Dear Friend and Reader,
TODAY, the Sun is in its final degrees of Capricorn, and the Moon is in Libra. The Sun will enter Aquarius on Monday, Jan. 19 and make its way towards an eclipse with the Moon on Monday, Jan. 26. The eclipse will be reminiscent of the powerful Aquarian eclipse of 1962.
We are two days away from the second Mercury-Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius and five days into the Mercury retrograde. Mercury has begun to pick up speed, leaving the “storm phase,” as we refer to it at Planet Waves. Venus in Pisces is opposite Ceres in Virgo and square the Great Attractor in Sagittarius. This spells a lot of activity in the mutable signs, or as Eric calls it, “the spirituality that lurks behind thought.”
Of note are the people with Venus opposite Ceres in their natal charts. We did some research and found three of note: Coretta Scott King, the window of Martin Luther King Jr., feminist, humanist, and equal rights advocate; Robert Rimmer, author of several books including The Harrad Experiment which explored polyamory and women’s sexual independence; and J. Paul Getty, the notoriously frugal multi-billionaire who founded Getty Oil.
Ceres, the first asteroid, later reclassified as a dwarf planet, is the Earth Mother. She is the goddess of grain, of motherhood and the griefs sometimes associated with being a mom; particularly the loss of children.
Venus is the goddess of love, beauty and pleasure and those things we place value upon. As ruler of the 2nd sign (Taurus) and the 7th sign (Libra) hers is also the domain of wealth both physical and mental, and relationships. Ceres seems to provide these three people with a certain amount of inner fortitude one could associate with the Earth itself, as it’s true that ultimately, all wealth comes from the Earth.
The way the energy manifests itself in the natal charts of the three celebrities I selected is very different. Though the themes each life encountered seems to be similar.
King and Rimmer were concerned about the social standing of women, fighting for their integrity in speeches and in novels. Getty in his own way was as well: while he was busy investing in oil, he at one point declared he would retire early to become a playboy. He married five times and earned the displeasure of his father for his amorous pursuits. Women in traditional relationship roles, versus women in a more liberated society was addressed by all three of these celebrities.
When Ceres comes into the picture, our mothers enter with her: CeresВ is the goddess of grain, mother of Persephone. When Persephone descends into the underworld to be Pluto’s queen, Ceres goes into a period of morning that brings Earth its first winter. It seems a fitting parallel to the fact that we have difficulty accepting the sexuality of our mothers, and vice versa.
As these two planets are standing opposite one another in today’s chart, a feeling of duality is apparent. Women are often given two categories in which to try and fit themselves into: Madonna or Whore. This does not leave a lot of room for colorful sexuality, nor does it leave room for the pleasures of child rearing. These two energies are also reacting to one another in the signs occupied by Saturn and Uranus, also holding opposition to one another. This brings a feeling of constriction versus liberation to the images of the Mother and the Lover archetypes. The Mother operating with Saturn in this instance seems to present the image of the scowling, limiting, adult figure many of us encountered while growing up. Even though it is true that our own mothers are human beings as complex and moody as everyone else, somehow her moods and approval always mean something different.
Just for the fun of it Eric suggested I take a look at where asteroid Lilith was in all of this. I found her in Aries conjunct the asteroid Child. According to Kabbalistic tradition, Lilith was the first woman who preceded Eve. With Child in this aspect, she takes on the role of the original woman we envisioned we would become when we were little girls. She may also be the woman that men envisioned as little boys, beyond the spell of adolescence and culture. A fantastic woman untouched by our mortal experiences, but always waiting to be freed.
How do you think of your mother? How does your mother enter into your relationships? What negative experiences and thought patterns have held you back from becoming the woman you’ve always wanted to be thus far? And which experiences and people have helped you to get closer to that woman? These are the questions worth contemplating as we seek to understand our origins on the brink of this visionary era.
Til then,
Genevieve Salerno