Venus asks is this Love or Control, Mercury’s Messages & Turning Points of the Inevitable Kind
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
– Nelson Mandela – Jupiter conjunct Pluto in Cancer, Moon Scorpio
Last week was interspersed with the minor aspect of the quinqunx, culminating over the weekend with Venus quinqunx Neptune (water) and Sun quinqunx Uranus. In addition to this aspect being about blinds spots and therefore linked to accidents, Neptune links to all water problems – and miracles! – and Uranus is the thing that happens suddenly or unexpectedly. So the top story goes to my own sister in law in the UK, who is thankfully perfectly okay after the shock:
The lanes around here are badly flooded from the heavy rain. On my way back from shopping I got half way down the lane coming home and then it turned into a lake. Then tried to reverse and ended up with the side of the car in a ditch. Couldn’t get the car out. I was stranded. Then miraculously two guys and a tractor appeared! They came to the rescue, towed the car out, but in the process the passenger side filled with water. What a nightmare, but the main thing is that I was rescued within minutes on a deserted country lane which was incredible. The guys with the tractor were on their way back from towing out a local guy’s Ferrari (only a few weeks old, worth 400K) that is now a total write off. You couldn’t make it up.
Lesson? A car is just a car, even if it is a Ferrari, you can’t take it with you. Also couldn’t help but make the symbolic link of Neptune to grief, this planet co-ruling the 12th House, “the Vale of Tears”. We lost my brother in March last year, so I feel that this experience is somehow linked to his wife’s difficult journey forwards, but time will tell.
Seem to have been talking about this minor aspect for a long time but it’s easing up. We had 7 of them in August, 5 in September but only 3 throughout the coming month.
In terms of the major aspects last week we had Mercury (voice, decisions, votes) in positive sextile to Jupiter (yes, the higher mind, education, rights, freedom). As Venus (women) separated from Wednesday’s square (blocks) to Saturn (no, authority, rules, conservative) and started to repeat the harmonious sextile with Jupiter a major piece of news hit the headlines:
Abortion has been decriminalised across Australia after the last remaining state where it was illegal, New South Wales (NSW), voted to reform its laws. The bill, passed on Thursday, overturns a 119-year-old law which had been criticised by opponents as archaic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49834734
No country can call themselves civilised if abortion is still counted as being illegal, not least because archaic laws = been made by men for women. Often it’s not about “a law”, it’s about control and repression. How a country treats their gay community and their attitude to animals are also tell tale signs of the level of civilisation.
On the subject of women who won’t be repressed, who can ignore the fearless and relentless Greta Thunberg? And who would want to? She’s captured the world’s attention, joining forces with writer and climate activist George Monbiot, who sounds seductively like David Attenborough. He starts his part of the video with, “There is a magic machine, that sucks carbon out of the air, costs very little and builds itself. It’s called…. a tree. Nature is a tool we can use to repair our broken climate.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S14SjemfAg
From our point of view of course we’re interested in Greta astrologically. How does her chart reflect the destiny of this astonishing 16 year old? Frustratingly there is no time recorded for her as yet but her planets for noon tell us that her Moon sign is Capricorn, the same as her Sun. Even if she’s born on midnight either side the Moon stays in Capricorn, and I wouldn’t mind betting that she’s born earlier than midday which would mean a New Moon in Capricorn, an appropriate symbolic hallmark for a youthful campaigner stepping into her own authority, an old soul, one so much older than her years.
https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Greta_Thunberg
Her “How dare you?” speech, that she hurled at world leaders at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, has gone viral. The media seized on her emotional fury as she accused them of stealing her childhood:
“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”
As I write on the Saturn ruled Capricorn nature in Be Your Own Astrologer –
Saturn is the planet of age and gravitas so this sign tends towards seriousness, often as a result of missing out on a real childhood in some way and having to grow up quickly. Learning to take responsibility for themselves, and others, is often the hallmark of a Capricorn’s tough start in life.
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The astrology that really grabbed me though is that she’s born on a very close Sun – Chiron conjunction, the Sun 10 Capricorn/Chiron 11 Capricorn. Chiron is the Wounded Healer and Greta’s on a mission to heal our thinking that will in turn heal our planet. And when I was trying to find a birth time for Greta I found that another astrologer was ahead of me. Lynn Hayes doesn’t have the birth time either but shows the chart for noon and writes about the Sun – Chiron, especially in the light of Greta’s diagnosis at the age of 8 with Aspergers, OCD and elective mutism (Mercury also in Saturn’s sign and retrograde). Read her article here:
https://www.astrodynamics.net/the-astrology-of-greta-thunberg/
What’s Happening This Week?
As far as the Sun is concerned we’re in the Libra time of year. Relationships with a big R and little “r’s” top the bill with this sign – how we relate and negotiate, or how we don’t, looking at our needs, weighing up the pros and cons of being in a partnership, handling the demands of another person versus being the “self”ish single, looking at what needs to change etc. When I asked a friend (Aries, the opposite sign) what made her angry she said immediately, “Relationships”. There is nothing like the dynamics of the coupled state to press all our buttons, and it’s here that we often act out our deepest and earliest emotional imprinting.
The Sun won’t move into the next sign of Scorpio for another three weeks, but this sign is already starting to make itself felt in other ways. Firstly Venus (Libra’s planet) squares up to Pluto (the planet that co-rules Scorpio, Mars being the traditional ruler) and this is Venus’ last aspect before she moves into Scorpio next week. The Plutonic theme is also underlined by the fact that Mercury enters Scorpio less than two hours after Pluto’s station. And am including Mercury’s first aspect on this new journey as it falls early next Monday morning:
Tuesday 1 October
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Venus 20 Libra square Pluto 20 Capricorn 05.16 BST
Thursday 3 October
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Pluto turns direct 20.37 (ie 20 and a half degrees) Capricorn 07.38 BST
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Mercury ingress Scorpio 09.15 BST
Monday 7 October
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Mercury 5 Scorpio opposite Uranus 5 Taurus 08.18 BST
The square to Pluto also carries extra weight by the fact that this planet is now turning direct. This is called “stationary direct” as, when any planet switches direct or retrograde, it first of all has to “station”, ie has to come to a halt before changing direction, and is therefore making a strong statement. Obviously planets don’t literally stop and turn around, it’s all about the apparent line of vision from Earth as the planets make loops rather than straight lines.
The longer the cycle of the planet the longer the station. Pluto is the slowest of them all with a cycle of 248 years, and this timeline will give you an idea of his slow meandering journey –
- Pluto was Stationary Retrograde 24 April, turning retrograde at 23.09 Capricorn
- Pluto was “stuck” at 23 degrees of Capricorn during the second half of March, all of April and May
- Pluto is currently moving a bit faster but has been “stuck” at 20 and a half degrees for the second half of September, and will be for most of October, eventually getting to 21 Capricorn 11 November
Venus – Pluto Combinations
These are not easy, to put it mildly. This one is especially tough as Venus is in her sign of dignity but then squares up to “black holes” Pluto just as he decides to turn around and head off in another direction. If Venus = love and Pluto = endings/absence, including emotionally unavailable, then the writing is on the wall for relationships already in trouble, and especially for ones that should’ve ended a long time ago. If you’re in a relationship that needs retrieving and healing, start now. If you both genuinely want to do this then there is no time to waste.
But if you’re in an abusive relationship then get out. Now. Ultimately Pluto is about power and control, the “transformation” bit (that much loved and over used keyword) comes after taking back power and control, not the other way around. I always urge students not to use the word transformation with this planet but to substitute the word with the phrase “transformative process”. Plutonic experiences and changes take time, eg it can take a very long time even to realise that you’re in an abusive relationship and that you’re living in fear. I know, it’s a long time ago now but I’ve been there.
Venus – Pluto combinations are also very important when it comes to love triangles of any kind. As this square coincides with Pluto’s turning point then this week is being picked out for a decisive turns of events. The same applies to money matters. Now’s the time to rescue a debt situation or to cut your losses. Definitely don’t throw good money after bad.
The square is an aspect of friction, an inability or a lack of desire to compromise, things that others do that rub you up the wrong way, the matters that are the hardest to change, or where resistance to change has reached its strongest point. At least an opposition is an open challenge but a square is something that we really struggle with. But whatever might be coming to an end for you as the new month starts the central message is to accept inevitability. From such moments spring the Plutonic themes of death/rebirth.
This morning I shared a post on Facebook – I can’t copy the visual but it said –
“If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you”. My comment on this was:
Thought for the Day – and a powerful one. We’ve all got our hurts, but the person who can’t or won’t heal holds others responsible, at emotional gunpoint. If any part of our behaviour is about making others feel guilty or sorry for us, these are the “red flags”. If you swing between feeling guilty and feeling sorry for someone then you are the one being bled on, the one being controlled by the other person’s past. But you are not responsible for them. We are responsible only for ourselves.
Mercury’s Change of Sign
Is a shift from Libra (what do you think?) to knowing our own minds or facing up to our deepest darkest fears. From my book, this is my take on Mercury as a natal placing but it will give you a flavour of this combination, which trust me is vital information as Mercury will get to 27 degrees of Scorpio and then turn retrograde (31 October, Brexit day!) and will then turn direct at 11 Scorpio three weeks later. Mercury will then have to pick up speed again and won’t enter Sagittarius until 9 December.
In other words we’ve got Mercury in Scorpio for more than two months instead of the usual two to three weeks:
Mercury in Scorpio
Mercury in Mars’ feminine sign of intense and secretive Scorpio is, as with the opposite sign of Taurus, associated with silence. Early experiences often carry the hallmark of repression in which speaking freely is disallowed, discouraged or frightening. These individuals are incredibly deep thinking but have to learn how to communicate authentically rather than clamming up or resorting to the classic sting in the tail type of sarcasm. They can be overly critical or controlling of others until they learn to subject their own nature and behaviour to the same scrutiny. Self awareness is vital for this placing.
How we do or do not speak about Scorpio’s taboo subjects, with sex at the top of the list, is this Mercury’s domain. Meg Ryan did as much for women’s sexuality as she did for her own career with her faking an orgasm scene in When Harry met Sally. Only a Mercury in Scorpio gal could do that justice. Writing about sex is also perfect symbolism for this Mercury. One of my clients has made her fortune by writing steamy books for the Mills and Boon Black Lace series.
With Scorpio’s link to both healing and death this Mercury is the “talking cure”, the archetype for the sex therapist, bereavement counselor and all types of psychoanalysis. The theme of muteness is still in evidence. A therapist attends to what is not being said, and interprets the coded language of dreams in order to dredge up the precious silt from the teeming riverbed of the unconscious. Mediums and psychics are found here too, the conduits between this world and another.
Mercury in Scorpio is going to be a major player in the next two months but the first aspect being the opposition to whacky Uranus could get things off to either a dramatic, exciting, unexpected or even shocking start. Keep your ears open for breaking news this coming weekend! This is the stuff of 9 Day Wonders. It’s also the stuff of separations, personality clashes, last minute changes of plan, changes that are forced upon us when we’re not looking, disruption or travel problems.
Finally the end of the week also brings a high spot with the monthly Moon – Jupiter conjunction, so Thursday evening is a top choice for a night out:
Thursday 3 October
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Moon conjunct Jupiter 18 Sagittarius 21.41 BST
If you have planets or angles at or close to 18 Sagittarius then this conjunction may well signal an important milestone on the bigger journey, such as a moment when you hear that something is happening, a plan is coming together or when you meet someone who’s going to be a positive presence and influence. Jupiter is great at pointing to our path of good fortune, bringing luck or opportunity. Buy a lottery ticket!
Another planet is also changing sign –
Friday 4 October
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Mars ingress Libra 05.23 BST
It does feel rather a relief to have Mars exit fastidious and hardworking Virgo, where he’s been since the middle of August. Libra is actually one of Mars’s signs of detriment (as he rules the opposite sign of Aries) but just because a planet is in its sign of detriment doesn’t mean that it’s bad news. Mars can ease back a bit in Libra, and enlist the services of others. If you’ve been in overwhelm, feeling that you have to do everything yourself, this change of sign indicates that helping hands are moving into the picture. In relationship terms this can be a new division of labour or a new partner coming in if you’re single and looking. This is a great Mars for the working couple – both Prince William and Kate have this Mars and I’ll be talking more about this placing in the coming weeks.
Until next week
With love from Greece
Joanna