I was planning to send out a newsletter or two last week, but between a bad cold and an out-of-town workshop, everything just got away from me. (NB: the Twitterfeed and podcast *were* updated last week as usual. If you haven’t already, you might want to take a look at my work on those platforms – because, obviously, you can never have TOO much astrology.)
Lions and tigers and bears, oh MY.
Libra is one of the two Venusian signs (the other being Taurus). We now have both the Sun and Jupiter in Libra, which means that both are answering to Venus in Scorpio. And Venus in Scorpio can be a cruel mistress.
The Goddess of Love is in her fall in this area of the Zodiac – not demure and delicate like she’s “supposed” to be, but passionate and powerful and profound. The higher form archetype: Psyche on her quest to meet Persephone in the Underworld. Lower form: the Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction.” (And as any Venus-in-Scorpio native can tell you, they are perfectly capable of boiling the bunny, should circumstances require it.)
The Sun represents our ego identity, our self-awareness. Whenever one of the planets joins the Sun in the sky, it sets off a new year-long cycle: the Universe asking us to take “lessons” in the energy of that particular planet. Jupiter and the Sun met at 4 degrees Libra on Monday. So Jupiter-in-Libra school is now officially in session.
Jupiter is the planet of expansion and abundance, and Libra is an Air sign, oriented towards communication. Under the governance of Venus in Scorpio, the messages communicated here are often secrets – BIG (Jupiter) secrets. Dig deeper, look closer, check the facts, and always pay attention to the man behind the curtain. The Sun is ready to hear the real story. Whatever it is, you’ll see it unfold bit by bit over the next twelve months.
Scorpio Venus, in her turn, is ruled by Pluto, who is ALSO having a big week. He stationed to go direct at 10:59 AM Eastern US time on Monday, September 26th – after traveling retrograde since April 18th of this year.
Over the next few weeks, the Lord of the Underworld will stimulate the same area of sky he was in during mid-March 2015, when he and Uranus squared one another in Capricorn and Aries, the last of their series of seven squares. (Remember the seven Uranus-Pluto squares we had between June 2012 and March 2015?)
Think back to March 2015. The story of control-versus-chaos and tradition-versus-innovation is up and running again, prior to wrapping up for the last time. Take what you’ve learned, take a moment to celebrate, and then move on!
Uranus, in addition to reliving his conflicts with Pluto, is teaming up with Eris the Goddess of Discord to make us aware of the belittled Feminine and the many other people in our world who feel left out or disenfranchised. Uranus and Eris had their conjunction on Sunday night, and we’ll be feeling the energy of it for the next two weeks or so.
Uranus, Eris, and the sign of Aries are all prickly energies, and when they get together the combination can be explosive. Remember the last Uranus-Eris conjunction back in June? Within a period about two weeks we saw Hillary Clinton become the first woman to win a major party presidential nomination (shattering a glass ceiling), we faced the worst mass shooting in US history (which targeted those who are “different”), and we had the surprising and unexpected (Uranus words!) Brexit vote (in which Britain chose to separate from those who are “different”).
This time around, we had a bomb in New York City, rioting in Charlotte and protests in Tulsa (both in response to the murder by police of unarmed black men), the first debate between Hillary Clinton and her unapologetically racist and misogynist opponent, shootings in Houston and Seattle, and who-knows-what-next. And that’s just the news from the US!
Sit tight, and do the higher form. The gift of the Uranus-Eris transit is, of course, that it makes us conscious of injustice. The caution is not to overreact, or react in counterproductive ways. In mythology, Eris started the Trojan War because she didn’t get invited to the party. But did THAT make the other gods want to be her friends? No, it did not.
My favorite recent example of higher-form Uranus-Eris is Elizabeth Warren grilling Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. “You should resign,” she said – and she’s right. Eris catches hubris. The way to use Eris in the higher form is to be responsible: take responsibility for YOUR stuff and be willing to call out others on theirs, as necessary.
(For more information about the Uranus-Eris conjunction, you might purchase the MP3 and slides from a lecture I gave on the subject last week. Scroll down for details.)
The energy at the beginning of this week is rough, but we can expect it to alleviate somewhat with the New Moon in Libra on Friday, September 30th at 3:52 AM Eastern US time. Look forward to breathing a sigh of relief, and proceeding with your life in the new shape it has assumed.
Mercury is still in his shadow till October 6th, too, so keep on talking to those ghosts. It’s a great time for resolving relationships from the past.
These aspects remind me of a tangled spider’s web. There is just SO much going on right now, in so many different areas of our charts! It’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s intense. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t forget to take a breath. Watch the planets weave and dance, and trust that they are getting you into just the right position.
Take some advice from my friend Michael Colberg: check inward at the moment you’re in to see where you are. Don’t assume anything from the past or project into the future. Just stand in the moment of now and ground and do the responsible thing there, in that moment.
