Today is Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. The Moon enters Taurus at 8:36 am EDT and stays there until late Sunday. The Sun, for its part, is at the end of a cycle through a sign. This can have the feeling of ‘enough already’, but please resist the temptation to rush the moment as this phase of the Sun draws to a close and a new one begins.
We currently have four bodies in Leo and four in Aries, so there’s a lot of fire in the sky – stay aware of sparks, both the emotional and literal types. When you combine this with Mercury retrograde, exercise technical caution around fires and all things electrical. When it comes to emotions, notice if you’ve been internalizing passion – that’s Mercury retrograde in Leo.
Venus and the Sun in Leo are opposing Neptune in Aquarius. Sun opposite Neptune can feel like a big Full Moon, but subtler. There is a dreamy mystical quality, but because the opposition happens in the last degrees of Leo/Aquarius, so it has a feeling of being near the edge of something – like a dream you’re trying to remember. The dream might have the message of ‘why do I feel so self-limited?’ (Transpluto is also conjunct the Sun.) Or, ‘where is my power going?’ See if you can turn that to a positive. Self-limitation is indeed a thought form. Sun-Neptune is not an aspect that supports building much that’s solid – but it’s a great time to mellow out and observe the world from within yourself.
Add Venus and the opposition gets even slipperier: one option looks good (Venus) and the other can’t be seen (Neptune). There’s a caution to be careful around the beginnings of relationships. A romance begun now may seem amazing, with a strong fantasy element — great while it lasts, but perhaps not one to go the distance. Venus opposite Neptune is the closest thing that astrology offers to a drug. This one feels like opium, or plum wine.
Venus-Neptune is also a reminder to be careful with money, since value or its lack (Venus by way of Taurus) may fall by the wayside of fantasy. In both romance and financial transactions, the details emerge when Venus changes signs into Virgo Sunday at 6:11 pm EDT. Don’t be surprised if your hot new crush from Friday night turns our to be married with kids or have bad breath on Monday. More positively, the Meo/Leo feeling of Venus in Leo can take a more devoted, serious or healing-oriented feeling under the influence of Virgo.
With Sun opposite Neptune, we have the persistent question: Is this [whatever] true? With any aspect to Neptune, look for something you might be missing: perhaps a vulnerability, a need, your sense of presence. You may be underestimating how much you’re noticed, since Neptune has a sensation of invisibility. There is a theme of creative evolution, and the breakthrough after a challenging choke point (Transpluto).
That said, when planets are opposed, it often means there’s a challenge to develop awareness, especially in external relationships. Persist in your quest for honesty. It’s worth it.
The opposition, by nature, is an aspect of tension. It asks us to notice and negotiate first with one side and then the other, meaning that we can only be open to one side at a time. This can be stressful, though the early purpose of an opposition is to bring a person to a state of disorientation. Only from that space may we be initiated into new levels of awareness.
Amanda Painter, Eric Francis and Gary Caton
Notice and choose: in fresh horoscopes weekly and twice monthly, the current sky speaks through your Sun and rising signs. Eric unfolds the themes in Planet Waves subscriber edition and Planet Waves Light so you can notice your patterns and choose consciously.
len — it’s not a drum, just a kind of oversized wooden symbolic mask-type thingie. 🙂
carrie — you don’t see people get banished form the blog — they just disappear……………
Hey, who needs to plug in a fog machine when Nina herself provides a misty allure with that sumptuous voice of hers 😉 My friend and I listened to her late last night and were suitably gobsmacked by this song and Nina’s inimitable delivery.
Big WOW and thank *you* DarkMary for linking up and sharing.
Btw, my Venus sextiles Neptune and music always facilitates my transcendental travelings and tops up my heart with love!
“Although, I am not sure we should be coming out as romantics on Planet Waves, Eric might banish us to some fru-fru love astrology site ;)”
:::grin::: Eric is a Pisces…..(at least he has said he is) and you know Pisces has a romantic streak in there. I have never seen him banish anyone.
I am a romantic as well but also not sentimental. But my romanticism is tempered with my Virgo rising and Capricorn moon practicality and realism.
salud to nina! *clink* i’ve got my neptune in scorpio, with sun (virgo) square neptune and semisquare venus. not sure if that’s what i can blame my romanticism on but i’ll admit it and stand with fellow fru-fru’s. 🙂
rucognizant…you are my people! (Great name, by the way.) Although, I am not sure we should be coming out as romantics on Planet Waves, Eric might banish us to some fru-fru love astrology site 😉
A recent lover was Venus opposition Neptune and together we were a delusional, if inspired and mystical mess. (Composite Neptune on the ascendant didn’t help matters.) Never before had I walked through such a delicious fog. But I have never hurt as much as when that fog burned off. The relationship was a powerful teacher, though, bringing to unforgiving light conflicted internal energies for me.
Funny, I am romantic, but not sentimental. I don’t hold on to old LPs, photos, or love letters, etc. Some energy in me (don’t understand enough astrology to identify where it shows up in my chart) wields a wicked scythe. But I love that you do. I would love to hear Nina on the hi-fi with a little scratch. Her voice is so damn sexy.
Thank you for sharing!
Neptune Virgo, 5th opposite Jupiter Pisces, 10th romantic enough? I have wept to that Nina Simone song more than once. In fact I still have the 33 1/3 record……….will play
it tonight!
“Love brings such misery and pain.” Venus-Neptune. O, you sweet serenader, blind poet, love heroine, desert mirage. I know you well when I finally recognize you. I would be your addict, your slave, (natal Leo Venus square Scorpio Neptune) were it not for the blessed goddess who anchored my feet in the ground of reality (Virgo Sun, Capricorn Moon).
I love you when I can see you coming and manage to avoid the hangover. I think I’ll put on a little Nina Simone and drink a toast to you tonight, wearing my rose-colored glasses, the fog machine on high.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZ2upa3TsQ&feature=related
(If you’ve never heard Nina Simone sing this standard and if, like me, you have a little Venus-Neptune romantic in you, have a listen…)
Since I fell for you (Lyrics by Buddy Johnson)
You made me leave my happy home
You took my love and now you’re gone
Since I fell for you
Love brings such misery and pain
I guess I’ll never be the same
Since I fell for you
Well, it’s too bad
And it’s too sad
But I’m in love with you
You love me, then you snub me
But what can I do?
I’m so in love with you
I guess I’ll never see the light
I get the blues most every night
Since I fell for you
Since I fell for you…
ah,,invisibility.
‘My partner ‘and ‘his partner’ asked me to join them at dinner last night. Seated at square table; the others seated across from me; me facing ‘my partner’ directly – but a wall size mirror behind – and so I ate dinner with myself (reflected back at me) through (the eyes of) ‘my partner’…..
How fitting? Something Taurus, something Venus, something Neptune, and something Leo (partner) and all of it very watery.
Afterward, we waked – and to shake off building sexual tension engaged in animated conversation about politics.
No doubt another enactment of the Story of our Planets Today.
Thanks all – very helpful, insightful and amusing – as in ‘Plum Wine’. Ymmmmmm.
xo
Eric,
Great photograph. Is that a Moon drum?
“Is this [whatever] true? With any aspect to Neptune, look for something you might be missing: perhaps a vulnerability, a need, your sense of presence. You may be underestimating how much you’re noticed, since Neptune has a sensation of invisibility.”
Thank you Amanda, Eric, and Gary. The above part is exactly how I feel. Spot on as always.
Thank you for the guidelines to help us deal with the tricky and sticky.