The Astrology Blog 15 July 2019
Love, Lust, Chocolate, Champions & Changes
“We’re afraid to be idle, so we fill up the days
We run on the treadmill, keep slaving away
Till there’s no time for talking about trouble in mind
And the doors are all closed between your heart and mine“
– More Love, The Dixie Chicks
There is some confusion over which is sex and which is love but on the whole sex is less confusing than love, lust is less confusing than sex and chocolate is less confusing than any of them.
Sex is when chocolate won’t do. Love is when sex won’t do. And lust is when almost anyone will do.
Chocolate is by far the safest bet in every respect but sex is by far the most interesting.
– Falling in Love, Jackie Fleming feminist cartoonist
Last week the Sun made a series of four aspects – quinqunx Jupiter, opposite Saturn, trine Neptune and opposite Pluto – all against the backdrop of a newly retrograde Mercury in Leo (the Sun’s sign), and sandwiched in between two Eclipses. As I said last week the Sun is the life force so, unsurprisingly, I’ve heard a lot of tough stories.
I’ve heard of two bereavements and several serious health issues, including spinal surgery for a Leo friend (in the physical body Leo rules the back and heart). A member of our community is in hospital after a motorbike accident when he swerved to avoid a cat (Leo rules felines) and collided with a car coming in the opposite direction. A friend went to comfort a girlfriend when her cat got run over. The next day the cat reappeared, and it turned out that the poor dead cat was its double. Mercury mix ups! The cat has now been renamed. It’s called Lazarus.
I feel fortunate that my own woes were a horrendous electricity bill which am sure is wrong but I can’t prove it and I just had to pay it, and the mystery of a lost vegetable peeler! That might sound ridiculous but I’ve had that peeler for 30 years and I can’t function in the kitchen without it. And yes I did go through the bin before I threw out the rubbish! In spite of Pluto’s black holes am hoping it will reappear when Mercury goes direct …. But that’s probably my Sag optimism.
Back to this week, it’s Venus’ turn to make exactly the same series of aspects as the Sun last week as she is tagging along behind the Sun through Cancer. The two will eventually catch up with each other but in a month’s time, with a beautiful Sun – Venus conjunction at 21 Leo on 14 August, which has the feel of a golden light at the end of the tunnel, especially as it coincides with Jupiter turning direct 11 August. So if you’re going through a hard time it might help to keep that vision in mind, it’s not far away.
Last week I posted a link to a feature about toxic relationships, and I was struck by how many people clicked on it. Love is rarely easy, that much we all know, but it’s horrifying how often it tips into being unhealthy or, worse, abusive. Empowerment starts with ourselves, not with blame, so if this is you it’s time to take back your power. This isn’t easy, if it was nobody would spend years being intimidated, we wouldn’t have refuges, and men can also be the abused.
But if you’re in this kind of deep trouble the Venus aspects this week are painting the message in six feet high capital letters. When did you stop loving yourself to the extent that it somehow become okay to be treated like this? Start with the undisputable truth that it’s not okay. It’s never okay. Stop being nice about it – another Jackie Fleming quote. Do yourself a favour and buy yourself a copy of Falling in Love, she gets across in humour the truths that would often otherwise be unpalatable. Abuse is obviously amongst the worst case scenarios but a difficult or frustrating relationship with anyone else is also up for scrutiny. If someone is making you miserable something’s gotta give.
This week we have to expect even the minor hassles of life to be accentuated as the path that Venus is now treading is strewn with rubble and does rather feel like an obstacle course, especially as her first aspect of the sequence is followed by the Lunar Eclipse –
Tuesday 16 July
- Venus 15 Cancer quinqunx Jupiter 15 Sagittarius 08.46 BST
- Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse 24 Capricorn 22.39 BST
Eclipses work in pairs or threes and we had the Solar Eclipse two weeks ago on the New Moon (2 July at 10 Cancer). Eclipses symbolize tipping points of change that often involve power issues and/or triangular situations (symbolized by the intricate relationship between the three bodies of the Sun, Moon and Earth). Who is going to overshadow whom? Winners and losers are decided, the obvious arenas being affairs or promotions, or anything fiercely competitive. Ask Federer. There is often a flavour of death/rebirth symbolism – the light disappearing and coming back on again, shadows falling and lifting – bringing theme of sweeping away old structures, establishing a new order and revealing new landscapes. This themes are underlined in bold this time as the Eclipse falls conjunct Pluto at 22 Capricorn.
If you have planets or angles in the second half of Cancer/Capricorn – ie 15 to 29 degrees – then you’ll be dealing with your own personal scenario that capture the themes of the Eclipses and/or Venus’ combinations with the bigger planets. In a nutshell these are:
- VENUS – love, romance, relating, money, life’s pleasures, happiness, women friends and children. All that delights the senses – sex, food, wine, produce, flowers, chocolate! Tough aspects to Venus can bring the questions and challenges of diet and moderation to the fore. Sugar is a huge enemy, obesity is now the top health problem in the developed world and diabetes is rife. Cut it out or at least cut it down. Venus also rules beauty and I’m sick of seeing women’s botoxed, plasticized faces, including some of the female commentators at this year’s Wimbledon! Venus getting thumped this week says don’t do it!! In Cancer, family and property issues also move to the top of the list, whether it’s conflict with relatives or the upheaval of home improvements. Psychologically, Cancer – Capricorn can be what we’re clinging to emotionally out of fear, habit or the need for status
- JUPITER – Likes to say Yes, expansion, freedom, optimism, truth, legal concerns, travel, luck, opportunity – but by blind aspect this week (quinqunx) there are unseen factors at work obscuring these goals
- SATURN – Likes to say No, contraction, restriction, realism, pessimism, work, responsibility, endings, denial, frustration, health, time – yes I know, I too often give him bad press, and yes Saturn is also achievement and recognition but by opposition this tougher side dominates
- NEPTUNE – Redemption, fusion, dreams, sacrifice, grief, compassion, longing
- PLUTO – endings/beginnings, often starting with loss, death of the old and the birth of the new, absence, starting from scratch, transformative processes, resourcefulness, secrets, power and control issues – again by opposition the tough stuff is underlined
On the subject of healthy/unhealthy love my sister was very happily married. Mike was extremely good looking and sociable, loved female company, and it was the norm to find him at the heart of a crowd of fluttering women. I once asked Sue, do you mind? Her answer was swift, confident and laughing. “Not in the least. I know he’d climb over the lot of them to get to me”. Thank all the gods that he went first, 13 months before Sue, as I hate to think of how he would’ve coped.
But my point is that there was never the slightest possibility of affairs, on either side, and neither was there any jealousy. When a relationship is right and strong there is no need or desire to stray and no reason to feel threatened. Jealousy is not about another person, it’s about our own insecure position. Affairs are always symptoms, not causes.
How many times have I done readings for someone in a failing relationship, often including the discovery of an affair, only to find that their own sex life stopped months or even years prior? Couples who make love generally stay together. Couples who don’t nearly always split up – sooner or later. Sex is bonding, and it’s the one thing we’re not supposed to look for elsewhere, but not many people can make a success of a platonic relationship unless it really is an agreed thing on both sides. The withholding of sex, love and appreciation engenders resentment – acid to any relationship.
If you’re in an ailing relationship the Venus – Saturn opposition is arguably the most important of the week –
Wednesday 17 July
- Venus 16 Cancer opposite Saturn 16 Capricorn 06.35 BST
The smaller stuff is disappointment and things going wrong, feeling tired, down or even depressed, facing problems that have no obvious solutions or having to accept that you can’t afford something or that a wish won’t work out. Such things shall pass, they always do.
The bigger stuff has deeper implications, all under the umbrella of Venus = love and pleasure, opposite Saturn = not happening. This can take many guises depending on your own situation but includes such things as being in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same way, falling for someone who is unavailable, one partner withholding sex, love, approval or money, or simply having too much work or other demands in your life that get in the way of spending genuine quality time with your other half. Back to the Dixie Chicks song quoted at the top, has work taken over? Do you use work as a way of avoiding intimacy? Have you stopped having meaningful conversations? Has life become a treadmill? If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions find a way to stop the rot.
Single and searching? A friend said to me recently, “I feel as if I’m looking down the barrel of never having sex again.” Saturn is Lord of Time, he’s the astrological Father Time and the Grim Reaper, he rules ageing, ticking clocks and our skin! Back to the craze for botox and fillers, let’s not forget that this isn’t just about pushing back the hands of time and warding off our fear of death, but is also a manifestation of a culture that equates love with beauty and especially youth. But these days surely we’re lucky enough to live in times that defy this? Mike was in his mid 60’s when he met Sue, the love of his life. Ladies please embrace your womanly curves! I’ll never forget one female client telling me years ago that her obsession with being thin was so bad that she honestly believed that she should look like a boy.
Venus slamming up against Saturn isn’t easy for any of us, it’s a brick wall, a letdown, the commitment-phobe, a sobering reality check, a duty before pleasure or deadlines of any kind. Tick tock. But possibly the best way to use this aspect is to work on feeling comfortable in our own skin, to get positive about our body image and to recognize that human failings belong to all of us. Don’t be a harsh critic. And if you suspect that you’re never going to get what you really want from someone you’re probably right. On the romantic front, pursuing someone who isn’t giving you the right messages is a no-no. Not worth the effort, never mind the erosion of your self esteem. Go for the chocolate option instead.
Venus’s softest aspect falls towards the end of the week, harmonizing with Neptune in his own sign –
Thursday 18 July
- Venus 18 Cancer trine Neptune 18 Pisces 19.04 BST
Venus – Neptune aligning in water signs is truly beautiful for love and romance, and if you want to pick an evening this week for a date night – whether it’s a first date or in a long standing relationship – this little oasis of Thursday is top of the list. It’s also wonderful for following your instincts, having a reading, creativity and doing anything towards making a dream come true. Good quality sleep is also in the mix and on that subject write down and remember your dreams at this time, they’ll be packed with messages from your clever unconscious.
This is followed by Mercury sliding back into Cancer –
Friday 19 July
- Retrograde Mercury ingress Cancer 08.07 BST
Sunday 21 July
- Sun conjunct Mercury 28 Cancer 13.35 BST
Mercury will turn direct at 24 degrees of Cancer on 1 August, so if you have planets or angles in these last 6 degrees of this sign or the first 4 degrees of Leo the retrograde themes will be especially strong for you during this next couple of weeks. But universally Mercury being retrograde and especially returning to a sign indicates that some things will have to be revisited, even or especially something that you’d thought was sorted, done and dusted. Mercury says think again.
The helpful bit is that whenever Mercury is in a retrograde period there’s always an exact conjunction with the Sun somewhere roughly in the middle. This is when Mercury is said to be “cazimi” – when he’s conjunct the Sun to within 17 minutes of arc (ie just over a quarter of a degree) and therefore in “the heart of the Sun”. The symbolism of this is about Mercury drawing strength from that heat instead of being burned up by it. It’s a window of opportunity – it doesn’t last long! – but it’s the stuff of light bulb moments, vital information or having the chance to get your point across exactly in the right way and at the right time. In that hot spot is a nugget of truth.
This cazimi happens at exactly 28 degrees and 28 minutes of Cancer (ie minutes being divisions of a degree, not the hour). It lasts from approximately 10.30am to 4.30pm, so look out for that Mercury moment, especially things that shine a light into your understanding, help you to make a decision, negotiate a deal or find the right words to get an important conversation started.
Venus finishes her entanglement with the outer planets on the same day –
Sunday 21 July
- Venus 22 Cancer opposite Pluto 22 Capricorn 09.13 BST
Yesterday (Sunday 14 July) was the Wimbledon men’s singles final. At 4 hours and 57 minutes it was the longest ever final and as I posted on my Facebook group The World of Astrology the main aspect for the start of the match was Sun opposite Pluto. It was an amazing demonstration of oppositions to Pluto being about power, resourcefulness and doing battle with your toughest opponent. And as Pluto is also conjunct the degree of tomorrow’s eclipse it was death/rebirth, Djokovic at the point of defeat springing back to life, and the brutal moment of someone’s victory being someone else’s defeat.
So exactly a week later we have Venus opposite Pluto, so if you’re in any kind of make or break situation you’ve got the message! In terms of planning things (elective astrology) I would avoid this coming weekend for anything celebratory or for relying on anyone else. Pluto is great at vanishing acts. On that note lost items are a top theme anyway with a retrograde Mercury, but this week make a special point of not taking your eyes off your possessions when out and about, and not taking your eyes off an emotional or any kind of sensitive situation either. Whatever is unfolding is likely to be a process of change, the culmination of things that have their roots further back, and we all need to keep out wits about us.
Next week is promising in terms of answers as we’ll have Mercury conjunct Venus, which is Venus’ last aspect before moving on into Leo, and we’ll also have the Sun moving into Leo next Tuesday, his own sign, always a new lease of life. I’ll be talking about these themes more next week. Until then tread carefully and look out for those who are vulnerable. Where you can help, do so.
Until next week
With love from Greece
Joanna