We are in the final days before a change of season, and you may be feeling a little antsy or eager. Tuesday is the Cancer solstice (beginning summer in the northern hemisphere, winter in the south). Unlike the many potent eclipse-like events this spring that are serving as continuity-breaking turning points, the turning of a new season is all about the continuity of a cycle. Leading up to and overlaying the touchstone of the solstice, however, the sky is offering us two reasons to pay attention to whether we’re getting our nourishment from what’s actually true, or rather from what we simply wish were true.
Representing the more worldly side of this theme, retrograde Venus in Gemini is square Chiron in Pisces, which also just stationed retrograde on Tuesday (Venus-Chiron is exact Saturday at 5:23 pm EDT). On the more mystical level, Jupiter in Gemini is square Neptune in Pisces. That one is exact June 25, but at three degrees apart, it’s definitely in full force now. What’s more, Jupiter-Neptune from these signs is a one-time event this time around. Despite the trendy popularity of retrogrades providing multi-contact layering in 2012, this aspect is not one of them.
Given that both Venus-Chiron and Jupiter-Neptune come with an exaggeration effect, I thought I’d try something a little different for this post. I took out my Sustain Yourself deck of oracle cards created by James Wanless and asked what we needed in order to work with this astrology sustainably. (This is a deck of 101 photo-collage cards with various themes, not a tarot deck). The first card I pulled was Lightning/Ignition. A little surprised by that, I pulled another to qualify it: Bacteria/Sustainability. I started contemplating.
Eric wrote in 2009 that “Venus square Chiron is about a wide open erotic/emotional expression of Venus.” That certainly sounds like a form of lightning strike itself (and a fun one at that). But yet there’s something cautionary here, as Barbara Hand Clow suggests in her book Chiron: Transforming Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets, “Chiron square Venus sets up the maximum stress between finding a value system which will enhance spirituality, or just giving oneself over to one emotional high after another.” Surfing the highs might feel great, but might not move you forward.
Taken one way, the Lightning card indicates the need to stay alert and aware of these exaggerated emotional/erotic urges so that we can choose more sustainable options – those that align with a higher spiritual values system. Then again, you may be at a point on your path in which you need to open to this overstated erotic flow in order feel what it’s like, learn from it and move past it to something more solid and foundational.
Again, I’m going to quote Clow. Though she is speaking here specifically to astrologers who counsel clients with a natal Venus-Chiron square in their chart, she brings up an interesting point regarding judging experiences: