Dear Friend and Reader:
Today the Sun in Gemini is square Saturn in Virgo. This is Sun square Saturn — the first aspect I ever learned; though Flo Higgins, my then-editor and the astrologer who would rant about it, would call it “Saturn square the Sun.” This is incorrect astrological syntax because when describing a mutual aspect, that is, an aspect between two moving points, you state the faster one first.
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Nonetheless, it meant what it meant, which is that you had to work harder than usual. She thought of it as an aspect of discipline, of needing to push ahead, a kind of strict and matronly way for the cosmos to whip your ass. Of course, in that newspaper office, we were always getting our ass kicked, producing 80 column inches of copy a week (about six hefty articles, which took about 60 hours) for a $250 paycheck. This is the thing about writers. Usually, they are not in it for the money, and it’s a miracle any of them ever learn.
Notably, Mercury is about to go retrograde, one of the first astrological events I learned about. Here is an entertaining book chapter telling these stories.
Mars is square the centaur planet Chariklo. This is a symbol of women getting frustrated taking care of men. Can they do anything about it? Well, that remains to be seen. Men and women are frequently raised to be helpless in their own way, the more so as time goes on and we are all just little consumers of packaged products. In recent decades it seems like exceedingly few people are taught to actually take care of themselves, and it’s even odds who learned how to cook food and who did not. Cook usually translates to how talented you are making cold cereal, scrambled eggs and putting what used to be called TV dinners in what is still called the microwave. Then when kids show up, who knows how to do all this basic housework?
I think Chariklo is about more than domestic chores, however; she is about that deep, abiding process of taking care of another person, and because Chiron (Chariklo’s husband) is transpersonal in nature, taking care of people in general. The square from Mars seems to be about resentment directed at this necessity. However, if we are not going to take care of one another, who is going to do it? We’re not exactly able to be autonomous on the physical plane. We depend on one another for support in nearly everything. Some notice and some do not. Some enjoy assisting the world and some do not. And indeed, some get quite resentful that anything is demanded of them at all.
There are, however, a few people who could use to rebel against taking care of other people as a way of life. They may not rebel today, but they may feel angry or resentful about it. And we all know that plenty of them don’t have the inclination to simply ask for help; to open up and speak of their necessities. This is a positively awesome formula for resentment. Anyway, in this whole equation, “thank you” goes a long way. Don’t be too proud to express gratitude.
Finally, an aspect of potential interest is Amor opposite Hidalgo. Both of these are interesting points. Amor is about the “conditions on unconditional love,” referencing Martha Wesott here; Hidalgo is a revolutionary against the patterns of unconscious social conformity. So do we have some kind of revolt against faux unconditional love? This little hook within romance that says that everything is always supposed to be perfect, or that we are expected to produce perfect fidelity with our patchwork of emotions, loyalties and needs?
There is a caution here that when we expect unconditional love, we’re going to get a revolt; when we expect ourselves to do so, we may find ourselves rebelling.
Below are the full aspects and today’s Oracle. The Oracle is a device that randomly selects a horoscope from the past nine years of my writing the things, in response to a question. It does not use keywords; the device is seeded by the time of day, and then it goes to the database and selects one sign entry totally at random. It is a popular feature among subscribers. You can also use it to research a horoscope, searching by keywords, date, frequency, sign, and so on. You can search how many times I said “God” or “sex” or “Chiron” in my horoscope over nearly a decade.
Tomorrow’s edition of Planet Waves Astrology News features an article on Chiron, a new piece by Judith Gayle and a new weekly horoscope. You can subscribe for three months, six months or a full year. When you sign up for Planet Waves, you not only get the most innovative, on-top-of-it astrology publication on the ‘Net; you provide a vital source of funding for the whole Planet Waves project, which is free from advertising and corporate sponsorship and thus a truly independent voice in the industry.
Regular readers of this daily feature please note, I will be presenting at Omega Institute this weekend, so I will be unlikely to do blogs for Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings (though I may do a weekend edition in advance). I’ll be back to a regular schedule Tuesday morning.
Full aspects for Thursday 22 May 2008
Venus (26+ Taurus) septile Varuna (17+ Cancer)
Mars (6+ Leo) quintile Admetos (24+ Taurus)
Venus (26+ Taurus) quincunx Juno (26+ Sagittarius Rx)
Juno (26+ Sagittarius Rx) opposite Hades (26+ Gemini)
Eros (12 Gemini) quintile Aries Point (0 Aries)
Mars (6+ Leo) square Chariklo (6+ Scorpio Rx)
Psyche (16+ Scorpio Rx) semisquare M87 (1+ Libra)
Amor (9+ Taurus) opposite Hidalgo (9+ Scorpio Rx)
Arachne (29+ Virgo) sesquiquadrate Nessus (14+ Aquarius Rx)
Venus (26+ Taurus) quincunx Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Ceres (21+ Gemini) sextile Eris (21+ Aries)
Sun (2+ Gemini) square Saturn (2+ Virgo)
Eros (12+ Gemini) quincunx Pandora (12+ Scorpio Rx)
Today’s Oracle, fully apropos of “Saturn square the Sun,” is:
July 08, 2005, Pisces – Weekly
You’re in the process of coming to closure on something that had long remained hidden in your life and which has finally revealed itself to you. I suspect that there has been a deep insecurity you carried, not knowing quite why that was, and at times not even knowing it was there. Saturn has lifted a burden off of your shoulders and your emotions. You will soon see what you’re free to do once your strength and power can finally be directed toward a positive cause, a mission in life, and a way to express your commitment to service and well-being with full creative power.