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Reality Check for Libra and Libra Rising | 2012 Annual Horoscope by Eric Francis
Hello Libras: I have just completed the revision of your sign, adding an interpretation of the Venus transit of the Sun. — efc
Let’s begin with something obvious. The one thing that leaps the highest out of your astrology (a lot of things are leaping, but one does the high jump) is that the Venus transit if the Sun involves your ruling planet — that would be Venus. In this truly rare event, Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, becoming visible in full daylight for a few hours. This happens so rarely that with the exception of a few newborn future yogis, it’s unlikely that anyone who sees this one will live to see the next one, which happens in 2117. The Venus transit takes place in Gemini, an air sign that is simpatico with your own — and it takes place in your solar 9th house (9th house by whole signs, if you’re Libra rising). That is the house of the spiritual quest, the thirst for justice, your desire to travel and most of all, experiencing yourself as something that exceeds what you thought of as your abilities.
The Quadrad. Painting by P.C. Turczyn
The transit of Venus is an eclipse-like event. That suggests a break in continuity, or a division marker in time. What changes is your perception of yourself, as if you grow into your original intentions or original instructions for coming to Earth. I don’t like descriptions of the ‘higher self’ but I know what it is. I think of it as the potential we carry to be the most fully evolved, mature and clear-headed person we can be. When we think of ourselves as wanting to improve, or envision ourselves as meeting our potential — and know we’re onto something real — that is the ‘higher self’. But it does not exist in the future; we carry it with us all the time. It’s a perspective we can shift into, if we want. The more consciously evolved members of our race aspire to be themselves, but not the self they were yesterday: the one they know they can be tomorrow, or even today.
One way you can think of this event — which is in the future, but which is also available right now — is as a shift in how you experience yourself and your potential. That is a general statement; we change all the time. I mean a real shift in continuity, transcending (for example) any past experience of faith in yourself, your ability to rise to the occasion, or your sense of freedom on the planet.
Anything involving the 9th house takes us a long way from where we were. Unlike the 10th house, which is about worldly achievement and how we are perceived, the 9th is about becoming or growing into our inner potential as a direct, palpable experience. What I suggest you do is open up with yourself about how you would see yourself existing, and being in the world, if you were to experience something that taught you that your limits were optional. Lest you think this requires an angelic visitation of the Landmark Forum’s special class aboard the Mothership, think of this as the ability to have faith — to really, truly have faith — in yourself.
The thing about faith is that for a while, it’s not based on verification. You would not need to have faith in your can opener (your cat might, of course) because you know it works. But when you have faith that you can exceed what you’ve done in the past, or who you’ve been in the fast, that is the experience of your potential as a living thing — and that is what this event so eloquently describes.
If you’ve figured out nothing else the past year, it’s that your stability comes from you. We could expand that and say that your sense of identity comes from you, and you set the terms of your reality. Well, at least that’s how it’s supposed to be in theory, but even if you’re not quite used to the high-energy transits that are shaking your world, and even if you wish life would just tone down a little, you know you’re benefiting from standing up for yourself, and by being more self-reliant.
It’s not that you have a choice. The transits that are taking shape in your life assure that you will be going through a long series of changes in your emotional nature, your most basic grounding and your relationships, but the question is how you work with the natural forces that are coming to bear in your psyche and in your world. They would be nothing without you; they would not have meaning, because the meaning they have is based on what they propose and then what you choose.
I say this recognizing that you may be confronting powerful, elemental drives; that you may be wondering how you can sustain the constant experience of inner movement and outer changes. However, it is often through experiencing the most intense situations and evolutionary drives that we are finally able to do this elusive thing known as finding ourselves. Yes, the energies that you’re dealing with are a test of your mettle. And what you are finding out is that you have some mettle that can stand up to the test. How else are you going to discover this? Certainly not by strolling in the park.
Saturn in Libra: 2009-2012
Before I get into several longer-term transits that will be influencing you for many years to come, let’s focus on one that has been working on you for a little over a year, and will remain in effect through your birthday in 2012. This is Saturn in your birth sign or in your ascendant — Saturn’s run through Libra spans from October 2009 through October 2012. (It returned to Virgo for a while in early 2010, then re-entered Libra to stay in July 2010.)
Saturn in one’s own sign (which means, for a while, Saturn conjunct one’s natal Sun, or crossing the ascendant) is not typically the kind of transit that people look forward to. It’s similar to the Saturn return — a period of enforced growth and maturity. Enforced, that is, for those who were not previously interested! In the world we live in, maturity is a rare enough commodity, and we are constantly encouraged to conduct ourselves in distinctly juvenile ways; so for many people this is a difficult transit. Saturn in one’s ascendant has a similar feeling: the sensation that you absolutely must shape your life in an authentic way.
But for Libra, there is a pass granted: Saturn does exceptionally well in this sign. Indeed, it may be Saturn’s happiest placement, and at the same time it reveals something of the true nature of your sign. While the usual keywords of Saturn are things like boundaries, limitations and structures, in Libra the keywords are balance, progress and inner fortitude. This is Saturn acting from the inside-out. Therefore, you can think of it as a resource: as a model for cultivating responsible personal power, and for cultivating responsibility in general.
Part of responsibility implies making changes when they are necessary, and it’s likely that Saturn is pointing to elements of your life that need to change, some that need improvement without radical changes, and other areas where you know you’re doing the right thing and would be well-served by doing more of it.
We are near the end of this Saturn transit; Saturn arrives in Scorpio on Oct. 5. This prompts me to tell you two things: one is to make use of this time wisely. That means depending on your own inner strength in any situation where you are called upon to be strong. Inner focus will guide you deeper, and as you go deeper you will find other sources of strength — what most people call spiritual strength. Second is that when your birthday season arrives, if you are facing some significant decision, don’t jump the gun. Take your life one step at a time, and pause until Saturn is in its new sign before making any major moves.
Saturn in your sign and the Venus transit of the Sun have common ground. Saturn strives to help you build your strength and stability in practical, visible ways. Venus transit of the Sun is about the invisible or as-yet-unmanifested becoming tangible. You might think of Venus transiting the Sun as an architect, and Saturn in your sign as the builder. You are playing both roles — but in order to design and build the life you want, they both need to be covered — and fortunately, they are.
Pluto in Capricorn: Finding Solid Ground
There is a second transit that is calling you deeper into yourself, which is Pluto in Capricorn. This transit has been gradually picking up momentum since 2008, and is about to reach its first peak of intensity in late June 2012. Capricorn is in your solar 4th house (whole-sign 4th house, if you are Libra rising). Pluto in Capricorn feels like restructuring, and also revitalizing something old. It’s like turning over the soil in the springtime. This is a deep transit for you, compelling you to tap into your deepest personal resources.
In the 4th house, that’s about cultivating your emotional independence. We know very little of this in our culture — and our struggle with independence turns into a struggle with codependency. Lack of emotional independence is extremely dangerous for relationships; it creates the situations where we engage in unhealthy dependencies — that is, dependencies that are toxic. Usually, the predisposition to do this is rooted in our family lives, going back to the ancestors we know — and the ones we never met.
Pluto is taking you deep into understanding your emotional patterns, your need for security, and how this corresponds to everything you’ve experienced in the past. In this life most people do not leave the past behind them — they sit on it like a slag heap. Think of Pluto as burrowing deep into that pile of debris from the past, which will first inform you that it exists and that it can be penetrated. Pluto then penetrates into the fertile Earth and makes contact with something more natural, which can become a source of sustenance for you. Contacting that source is a way of saying contacting your emotional independence; or said another way, your self-confidence.
If you get caught in the slag level, you will not only lack confidence — you will be drawing up into your present world old patterns, old ideas, old beliefs and most of all old insecurities that will rob you of your experience of the present. You are reaching for a level of inner strength that most people will assure you is impossible. What they may mean is that it’s distasteful because it violates the doctrine of romance: that of finding your completion in someone else, which depends on you perceiving yourself as incomplete. Note: we are trained to participate in a form of relationship that requires us to feel like less than a whole person. It is up to you to learn another way.
Taking steps toward being a whole person can feel lonely, as we leave behind the situations that have not served us in the past — including the people who have demonstrated themselves to be harmful, toxic or destabilizing. You can count on Pluto giving you strength to hold your focus and to make the decisions you need to make, as you move forward on your journey of maturity and independence.
Uranus in Aries and the Uranus-Pluto Square
Pluto in Capricorn has a planetary counterpart — Uranus in Aries. This is a relatively new transit, having begun in 2010 and taken hold (with a bang — the Fukushima tsunami) in early 2011; and it’s about to reach a peak in late June 2012 — the Uranus-Pluto square. Uranus in Aries coincides with a distinct phase in your relationships: what I could describe as the beginning of an adventure, or of some strange instability you were not expecting, or some combination of the two. The factor of unpredictability has thrown you back on yourself many times.
It’s a transit that may be arriving with various adventures and misadventures — and the feeling that you don’t know what is around any corner; you have to find out. One of the advantages of this transit (which lasts seven years) is to put you into contact with interesting — even wildly eccentric — people, as well as to bring you into new social circles.
It’s not going to support samo-samo kinds of relationships, but rather those that depend on an uncertainty factor, flexibility and a spirit of inventing life as you go. Therefore, if you’re finding that certain partnership situations are under stress, consider that better possibilities may await you. You are going through a transition into the need for relationship situations that are bold and inventive, though this comes with a caveat: the only way to really do this responsibly is with people who can take responsibility for themselves. Therefore, that is the first question to ask of anyone you may meet, or of anyone who is already in your life: Can this person take responsibility for their own decisions, and their own basic needs?
If yes then you have a potential meeting. If no, beware that you have a potential energy drain on your hands. Also, beware of anyone who fits the role of crazymaker: who arrives with drama, who saps creative energy or is a destabilizing force. Note: some of these people will be charming and charismatic; that does not make them a healthy contributor to your life.
As for groups, you might want to consider the words of Groucho Marx, about not wanting to be part of any club that would have you as a member. Group dynamics are a crucial part of what we are all learning about in this Age of 2012, because so many of the issues we face as a culture will only be resolved in a group context. Therefore, how you relate to groups, and within groups, is crucial to your wellbeing. There is no relationship you will have that will lack a group dynamic (I believe this is always true, but that fact will become glaringly obvious as the year progresses).
Here is the thing about groups, which I have stated many times before and which cannot be said too often: a group is a collection of individuals, which is to say, people who are well on the way to individuating. A mass is a collection of non-individuated people, for whom we may come up with many polite or impolite terms: generally, followers. You will need to be sensitive to this distinction, and notice where you are, any time you’re in a situation where there are collective dynamics. Notice the effect that participation in the experience has on your relationships, and notice how you respond in terms of your creativity level, your ease of experience (or lack thereof) and your sense of who you are.
Your Creative Maturity is Your Quality of Life
We put a lot of emphasis on relationships for our notion of what makes a good life. You certainly have plenty happening in your relationship angle, but the real focus of your energy is what I will call your creative development — that is, your maturing into your authentic creativity. I tend to view ‘career’ as ‘creative process’, even though most careers don’t fit that description. Yet anyone who succeeds at their profession or light work (I meant ‘life work’ but light work will do just fine) has learned to tap into their creativity.
I don’t mean that you have to be da Vinci to succeed. I mean that you need to look at the world through young eyes at the same time you’re able to depend on your experience; that you have flexibility, and that you’re able to apply ideas from one context to another. Originality means part original and part able to transfer concepts from among situations. For a songwriter it might mean hearing something interesting in the clanging of heat pipes. For a cook, it might mean seeing a contrast in colors and applying that to the sense of taste. For a performer, it might mean hearing an elegant turn of phrase spoken by a child and creating a monologue.
While I doubt that you will read this in any other astrology report, I see it coming from every angle of your chart. There are too many to list them all, but I will illustrate a few for you. One is simply that the Uranus-Pluto square points directly to your 5th solar house (5th by whole-sign houses for Libra rising) — your house of creative risks. You have Aquarius in that house, and this is a mature, highly evolved sign to have associated with your creativity, risk-taking and pleasure-seeking. If you combine the effects of Uranus, and Pluto, and the Uranus-Pluto square, you end up in the 5th house: you end up where the only resolution to any puzzle involves a creative solution of some kind.
This counts for relationships, for family situations, for personal healing and most of all for the work that you do. I don’t know if you know this about yourself, but you’re one of the grooviest people out there — as in, you really can get into a creative groove and stay there, and it looks like this is what comes on ever-stronger as this year progresses, and for the foreseeable future. All roads lead to developing your creative talents — remember my definition from earlier: creative = integrative, transferring ideas from one situation to the next.
The same theme shows up powerfully in your 6th house — that of your work. Pisces is one of the most creative signs and the 6th house is one of the most practical houses. This shows a natural gift for applying your creativity to practical situations. And now you have planets arriving in that region of your chart; Chiron has phased in during the past two years, and will be there to stay until 2018-2019. And in February, Neptune arrives.
This is a combination of transits that can bestow some amazing gifts, that suit you perfectly for the ‘new economy’ — the one that’s not made of slots and cubicles but rather where there is a continual flow of experience, projects and responsibilities. The ‘new economy’ is one where we have to adapt — and not expect everything to adapt to us. It’s a place where resources must be applied carefully, including the management of time — and especially what is perhaps the world’s most undervalued resource, ethics. Calibrate your ethical compass and know what is true, and what is true for you — and proceed faithfully.
Matters of Health and Wellbeing
Part of why you prefer a mellow and creative life is that you have Pisces in your 6th house — the house of health and wellbeing. Even if you ride the urban cyclone, you have that part of your psyche that needs a lush, quiet spot to let your imagination free. If you do this regularly, you will be more productive and you will feel better. You need hobbies that are creative — like music or painting.
But part of what you need to guard with this angle is overindulgence. There is no such thing as pure, and there is such a thing as enough. Between those two parameters you can find a zone that works for you. You need to be cautious about any form of substance, drug or alcohol; know your body, know your mind, and know what does and does not work for you.
Another thing to watch for is that Libra is somewhat famous for symptoms that don’t seem to be connected to a cause. What you may not be aware of is how easily emotional conditions translate into physical symptoms for you — symptoms which seem to have no cause, or none that can be found by a doctor. Usually you just have to let your body/mind work it out; and that typically means nourishment, rest and retreat.
You now have a planet in this zone of your chart — notably, a planet associated with healing. This may be calling attention to deeper-layer issues you want to resolve, and may be presenting you with information that is allowing you to see deeper, and to see the connections between seemingly separate themes. The planet is Chiron, which is a cue to take a holistic approach to any situation where you feel that your mental or emotional health is in any way compromised. Holistic means treat everything from a whole-system point of view, rather than chasing down specific symptoms (which are clues).
Neptune is also arriving in Pisces soon; this is cautionary in that you will need to verify any data, theories or information about your health or wellbeing several times, preferably from different sources. I say that just because it’s fairly well-established in the modern astrology tradition, in case you ever need the information. Don’t ‘believe’ anything — verify, test, experiment, compare, contrast. You may be tempted to ‘believe’ and at the same time, you have the wits and the patience to get the information you need; note that you may be in a position to do this for others as well, who might depend on your assistance.
But what this pair of extraordinary transits says to me is: dive into your creativity, and get yourself near water. When in doubt paint or make music; when in doubt, go to the seaside, or at least to the biggest lake you can find, and spend a day or two. You will make many discoveries, and feel like the new person you are becoming.
Many Facets, One Faith
Your astrology is providing you with gifts from many directions, accelerating facets of your life that will truly benefit from you. There seems to be no place excluded from growth, creativity, improving your health or focusing on your mission. Yet all of these experiences stand on the common ground of faith in yourself.
Let’s return to the Venus transit of the Sun. This takes place in the 9th house — as referenced, of your ‘higher self’ or perhaps just faith in yourself. This is Gemini for you, and Gemini on this house does indeed offer a caution — though one that is answered by the current astrology. The caution involves having two conflicting belief systems. It might involve serving two masters. If you look at most of the ways that most people fall short of their potential, you can usually discover that it relates to one of these issues.
Because you have Gemini on this house, you’re more likely to work with two belief systems. For example, you might be a strong believer in the value of education, and also know that the only way get anywhere is experience. Many people who run a successful taco stand know more about business than a room full of Harvard MBAs. So you can work both sides of that, and have beliefs that compliment one another.
I suggest you do a search for the ways in which your beliefs about life do just that. I also suggest you look for the ways in which they conflict. For example, you might believe that sex is beautiful, and should be more free, but you may also be trapped in the religious morality of one of your parents. That’s an example of how a conflicting belief can be debilitating. Your chart gives you a tendency to both: differing beliefs that harmonize, and differing beliefs that conflict.
One thing that the transit of Venus is here to help you with is going past that dualism. Part of how you’re going to do that is to go beyond belief itself. Remember — faith is not belief. Trust is not belief. If you find yourself having to convince yourself of something, go deeper. At least notice what you’re doing. If you’re having an inner debate about something, ask yourself what’s really going on — who precisely is having the debate, for example. What are the sources of the viewpoints that are involved?
What we get with the transit of Venus is the image, and the experience, of something that transcends any of these opinions or what they might point to; something that transcends any limit that was put on you by the psychology of one of your parents or influential caregivers; any split in your opinion about something vital to your wellbeing. This is healing of the first order, because these inner fractures consume huge amounts of energy — and you can be sure that anyone who has gone on to accomplish what they want to accomplish, or something greater, has resolved at least this issue.
I cannot tell you what direct experience will shift your viewpoint or demonstrate something to you about your potential. I can tell you that when it happens, it will help if you notice, and therefore, it will help if you notice the many smaller experiences along the way that do something similar, if subtler.
And whenever something life-shifting happens, it takes some time to integrate. But if you have an idea what it is, you can start in advance. That would be, for example, by asking yourself the question: What would I do today if I had faith in myself? Then, wait for the answer.
Your 2012 annual interpretation also includes an extended audio reading. That is available at the top of this page.
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Read the past three years of Libra annual interpretations for just $19.95. Includes Next World Stories, Cosmic Confidential and Light Bridge. These were designed to be multiple-year interpretations, preparing for and extending into 2012.
