By Len Wallick
Mercury enters Libra on Sunday shortly after 5:00 pm EDT. There it will join the Sun, Venus and Saturn. That will be four major, classical, visible objects in one sign. Astrologers refer to such a collection as a stellium. If you think that term sounds familiar, you are correct. Think back about five months to the stellium in Aries. Admittedly, that was then and this is now. This is not a repeat performance. There are enough similarities, however, to make the next few weeks an opportunity to see how far we have come in our ability to find a common thread in a complex concurrence of events and act on it. In your life, it will be as simple and as vital as reading, and heeding, road signs.
Every planet is an archetype for a part of your life. Every sign is a garment worn by planets passing through it. Finding a common thread in a stellium, then, would logically begin with an analysis of the costume the constituents have in common. Libra, like Aries, is a cardinal sign.
There are four cardinal signs. In addition to Libra and Aries there are also Cancer and Capricorn. When the Sun enters a cardinal sign a new season starts. The specific season beginning depends on where you are, but the fact of change itself takes place for all of us at the same time. It is therefore a new beginning and a concurrent experience for all, and is fundamental to the cardinal quality of Libra. What sets Libra apart from the other three cardinal signs is the associated element.
The four Hellenistic elements, fire, earth, air and water, are attributed among the 12 zodiac signs so that each sign is a unique combination of quality (cardinal, fixed, or mutable) and element. That is how Libra comes to be the only cardinal sign that is also an air sign. Last month, Gary Caton correlated the ancient elements with Carl Jung’s four functions and made air the equivalent of thinking. That works and furthermore gives us a final piece to work with in describing the Libra wardrobe.
The Libra costume is a bit like a uniform with something for all of us at once. It is also a new, or at least seasonal, fashion trend that appeals to reason and the intellect. The latter is right up Mercury’s alley, so we know right away the innermost planet will be comfortable in Libra duds come Sunday. Venus, of course, rules Libra, and is by implication sartorially satisfied. The Sun does its seasonal defining thing in the cardinal signs and Saturn is right at home with definition and uniformity.
So in the common cloth we have found the common thread of the Libra stellium. All four major planets involved are comfortable there and it should be possible to harmonize all of that archetypal energy for practical, positive purposes and get something done in cooperation and partnership. There is only one catch. That ideal requires your conscious cooperation to become real.
The fact is astrology does not happen to us, we make it happen. This stellium in Libra is like a road sign. It means nothing unless drivers see it and heed it. We are the drivers. Our free will is powerful enough so that it can and will overcome the combined and concentrated symbolic potential of half the major objects in the solar system if that is the way we choose to go. If we elect to focus on our differences, they will become the reality. If we are constantly present to what can go wrong, it will. If you get distracted, you will miss the turn, or worse.
The sky tries. It gives us some very useful tools. The motion of the planets through the signs is the flow of our lives in and out of danger and opportunity. We are entering a time of opportunity as Mercury is entering Libra. The opportunity can be seized or squandered. It is a time to think. It is a time to do something together with others, all at the same time, and start a new season that will define our future.
Offered In Service
I love it all — the sky-talk, the simple-profound metaphors, the focus on treasures embedded in nature, the wisdom for us all to roll around in and carry us throughout the journey. Bless you, Len! and the wonderful community here @ planet waves.
Me, I’ve been reading and following the skies. Thought I’d kinda got “it” (chart-talk) and lo and behold I read Be’s discussion of Saturn though Libra. I take a moment and feel all kinds of relieved that I’ve not got personal planets in Libra … and then … yep! Saturn is nearly opposed my natal mars. Um. Yeah.
Yeah, astrology happens even when you’re not paying attention … or even when you are and can’t quite take it all in. It is lovely to get a bigger picture when the world of “NO!!!” gets to you (me).
So much gratitude for all you all share.
mm.
Thank you Len! 🙂
Hugging Scorpio:
Thank you for your question. The short answer is one word: synchronicity. The planets do not absolve us of the responsibility for our lives. They are, however, part of the same universe we are and therefore are synchronized with the events of our lives. Astrology brings awareness and empowers informed action so that we can be more wise with our free will.
Howzat?
Thank you, Len, for your lyrical and cogent writing that takes the astrological thread and weaves a tapestry of the sky.
“The sky tries.” We have to look up and then look within.
Be, great clarity on the Saturn ride. For me, the Saturn in Libra transit is “going on and on” as I am in that downward slippery sliding of a now fading albeit tediously long second Saturn return (11 LIbra 27). My natal Venus (10 Libra 35) and Neptune (20 Libra 36) are nearby, all clustered in my second house. Oh, it’s been a ride these last two plus years, but for this Saturn return, I had astrology as my companion unlike the first Saturn return when I was oblivious. So, your “Saturn map” of the next several months is most apropos for me to distill and integrate the Saturn return lessons. Much gratitude.
JannKinz
Thank you Len, as always!
My question is, I know a lot of people who go through powerful changes who don’t know any astrology, or even scuff at it. They change and grow in their own way. How do you mean that astrology is not happening to them, as they are unaware when clearly it does happen to them.
I understand more astrology every day and it helps me navigate and most of all, gain awareness as a spiritual being.
Can you help with some clarification?
ah yes, Be. Saturn Trine Chiron; AQ; 7th house a few degrees above the DC.
Grateful for all the heads up.
Len as always thank you. Today I especially enjoyed the weaving aspect re: threads – and with Halloween coming soon costumes are certainly appropos.
xo
Be, I think I understood that the first time … that does put my Saturn-trine-Merc in to the Big Picture, a event that I am in this very moment, preparing to ride for several years. (Lord-willing and the crick rises to meet me.)
It just rained! a hot, bright rain, full of those crystal things? oh yeah: hail. In September.
Lordy it’s gonna be a weird year.
mystes and Len,
I’m afraid I wasn’t clear re: Saturn’s path through Libra 17-22. Any planets in ANY sign in those degrees will be aspected by him. So if you have your Venus in Aries 20 he will oppose it, or if your Mercury is at 18 Sagittarius he will sextile it, and so on. The way I wrote it makes it sound like only planets in Libra are affected, but not so. . even semi-sextiles like my Neptune in Virgo will get some solidification from this transiting Saturn that could affect me for many years (but probably unconsciously!) So sorry for the confusion.
be
be: Many thanks to you for sharing your insight and knowledge once again.
Thank you, Len, for noting the roles of Pluto and Uranus (in Cap and Aries, respectively, eh?). I’ll have to ‘bake’ –as our Jeremy says– on that…
And Be, a thousand gracias for the Saturn map. It seems like this Saturn-in-Libra transit is going on and on, no? Thankfully. The only thing I have in Libra, darlin’ (besides a very happy 10th H) is Neptune. But “Mr. Groovy&Deep” is near the Libra/Scorpio cusp, which puts Neptune exactly opposite the first degrees of my 5th H, where the Fogmeister has been oh-so-active for many years. However. Something’s shifting around there, and it has to do with the drugs, alcohol, oblivion embraced by my tribe (all but me). Solve one, the other unbinds.
Besides the Neptune, there *is* a Saturn/Mercury trine in my chart setting up in a few weeks. As a starlubber and writer, what could be better?
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Thanks for calling to our attention the respite of harmony in the air/sky soon to be here Len. Lord knows we all need it.
mystes,
That period of time you refer to is about the transit of Saturn and the degrees which he won’t be re-tracing for 30 or so years. Now at the solstice he is at 17 Libra where he stationed retrograde in January and then on Nov 4 he reaches 22 Libra and continues to move forward until he retrogrades in February at 29 Libra. At the end of that retro period next June he will stop backing up at 22 Libra where he was (or will be) on Nov 4, 2011. This means that if you have planets being aspected by Saturn between 17 and 22 Libra (possibly your Sun?) between now and Nov. 4th, whatever decisions and the resulting manifestations that will ‘materialize’ from them will build on that form for decades because Saturn will have done his thing regarding those degrees.
I just learned that myself and it could make a conscious difference in how you and all of us play the game of life. I really wish you the best of everything in your efforts to guide your son through the pitfalls of growing up.
be
mystes: Thank you for your question. The short answer is “yes”. Of course, when you get to the long-term part, Uranus and Pluto have a lot to do with it. The main thing is that we are all in the same boat and the will needs must adjust to that.
Len, is this Stellium in Libra –with Merc in the lead and Saturn anchoring– the reason that other astrologers are saying that the period between Equinox and Nov 4 is ripe for ‘materializing’ the will?
I am hearing from 2 or 3 other sources –including a reading on my natal aspects– that this five weeks or so are especially sensitive to long-term (as in decades) formation.
A Stellium at any time is Big Fun, but with a cardinal sign I hear a tuba/piccolo duet playing that old Confucian tune: “The end is in the beginning.”
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(FYI, I am almost recovered from last week’s folly. Notes are in FWOL for anyone curious about the backstory.)