By Len Wallick
In astrology, concurrent equals meaningful, and rare equals auspicious. Today’s blog will expand on that. Let us begin by noting the boundaries of this period and keep them in mind as a sort of background. Cognizant that the end is written in the beginning, re-examine the circumstances under which the retrograde began.
 |
We are now well into the Venus retrograde which started within hours of the Libra New Moon late last week. Venus spends only about seven percent of its time — the least of the major planets — in apparent backward motion.
The retrograde will re-trace most of the first half of Scorpio. On Oct. 29, it will conjoin with the Sun. This will be an interior (alternatively called “inferior”) conjunction. That means it will be directly between the Earth and Sol. On the same day, Mars will ingress Sagittarius. It is also worth noting that this is taking place on the anniversary of Saturn’s first square to Pluto.
Venus will then continue its back track into the last few degrees of Libra where it will station direct on November 18. That will be the same day Jupiter stations direct in Pisces. For the remainder of 2010 and the first half of 2011, we will find Venus rising higher and higher in the eastern sky before dawn, the so-called morning star.
There seems to be a prevailing opinion that retrogrades have a negative connotation. Notice the reaction you get when you use the word in conversation. Some of this no doubt comes from the frustration commonly seen during a Mercury retrograde, which unfortunately constitutes the gateway experience into astrology for many people. Add to this that Scorpio is a sign of detriment for Venus and we may well be tempted to expect the frustration and affliction of the qualities with which Venus is associated: desire, abundance and well-being.
Negativity is a difficult habit to break. It’s easy to indulge attitudes that allow us to evade responsibility. It’s tempting to see challenges as a burden. Therein is the opportunity of this period we have entered. As the brightest of planets follows the sunset more and more closely, gradually disappearing from the western sky, we must keep in mind that it is not going away altogether. Before long, it will be transformed, literally heralding the start of a new day. In between, it is not a process of setback, but rather review.
That transformation was foreshadowed by a new star in the Planet Waves sky, Lisa Roberts. In her beautifully concise October 9 blog, Lisa drew our attention to a set of asteroids that changed signs in the days leading up to and including the Venus retrograde station.
Those asteroids are Juno, Pallas, Vesta and Ceres. Even though asteroids are relatively new tools to astrology, they have already begun to distinguish themselves in two ways. First, they have lent a degree of gender balance to a solar system long dominated by masculine principle. Second, their interpretation has, in practice, been proving to be rather straightforward.
Combine these two areas of distinction with the fact that Venus and the Moon are the more ancient and traditional astrological repositories of the feminine principle and we just might be witnessing the beginning of a trend in recent days.
The concurrent sign changes of Juno, Pallas, Vesta and Ceres are taking place when Luna is ending its old cycle and reforming anew in the sign signified by scales of balance. It is the beginning of a period when the energetic signatures of four goddesses’ energies will be subject to a fresh interpretation through the perspective of their new signs, just as Venus is changing direction on its way to the other side of the sky.
It appears as though something is emerging from the realm of the yin. That alone is a good reason to leave our conditioned notions of retrograde behind and embrace the coming two months of Venus review with an eye towards the constructive and the positive. For it is not the planets that shape us. It is our decisions and actions that write the story. That begins with our thoughts. Our thoughts are matters of judgment. Our judgment is a matter of integrity.
That is not to say it will be easy. We each have work to do. How to begin that work will be the subject of our Daily Astrology blogs this week.
Offered In Service
Yeti,
Yes I agree, we are re-working the myths….that is, our perceptions are shifting.
I’m glad not to be alone in not watching ‘that stuff’ – makes the brain go haywire after awhile, fer sure. A lot of it is just the hard-edge presentation that is so trendy these days.
xo
be – thank you for remembering what i said about Venus. Ever since it crossed the Aries point, it has been out in front, blazing the trail. Now, even in retrograde, it is somehow still in a leadership role. Go figure.
yet- i will hold in my heart your observation on Pallas. It rings true to this I Ching afficionado but i feel the need to let it grow on/in me a bit. i have always loved the Kan trigram but i don’t really understand the attraction.
Good call on the Yin shift Len. Though Pallas has made a Yang shift, kinda like the middle line of Kan, Water, The Abyss in the I Jing, the strength of water that can wear down a mountain given enough time. In my view the Modern trance in general and America’s interpretation of it in particular can use a healthy dose of Yin.
I’m recognizing a personal need to go on a news fast, a kind of Yin shift. I’ve found that watching even only Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann does nothing but stress me out and adds to feelings of being overwhelmed with their descriptions of national situations while never reporting on anything an individual can do other than vote and be afraid. They seem to me to be only reporting enough to make us feel superiorly informed, but still powerless to do anything about it. The stories they tell lead me to feel like all I can do is wait for Democrats to get their act together and save us from the Republicans.
I need to establish a mix of self employment and as little as possible regular employment to be able to pay rent where I live by January. I don’t need the fear mongering of the news muddying my waters with more worry. Sure, I’ll vote. In Oregon it’s so easy you’ve got no excuse. They mail us our ballots and all we have to do is fill them out and mail them back. But I get plenty of news right here and in text format it’s less overwhelming to my sensibilities. Video goes straight to my lizard brain before the human in my forebrain can say anything about it. Olbermann and Maddow are solid journalists, but damn, take a deep breath or 10. I’d be a lot more impressed if they taught stress management techniques in between the cud chewing and fear mongering.
But then if everyone knew how to manage their emotions GE wouldn’t make so much money selling Xray and Chemo machines…
Interesting to see this Yin shift in the sky.
Especially as it’s happening right now – as 8,000 of the earth’s most passionate caretakers are packing to gather in Turin Italy at Terre Madre, (more Yin), the Slow Food International forum October 20-24. Farmers, activists, chefs, students – all concerned with sustainable food production, earth steawrdship and preservation of ancient genetic agricultural lines, along with preserving regional “tastes” of a place.
A proud Ceres moment if ever there were one.
But haven’t we all seen a pronounced Yin shift even in the face of increasing world violence and economic “commodification” of the earth’s resources, including – how Yin! – water? It seems as if the polarities are gathering in strength. Women getting the vote, women in the workforce, women controlling biological destiny via birth control, etc. It’s not either/or – it’s both.
Finally, it’s hard to escape the irony of the estrogenic effects that excess industrial soy consumption and our plasticized world has on male gonads. Now, I would count most males reading this as those among the shift, the honoring of the anima in us all. But estrogenic effects are broad spectrum, effecting us all.
It’s tempting for the savage poet to imagine a hurting Gaia lashing out at the current world paradigms, and taking all before her – or, a terrible Durga effect.
PS, I was really impressed by the straightforward, observant writing of Lisa this weekend. My own contribution to the piece was to add some background; the concept, framework and all the basic ideas presented were hers. The central fact of the asteroids all changing signs, and treating this as one event, was an excellent call. We can go further considering what the influences of this rather odd occurrence are, and how we can use the energy that’s available.
Astrology has gone from a severe lack of feminine archetypes (Venus, and the nameless Moon) to an abundance of them, in the form of asteroids, dwarf planets, several female centaurs and Chiron’s companion Chariklo (a name so beautiful it would be my first choice if I ever had a daughter).
I designed the Planet Waves blog as a group blog. I find the comments here as interesting as any other writing on the Internet. Astrology by its nature requires many perspectives and an ongoing conversation. It is fairly easy to break in to publishing here; you need to be willing to rewrite at first, and note that I am more concerned about the psychological viewpoint presented than the astrological viewpoint, that is, I’m looking for positive, humane reasoning that opens doors. Write about any method or astrology you want – and help our readers open doors in their minds.
This is an invitation.
Briefly re terms interior-exterior / inferior-superior — the traditional terms to describe conjunctions of Mercury and Venus to the Earth — are inferior-superior; when Venus is between the Earth and Sun, for ex, that is an inferior conjunction, and when she’s on the other side of the Sun, that would be superior. However about 10 years ago Melanie Reinhart decided in a conversation that we were going to change the terminology — maybe she was on it already, but it came up — and change “inferior” to interior and “superior” to exterior. A bit of trivia for you.
I have not been so successful at translating “shadow phase” to “echo phase” regarding retrograde terminology…
Thanks Len! I really enjoy how you bring me think about what to work on in the context of the coming astrology. Thinking about the emergence of new yin-ness seems like a great way to approach the next 6 weeks for me. As for Juno, Pallas, Vesta, (Eris) and Ceres… I hadn’t quite seen them as the rise of the feminie principle in astrology (and the world) yet… thanks for making it click!
Mireille Albert
Hi Len,
Retrograde=retrace. Last March you were observing the Venus conjunct Eris aspect and said “what if we consider the possibility that this particular meeting of Venus and Eris could indicate a passing of the tourch, so to speak?” Well, I’ve been thinking about that. Venus moved on and through April she hooked up with the asteroid ladies and each time some auspicious event coincided, usually an act of nature as I recall. Venus bears watching, I totally agree, and her influence always seems to be that of rebalancing, less yang and more yin. Especially when she joins forces with Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno. No doubt this will continue to be the goal of the Universe for our planet and its inhabitants.
In the meantime, does anyone know of someone born on September 14, 1939? That’s the day of a New Moon in Virgo, which was also conjunct Venus and Neptune. I ask because their life’s passages would be of interest to me in that it is also the date for my present progressed birthchart. Not only that but Mercury was only about 8 or 9 degrees behind that group. In Virgo. Now I must stop and get ready for yet another trip to the dentist. To balance my yin with my yang. Evolution is never a speedy thing I guess.
be