By Len Wallick
Over the weekend Venus forms a sextile from Virgo to Mars in Cancer. Sextiles are simple: what you put into them is what you derive. We can understand Venus as attraction and receptivity while Mars is palpable as the assertive. Cancer and Virgo are perceptible as need and care, respectively. Very much like our lives right now, the circumstances are not ideal but the fundamentals are there. After all that has served to provoke and confront us recently, this aspect is an opportunity to stop and evaluate our personal and collective relationship to the concept of simple harmony.
You may recall that we recently had you draw a triangle with equal sides and surround it with a circle that just touched the three points where the sides come together. If you have the paper and pencil handy, you may find it useful to make that diagram again. Remember that a part of the circle between any two of the triangle points is the distance between objects in a trine aspect. A sextile is simply half of that distance.
The trine inherently connects a set of three signs that correspond to the same element — either fire, earth, air or water. That connection endows trines with ease and flow that can get out of hand if not handled consciously. Objects in sextile aspect occupy two alternating signs that have neither element nor quality in common.
What alternating signs do have in common is harmony. It’s a little like learning to play the familiar piano piece known as ‘chopsticks’. Any two alternating keys will create a two-part harmony which is the basis of many a composition. Similarly, a sextile is the foundational aspect of astrology, a simple relationship that rewards the extra effort of finding the middle ground that compliments either side.
The patterns and models associated with Venus and Mars correspond with complimentary sides of our experience, receptive and assertive. Finding a middle ground between those two archetypes contributes to harmony in our lives; a sextile between those two planets is especially meaningful. This is especially true now, when the placement is part of the polarity.
Right now, Mars is visible in the East before dawn. In contrast, Venus will not be visible in the West until the end of the month. Venus is moving away from the Sun. By comparison, the Sun is moving away from Mars. Both planets are in signs that would be more intrinsically compatible with their archetypes if the placement were reversed. But those signs, Cancer and Virgo, are in an alternating and thus harmonious relationship. That is the constant we can isolate and focus on in order to learn something important. This particular sextile between Venus and Mars provides a specific and definable opportunity.
That opportunity is to evaluate where we are with the sextile concept of harmony itself. It will require us to put something in to get something out. We will need to be conscious of the paradox of asserting our need while also being receptive to offering service. We will be required to discern the center of polarities moving in opposite directions. If we can manage that, however, we should be able to find the underlying order beneath appearances. Then we will know what we can recall of, and how much we need to practice, the foundation of all relationships — simple harmony.
Offered In Service
‘And always mantis would have a dream,’ they told me in the desert. ‘And the dream would show him what to do.’ (A Mantis Carol)
And from the Introduction: “This is a true story which may appear stranger than fiction, since the truth, unhappily, from the point of view of those that serve it, is always more than literal or statistical fact. Indeed, the writer who would warm such cold, literal and statistical clay with life finds himself inevitably involved in some sort of alchemical approach to his subject, since life and the living of it for all our knowing, is still as great a mystery at is end as it was in its beginning.”
Thank you all for sharing your Mantis stories – bkoeler, Len, aword, Rob, Jere. I needed to be reminded of Mantis today and am brought to tears by your generosity of spirit.
Kat
Kat
kat, thank you for this.
aword, len, rob and jere. . . has this thread not aquired the “small cause big effect” signature of Pholus who just turned direct? And squaring the Sun in Virgo as it has been doing, isn’t it interesting that the “big” would be the ‘details’ of an ‘insect’, both ruled by Virgo?
be
For the Bushman of Africa (arguably humanities most direct link to our earliest genetic and mythological roots) – Mantis was the messenger of God. A great book about this is A Mantis Carol by Laurens Van der Post. Kat
PS: Van der Post’s reputation as a truth teller has been a bit tarnished recently, but he remains, to my mind, a truth teller of a different sphere – Neptune, in particular.
..coolest story I have about a Praying Mantis is that I watched one for about 20 minutes with the head of a Horn-worm Caterpillar in it’s forearm squeezing and loosening on it’s find. Every time it squeezed the head would let out a green bubble of stuff, when it loosened the bubble would retract into the mouth of the head. This Mantis was intent on this head, like I said 20 minutes!, the dude wouldn’t let up on his study!
..I’m still workin’ on Venus and Mars..
Love ya all,
Jere
Last week as I took a sunrise sail on Lake Michigan, I found myself accompanied by a bright green praying mantis, sitting on a piece of line next to me. I noticed how it held on tighter to the line as the sails filled and the boat picked up speed; and more interestingly, how it turned its back to whatever direction the wind was coming from at any moment. Looking closer, I saw that the concave shape of its wings served to act as a kind of funnel that pushed its body closer to what it was clinging to. With each turn of the sailboat, it too turned, in a kind of slow dance cued by the shifting conditions around it. At moments its eyes followed my own movements, as I played out the mainsail, following the cues of the wind in my own way.
I gazed at it a long time that bright morning, my sunrise companion, vowing to carry it somehow back to land from the mooring I tied my boat to. When I finally returned to anchor, it had slipped away unawares, leaving me pondering the message it brought. I sat and felt a quiet awe at its seamless resilience to all the shifting forces that washed over it, that delicate and mysterious creature.
Somehow there was a lesson in harmony given me that morning. Thanks for reminding me of it, all…
Len,
Yes, in fact my instinct at the time was that she was in fact acknowledging me. Thank you for reminding me to ‘stick with what I already know, not with what I think I should think’.
Be,
-Last week’s face to face with my patio friend Hummingbird and then the Dragonfly in the park – and today I am graced by Praying Mantis……I am not sure what to make of these encounters and ask only that I remain open and unlocked (as my door) to the message/s they bring.
This is truly divine Len, especially when I think how much we could use some simple harmony in this country, as well as in our own individual lives. “It will require us to put something in to get something out” sounds like something Pres. Obama might say in his address this evening. I’m so glad he will have this harmoneous influence going for him, along with Juno (the Principle of Relatedness) conjunct Saturn (definition) in Libra (balance) and conjunct the U.S. Saturn. Surely he can find the “middle ground” in there somewhere, if anyone can.
If not, there is the supernova above the Big Dipper which is supposed to peak in brightness tonight and tomorrow night. A sign of the times maybe?
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2011-09-07/Astronomers-forgo-sleep-eyes-fixed-on-stars-explosion/50303380/1
aword, how fortunate that you have a friend who is “praying” for you as well as guarding your entrance!
be
aword: Because a preying mantis has 360 degree vision, it is possible that she was not following you so much as acknowledging you. Seems as though you have had a close encounter of the earth kind.
Huffy: you are most welcome.
Yes, thank you, dear Len. xx
Moments ago I returned to my apartment from working out — and additionally after having left a note for management that the LOCK on my front door is stuck on OPEN…..
A solo praying mantis was standing as though a sentry front and center of my doorway. Fascinated (I have never seen one here) I moved to one side – and watched his head follow me; I moved to the other and he again watched my movements intently……preying or praying? lol.
I sat and spoke with him for a few moments, then he flew/jumped into the potted plant/s I keep near the door.
I feel blessed; and am reminded then and now, by way of your article Len, to remember this important element of life and of relationship “simple harmony”.
Thank you.