Tempest Fugue-it

By Len Wallick

Mars into Sagittarius. That’s the headline, but there’s a whole lot more goin’ on, goin’ round and goin’ down.

Perhaps it’s best to start off by pulling back from the tight closeup for a wide-angle view of daily astrology to reflect our tempestuous times. George Lucas seems to have co-opted a plot device from John Tolkien to have three stories going on in parallel, weaving a narrative fugue — in musical terms a fugue is a type of piece wherein a particular melody or theme is played in a number of voices and continuously interwoven.

Darned if that isn’t what seems to be going on right now.

The three plot lines may be said to correspond to three of the four ancient elements that contribute to the character and interpretation of each of the twelve astrological signs. There’s fire, finally. Eloquent Planet Waves astrologer Lisa Roberts recently brought to my attention that fire signs have been devoid of major planets since September 9 when Jupiter back-pedaled out of Aries for an encore appearance in Pisces.

Now after seven weeks, Mars re-ignites matters in the sign that houses the Galactic Core, the Great Attractor and is one of the two signs (along with Gemini) that the lunar nodes are bound for. The impulsive ruler of youthful Aries should be the planet to ingress mature and mystical Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter, thus ending the fast that Jupiter started. This has a poetic feel of one chapter closing and another beginning.

And Mars is not alone. Remember the provocative hook-up with the asteroid Eros on Tuesday? Well the two are still flying in formation, functionally conjunct for the remainder of the week. Regardless of how you feel about this partnership, you gotta admit it’s passionate. Thus it is the spiritual component of the sign and the passionate nature of the ingressing conjunction that provide the means by which we can cross-cut to the other two plot lines for a moment. There, my friends, we will find earth and water intertwined with two divine conjunctions in harmonious sextile. The Sun is applying to conjoin Venus in Scorpio; that’s in the water soaking into the ground of Ceres linking up with the Capricorn lunar node. There’s a fecund combination for you.

Let’s break it down beginning with the Scorpio side. For Venus, the first tour of Scorpio started off being about Mars. All year long, certainly since the vernal equinox, the yin and yang planets progressed gradually and eventfully to a climactic conjunction in the sign of Venusian rulership, Libra. Then, as if to reciprocate, it was on the classical Martian crash pad of Scorpio for an even more passionate and evocative union. After that Mars headed upstream and spent Venus started floating back down, swirling in the eddies of Vesta, traversing the rapids of Mercury, now at last flowing into the great luminary.

Scorpio all by itself is a passionate and powerful place — fixing the energy of the previous equinox even while serving as the doorway to the transformations that take place in the dark. Subduction of the earth’s crust, the decomposition of leaf meal on the ground, the inside of a chrysalis, it’s all there. Bring in the luminary that expresses self and join it to the provocateur of passion and it’s a fulcrum of discovery from which the motion of emotion can be leveraged. That is, if we dare.

There is a more solid footing in Capricorn, but also more austere. Ceres is not out of place here. It was discovered when the Sun was in Capricorn and when the sign’s ruler, Saturn, was on the ascendant. In myth, the solar cycle between the tropics reflected the character’s own oscillations between rejoicing and grieving, bringing seasons to rise and fall. To conjoin with the north lunar node is to plant a seed. A seed that will be nourished, or not, by our response to the concurrent conjunction in Scorpio. Thus our ruminations to contemplations rise, in segue to the third saga of the skies. Back to Scorpio we fly.

Today there is Vesta in a sextile of its own to Juno, itself recently sown in the fertile ground of Virgo. Then on the other side the Moon in Cancer, the sign it rules, doth abide. And so a three-part harmony for the third voice in our fugue. One part brown, two parts blue. This, as you recall is where we left off on Tuesday. It is also where we shall finish today. Or rather, it is where the fugue shall find its recapitulation. Vesta and Juno are among the four minor planets that changed signs during the days just preceding and following the Libra New Moon. Both evoke powerful motivations in the context of their new signs.

In Scorpio, the devotional implications of Vesta are transformed from the monastic to the passionate conviction that any service is returned with gain, provided one is mindful of that which is served and the spirit in which it is rendered. In Cancer, Luna is comfortable and at ease, exchanging an easy and supportive flow, fueling the vestal flame.

Between them as if in sonorous embrace is vulnerable Juno, burdened by dilemma, perplexed by paradox. If jealousy is an existential crisis, by what reason would an immortal find inflammation from it? Perhaps even immortals require their share of acknowledgment to persist? If that affirmation were lost, if the attention were usurped, even if just for a moment, what would it become? An uncertain void? Cessation?

Refresh, dear Juno; rest in these healing fields, flanked in the lullaby of your sisters, bathed in their waters. You are not alone, nor are you forsaken. This is your moment to receive. Can you will yourself to trust? Will you accept the love in the offing?

Offered In Service