Your Composition – Venus and Mars Go Yod

Of all the things that may happen in 2012, it does not appear they will waste any time taking place. This is courtesy of two personal planets and some edgier minor planets, including a centaur.

Imagine how it would feel for you to look down at your body and literally see yourself as a four-legged beast below the waist, human above. Think about knowing that you came to be that way because of unconscionable actions of someone else, left to work things out on your own. It’s no wonder most of the mythical centaurs were on edge. The centaur planets are like that, part comet, part asteroid, with unstable orbits that take them across the orthodox boundaries demarcated by the outer planets. We are all, to some extent, like that too. Are there any of us who have not somehow experienced the transgressions, the conflicted emotions, the rage symbolized by the centaur?

This week, Venus is moving into a conjunction with the centaur planet Nessus. Venus, among other things, represents harmony. It is the receptive functioning in your life. You see it work in the things that come to you with no conscious effort on your part. It is the principle of attraction, the native talent. In western culture, especially, this is a difficult principle to grasp. The very idea that what is coming at you is largely a function of what you are putting out there is challenging to accept if you don’t like what is coming at you. As Venus applies to conjoin Nessus in Aquarius, this very challenge could become an issue.

Now, take that a step further to a conversation with your becoming. That would be the sextile from Venus to Eris in Aries. The dwarf planet Eris is, for all intents and purposes, the edge of our solar system, and by implication our consciousness. It is our becoming and works in our life as the dynamic identity defined on the fly, in the now, moment to moment, on the edge of the wave. In mythology, Eris was the sister of Mars, and Venus was the itinerant lover of Mars. The sextile aspect means the two of them are talking, like harmony and counterpoint in the composition of your life. It is even more than interesting that Mars just happens to be the symbolic focus of their conversation.

Mars, slowing down in Virgo, is the leg at the bottom of a Y-shaped pattern called a yod. Venus (conjunct Nessus) is moving to become one of the other the principal components of this configuration – one half of the top of the ‘Y’. Eris completes the shape, forming the other half of the little ‘V’ at the top.

Your indicated place in the proceedings is one of adjustment, making choices to orchestrate a growing polarity between the active (Mars) and the receptive (Venus) in your life and in the world. It would help to think of yourself as a composer working on a symphony and start with the harmony.

This yod configuration makes Mars the focus of this week’s conversation between melody and counterpoint, sister and lover. It is the theme and direction of your composition. Mars is the archetype of action in your life. It is thus appropriate, indeed fortunate, that Mars is the object at the apex of this week’s yod, because that’s where the pressure is being applied and the only way to relieve that tension is to act. For a clue about what sort of action to avoid, one need look no farther than the other side of the zodiac, opposing Mars.

In Pisces there will be a conjunction of two little-known objects with unstable reputations opposing Mars at the end of the week. Those two objects are Apophis and Salacia. Their position in relation to Mars seems to have a message telling us what sort of action would not serve your composition. This is especially true of Apophis.

Apophis is a near-earth asteroid and a leading candidate of those who would elect fear to lead our lives. Because of its proximity to our planet, the apparent motion of Apophis is fast, currently exceeded only by Moon and Mercury. Of all the asteroids that cross our orbit, it has the greatest likelihood of causing a problem some day, long from now. As such, Apophis has come to represent the kind of fear that wastes our time and effort, distracting us from the pressing needs of the moment. The unlikely timing of its opposition to Mars demonstrates the one place we don’t want to put our energy is in losing our focus and composure. That is reinforced by a conjunction to Salacia.

Salacia symbolizes the other end of our response spectrum. It is far away from Earth and its apparent motion is very slow, out past the orbit of Neptune. Because of that, Salacia does not, as a rule, move into aspects. Rather, aspects usually move to include to Salacia and that represents another thing we don’t want to do. Inaction is as unproductive as scattered and directionless overreaction and does nothing to bring things together in our lives. The middle way of addressing the oncoming events in 2012 is to deliberately compose an appropriate response, regardless of how we may be tempted to either panic or paralysis.

The new year has already started off like a sick movie sequel, reprising last year’s earthquakes and massive bird deaths. The key is not to fall into the trap of letting those events set the tone for your life. This is no movie and this is not last year. This is 2012 and it is an unwritten magnum opus for humanity that you will have the opportunity to help compose. In order to do so, you must remain composed yourself and attend to the business at hand, that of mastering the musical score that balances what you attract with what you do.

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