Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
— Jerry Rafferty and Joe Egan
As tropical astrology’s year enters its last days before renewing with the solar ingress to Aries (the Vernal Equinox) on March 20, the Pisces Sun and Venus will collaborate on a mutable composition. The Sun’s role is always to set the tone, defining the days at hand. This year, Venus is following in close Pisces harmony, a few days behind the Sun, repeating every solar aspect as if to refrain a celestial song about all you are in the middle of, and all in the midst of you.
The Sun’s part to play in aspect brings the light as well as the date. Your optimum conscious experience of that part would be of a succession of energies playing a discernible tune over the next week or so.
Venus corresponds more with how you will feel the music of the spheres. That is especially true as feelings contribute to evaluation, priorities and decision-making.
Of all the aspects voiced first through the Sun, and then by Venus over the week to come, none will be felt more acutely than squares.
Square aspects are how signs of like quality (cardinal, fixed or mutable) harmonize with each other, if you could call it that. At 90 degrees of separation on the zodiac circle, the symbolically implied harmony of a square does not correspond to soothing mellow arrangements. Rather, to get your attention and prompt you to action, the celestial song of a square is discordant.
Human nature being what it is, discord is usually ascribed to others when, in fact, it often originates within. That’s a clue to your own harmony with what could be a rousing finish to solar Pisces. Look to the instrument within, and take a musician’s responsibility to resolve whatever chords are struck. That could be challenging when you consider what mutable fields the Sun and Venus will be moving through the middle of.
Off to one side, wearing the fiery raiment, is Sagittarius. What Seattle was to the music called grunge, Sagittarius is to centaur objects. Of the 16 objects so named, six are long term residents of mutable fire in Sagittarius. Between today and the Aries Equinox, the Sun, Venus, or both will square five of them. That’s at least one every day, a potentially cathartic continuum with a paradoxically promising upside.
That’s because centaur objects represent what some call shadow material. It’s the fruit of pain that you often feel discouraged either to accept or describe. One of the reasons grunge music exploded in popularity during the late 20th Century is because it did give voice to the intensity of shadows that millions felt unable to express for themselves.
Standing among thousands of people passionately singing “Lithium” with Kurt Cobain was a cathartic experience of the best kind. Isolation and shame were cleansed in the light of fellowship and washed away in a feeling of validation. That sort of light will be emblematic of the Sun in the days to come. That sort of feeling is what Venus will characterize over the next week. Mainly because of Gemini and its mutable, yet fresh, air squaring Pisces from the other side.
If Gemini is about anything, it’s sharing through expression. It’s about clearing the air and making room for a new emotional season. So happens the realm of mutable air hosts some shadowy archetypes of its own — centaur object Thereus, dwarf planet Ceres, distant Chaos, and a point worth making called Black Moon Lilith.
Thereus reflects the shadow material in Sagittarius. Ceres integrates what cannot be changed so life can continue. Chaos puts a name to the unnameable, so it can be known without being alone, and Black Moon Lilith (a calculated degree, representing the most distant point of the Moon’s orbit) invokes, in the words of lunar goddess Genevieve Hathaway, “the crisis of being real.” The aggregate, in successive squares from the Pisces Sun and Venus, has the potential to be either a crisis or a real triumph of the spirit, depending on whether you can find it in yourself to sing along.
Taken unawares, or irresponsibly, the gauntlet of mutable squares that the Pisces Sun and Venus are about to play through could easily fall on deaf ears and leave you stuck in the middle long after the sky has started another set. It does not have to be that way. You could be like the Sun and shine with a shameless song, illuminating your darkest places, at least once a day until equinox. If you found a way to do that, you would no longer be alone in the crowd, but in tune with many voices.
If you could also find it in yourself, during this next week, to be like Venus and be receptive to the other voices, just as you would have your own be received, as the expression of all that you are, the middle would no longer be where you are stuck. It would be a whole new beginning, and not just for you — just in time to be in rhythm with the Cosmos itself.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
Strawberry laughter I read what you wrote as funny and about Len one day accepting (for himself) what he writes is consistently ‘top’ (even if he stays humble just in case!).
Praps he does already.
(Not meaning to talk over you Len as tho you weren’t there)
Strawberry: Thank you. No worries. i am cool with you. You made a good point and blew off a little steam in the process. Be good to yourself now, okay?
I’m sorry; I didn’t realize how aggressive that came out. I guess I tend to do that when I’m feeling vulnerable–and all this energy is definitely bringing up some vulnerabilities I hadn’t seen in just this way before.
My humblest apologies.
yeah, seat-of-the-pants, my a$$. I’m not sure you’re going to win this one, Len. Best to accept defeat graciously.
Actually, I get a kick out of the fact that, as erudite and sensitive as your work is, you do trend a bit to the wiseacre side of things. It’s only life, after all.
Or, perhaps the steward of a great depository of wisdom.
🙂
Mia: Guess that would make me a seat-of-the pants astrologer. Thank you.
Len,
Based on some of your comments, your backside seems to be one of the barometers used by your intuition. Considering how many hours you spend sitting in your chair writing I suspect your backside and your chair harbor a wealth of wisdom.
“But, Butt, But!”
Mia
Daniel: Glad that works for you. Please allow me to correct myself. That’s May 9, 2013 (not May 19) for the solar eclipse.
Geoff: Thank you for being so kind. Truth is, the only wise part of me is in contact with my chair, but you are in truly appreciated nonetheless.
Thank you, Len, your wisdom is legendary.
Chère Lunesoleil
Merci bien pour l’introduction à Thomas Otten. Son album “Close to Silence” est très tranquille et j’aime beaucoup. C’est comme un version masculin de “Watermark” par Enya. Savez-vous cette album?
Thanks Len your support and guidance! I truly appreciate your generosity.
Strawberry; Thank you for your kind words. Pearl Jam is great, but like Ken Wilbur, it would not have hurt them to lighten up a bit. This is the year for “Even Flow” if there ever was one in our lifetimes.
Mia: It appears that you are the poet today. Thank you.
Daniel: There we go – Mercury retrograde will do that to ya’. Now that my precaution has brought improved clarity in return from you, yes, the North Node transiting your natal Sun as gateway is an apt characterization, What i wrote about the May 19, 2013 solar eclipse still applies. Lose the loud tie and keep the sensible shoes, so to speak, and you will find that eclipse very helpful. The objective of that eclipse is to avoid a sense of loss by choosing what you could afford to lose and releasing it rather than grasping for anything. Then you will be able to go the the gateway with a lighter load and still have everything you need. Please, does that work for you?
Dear Len, warm thanks to you for helping my slightly self centred question. It’s just sometimes nice to ask a small personal question given the article you share with us.
Just to clarify my goof. I was born on a Full Moon, so I meant to say Taurus Moon Opp. My Venus is early Cap. But what I was trying to describe was how Venus NOW is trine the Scorpio North Node at 17 and 18 degrees. That is where my natal Sun is (opp my Moon too).
I’m still discerning how current aspects affect the natal placements. What I can say with the above, is some feeling of initiation. I’ve been working on relationships, but concurrently with Intention and the power of positive thinking. The North Node transit over my natal Sun also feels like a gateway that I am now walking through consciously. Would I be correct in that characterization of that transit?
Sorry to take up so much space here!
Thanks Len.
I am enjoying signs of an early spring. Moving three hours south several months ago has made a very big difference. The temperature on Sunday was in the 60’s and I had the wonderful experience of walking out the kitchen door to find over 20 small birds singing in the neighbor’s tree right next door! I encountered my first red tailed hawks of the season as well last week. All affirmative and reason to be happy.
In spite of the fact there is cause for concern on the global front, there is much to be grateful for in our own lives. It is an affirmation to read of many positive changes happening every day on the internet knowing that as new shoots pop out of the ground, creativity is growing around the world at the same rate. The earth, at least in the northern hemisphere, is showing signs of new life. Truly, energies are streaming in from above at an accelerated rate at the same time. I love the image of earth energy being absorbed through the soles of our feet and Divine energy coming in through the tops of our heads, meeting in the middle at our heart chakras and from there, radiating outwards to be shared.
Activist that I am, I remain mindful. However, I cannot help but smile as I see my furry and feathered friends returning.
As always, your writing is poetry.
Mia
“Thereus reflects the shadow material in Sagittarius. Ceres integrates what cannot be changed so life can continue. Chaos puts a name to the unnameable, so it can be known without being alone, and Black Moon Lilith (a calculated degree, representing the most distant point of the Moon’s orbit) invokes, in the words of lunar goddess Genevieve Hathaway, “the crisis of being real.”
Stunning.
Always more of a Pearl Jam girl myself, I’ll put this cheat sheet in my pocket to ensure an “Even Flow” over the next several days. I hope, dear Len, that following your calling in this way feeds your soul, because it certainly feeds all of us.
be: Thank you for demonstrating how the Sun’s traditional song for the end of tropical astrology’s year corresponds to the solar-Venus collaboration of squares that distinguishes this year. You are a master at reading the music.
Daniel, thank you for your comment, your question, and the link you thoughtfully included. As to your question, please allow me to exercise Mercury retrograde caution and read it back to you a bit. It appears you were born during a Scorpio New Moon, with Venus in either Pisces or Cancer and Chiron on the Aries Point. When you write that you feel a though you have just “ripped off” your “exterior shell” and are feeling sensitive (and perhaps vulnerable), that evokes the image of a crab (and hence the sign Cancer). If all of my interpretation is true, it is not so much that you need help but more like support. Please accept mine. You are not in bad shape, but you are in what may fairly be called a liminal state. That’s a good thing, actually. Saturn is available in Scorpio to help for the long term. Saturn brings form and definition in spite of its inconvenient limits, and after it stations direct on July 7, you should begin to feel stronger, probably much stronger by your birthday if you don’t fight Saturn. Along the lines of “inconvenient”, the Mars transit of your natal Chiron should be a “this too will pass” phenomenon. One of the things that will test your new shell will be a solar eclipse on May 9, opposing your natal luminary conjunction. If you see it as a point of departure from what does not work for you anyway, it will not be an occasion for loss. Please, how does that work for you?
Mia: Thank you for being so buoyantly affirmative and validating. Smells like Spring Spirit
Marve: Thank you. It is cause for joy to be of useful service to you.
Lunesoleil: Thank you so very much for the perspective of your experience and for the link you provided. It is very gratifying to know that my service is useful for you as well.
I see it as an opportunity to grow inside of me. I made a quantum leap today even if it was painful Sun/Pholus I me am output grown in my soul
The presence of the six Centaurs in Sagittarius Sun and Venus in PISCES square and the Black Moon in Gemini in my personal experience that I feel in the depths of me it is the manifestation of the divine source of infinite love
This day was very rich, mutable axis is the axis of the energy that flows, which can be influenced in a specific direction after having control flow
Thanks to the team of Waves your blogs résonnes in me, the intuitive perception of the conjunction mercury Neptune in PISCES that echoes my inner sky.
I feel this evening in phase with Neptune, with Angel asteroid in conjunction to my North node which allows me to glimpse the inner magic of an event
I like the angelic phase of fish that I expressed in my Sun Neptune conjunction… Thanks Len for your article which has awakened in me my spiritual nature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Y2ELvbbIQ
🙂
Oh, Len. That was beautifully written.
So, so much stuff going on. I think I will refer to this piece often over the next few weeks. Oh boy.
Dear Len,
I am happy to be stuck in the middle with you.
My planets in Sag are ready to go. I look forward to Spring!
Mia
Thanks Len! I’m currently enjoying an aspect to my natal chart: North Node conjunct my natal Sun and Moon, and Venus is in a trine to this. Mars just hit my natal Chiron too. I really have no idea what it all means either!! Can you or anyone help?? All I feel right now is like a man who’s ripped off his exterior shell and I’m all shiny and new underneath, and I still feel a bit sensitive.
Here is my favourite “music of the spheres” piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLckHHc25ww
It puts a smile on my face every time I hear it.
Hi Len,
This is very thought-provoking material you have given us today. When I think of the Sun in Pisces, it’s always about completion and/or ending an old cycle and preparing for a new cycle. When the Sun represents Ego, or an Individual, Pisces could be thought of as a graduation (transition) time, and with that come tests on how well you have integrated the lessons of that cycle. When the “tests” from the squares of this cycle’s final days are met by Venus (Love) and Sun (Consciousness), they will determine how well we have learned our lessons over the past year, and whether or not we are ready to move forward or must repeat.
Knowing that should give us pause in these final days. I like to think that Love can conquer most all and so I take heart in our ability, individually and collectively for that matter, to be prepared for the things our teachers, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, have brought to consciousness. It’s time to move on.
be