn’t look to be the undercurrent of most of what life is likely to handle us in this next little while.

Yes, for some of us this station will represent the sure and final finish to some process which has (probably) been dragging on and causing much angst. Maybe even just more burden to your schedule – whatever. I have one friend who got a languishing, lingering, really unhappy-making court matter settle as Mercury went into retrograde and the paperwork will now be settling out. The issue which brought about that lawsuit is finally over. As soon as the last envelope finds its file, the entire matter begins to melt away into memory.

That’s the sort of ‘before’ which dissolves now, leaving room for…

….well, that’s up to you. Once Neptune goes direct, our lives can become however much more we want them to be. They can grow and blossom and expand to include vistas only before suspected until now.

For that to happen, all we have to do is learn to tolerate more of life than we deal with now. We have to be willing to experience it and then (as if that’s not enough) also be willing to think it through and learn something, from which we release our boundaries on what can or “should” be.
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