By Len Wallick
Funny thing about astrology. The geometric relationships between luminaries and planets, major and minor, trump the differences in their distance from us and each other. It’s all how their positions appear from our perspective here on Earth. Rarely is distance made moot more than today when the Libra Sun conjoins with an object that crosses the orbit of Neptune and the Sagittarius Moon relates in element to an object on the outer edges of the solar system.
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First, however, let us remember that Venus is in review, preparing to cross the face of the Sun and re-appear on the other side of the sky with a new identity. Preceding that planet in transformation are four others. All four named after Greco-Roman goddesses just as Venus is. Three of them asteroids. One of them already acquainted with the concept of a new identity through the auspices of astronomy. Today we will take a look at that one and return to the luminaries to wrap up.
Of all the goddess planets that changed signs on the days leading up to and including the Libra New Moon and Venus’ retrograde station, the first with substantial appointment is Ceres. Late last April this body, formerly classified the largest of asteroids, came very close to catching up with Pluto before starting a retrograde of its own which took it a third of the way back into Sagittarius, about where the Moon is today.
Now Ceres is back in Capricorn and will not be denied its conjunction with Pluto in less than a week. It will be an interesting reunion. In mythology, the two were the proverbial in-laws who did not get along. The bone of contention being Ceres’ daughter, Persephone, abducted by Pluto into the underworld. Their negotiated settlement is the mythological explanation of how the seasons came to be.
How Persephone felt about all this is not recorded. One gets the impression that Pluto’s company was not entirely disagreeable. Recently the asteroid named after her has been kickin’ it in Taurus with another one named Industria. No kidding. Perhaps that is how she rolls, not with a whim, but a banker.