Your Valentine’s Astrology Guide – the Good, Bad and the Unexpected
If you want to see the sign and degree of the planets in your own or any other natal chart – so you can check these against the signs and degrees important this week – here’s the link to Astrotheme. Enter your data into the boxes provided:
https://www.astrotheme.com/horoscope_chart_sign_ascendant.php
The Astrology Blog 11 February 2019
All times given are stated in GMT
‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite….’
– Juliet – Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare
Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is upon us and is all about our needs/feelings (Moon/Venus) but, more specifically, it’s about expression and communication (Mercury).
The whole point is to let someone know how you feel about them. Even an anonymous Valentine’s card is sent with the aim of the recipient then finding out who sent it!
Mercury is now in dreamy Pisces as of yesterday (Sunday 10th), and is on course to meet up with Neptune (god of the seas) in Pisces (mutable water) early next week. In the meantime Venus the love planet is also on course to meet up with Neptune this coming weekend:
Sunday 17 February
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Venus 15 Capricorn sextile Neptune 15 Pisces 08.46
So Juliet’s words, arguably the greatest tragic/romantic heroine of all time, are the perfect metaphor for this Mercury – Venus – Neptune combination.
If English is not your first language, ‘bounty’ in Juliet’s sense means everything she has to give – as in ‘bountiful’, meaning plentiful and abundant.
Love, like the sea, is self replenishing and is always there. And she touches on one of the greatest spiritual truths that the more we love, the more we have to give. It’s a bounty that can never dry up.
Everything I’ve ever read about the spiritual life comes down to a simple truth, that we are here for two reasons – to learn, and primarily to love.
Mercury in Pisces
In traditional astrology Mercury is said to be in ‘detriment’ in this water sign, element of the emotions. This is reflected in the conflict between the principles of the planet and the nature of the sign:
- Mercury is the mind planet, ruling our thinking, logic and understanding – his job is to talk, circulate and communicate in all possible ways
- Pisces is all about the emotional, spiritual and instinctive, and rules the 12th House, the Vale of Tears:
- Connected to the past
- Those who are lost to us
- Suffering or sacrifice
- Places of confinement or retreat.
- Also, like the other two water signs of Cancer and Scorpio, this sign is said to be ‘mute‘ as they are symbolized by creatures that emit no sound.
We all know what it feels like not to understand our own feelings. Perhaps we may struggle for words when caught up in turmoil or are tongue-tied in front of the person who’s the object of our wildest fantasies!
We all know what it’s like to try and ‘reason’ with someone ‘in love’. Like oil and water the two simply don’t mix.
In some ways this Mercury is at the mercy of feelings and thoughts that are free flowing, boundless, staggeringly deep and teeming with undercurrents.
The language of love
Making sense of emotional matters may be a tall order, but this struggle often produces exceptional poets, singers and songwriters, expressing these depths through rhyme and song:
- The pure voice of Celine Dion can be located in her Mercury in Pisces exactly conjunct Venus.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with a Stellium (five planets or more) in Pisces, including Mercury and again Venus, penned How Do I Love Thee, possibly the most famous love poem in the world.
But no matter how we go about saying something, Mercury in Pisces makes us think about the language of love, and teaches us how to be vulnerable. Nobody says this better than Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet:
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
I believe that there’s a lot of truth in the old saying that it’s ‘better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.‘
This is what emotional risk taking is all about. If you’re a commitment-phobe, or if you’re with one, often that fear of vulnerability is part of the issue.
So we might lose, we might get rejected, but then again, we might not.
If we all operated on the basis of avoiding the risk of rejection, none of us would ever find union. Self protection can be overrated. What’s the worst that can happen? You lick the wounds, you heal, you live to love another person at another time. There are more fish in the sea.
Pisces and sacrifice
The other thing worth mentioning in relation to Pisces is the connection to sacrifice, martyrdom or trying to be what you imagine someone wants you to be.
Water is formless and takes the shape of the vessel into which it is poured. So while love invites us to be vulnerable, please don’t blur your own edges and be a doormat. Even Juliet had her conditions:
If that thy bent of love be honorable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow…
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
In other words, Romeo, if you really mean it and you want to commit to me then it’s on, and all I have is yours, but otherwise forget it. (Subtext – I’ve got my self esteem).
Look at our favourite literary heroines:
- Elizabeth Bennett heatedly refuses Darcy’s first proposal as she doesn’t see his immense fortune, she only hears the insult that he’s fallen for her against his own better judgment. (Subtext – I might be poor but I’m not that desperate).
- Demelza takes flight after a night of passion with Ross Poldark, knowing that as his servant she would inevitably continue as his bit on the side. (Subtext – if you just want sex you’ll have to look elsewhere). Only when he has to pursue her does he see that she’s ahead of him in her understanding and offers her marriage, aka equality.
Finally Mercury in Pisces is compassion.
Reach out to those in need or in pain. Don’t try to fix them.
Little gestures are what matter – I’m here, call me if you need me, thinking of you, am free for lunch/a coffee/a bottle of wine!
These are the gentle, no pressure expressions of love and care.
What Else is Happening this Week?
Uranus is also a lead player at the moment.
With a cycle of 84 years this outer planet is slow moving at the best of times, but especially so at the moment – because it recently turned direct, on 6 January, after a five month period of being retrograde.
The slower moving the planet, the longer it takes to pick up speed again after a turning point. Uranus turned at 28.36 Aries, is now working his way through 29 degrees and will eventually get to 0 degrees Taurus in about three weeks time, on 6 March.
So, this means that any other planet changing sign now and in the next few weeks will be in aspect to (link up with) Uranus as they move from 29 degrees of one sign to 0 degrees of the next.
This happened with Mercury over the weekend (moving from Aquarius to Pisces), and is now happening with Mars mid-week, and then the Sun in the early hours of next Monday which is therefore to be included as part of next weekend’s astrological picture:
Wednesday 13 February
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Mars 29 Aries conjunct Uranus 29 Aries 06.21
Monday 18 February
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Sun 29 Aquarius sextile Uranus 29 Aries 07.56
The more important of these two aspects is the Mars – Uranus conjunction, which happens only once approximately every two years.
The last one was 27 February 2017 at 22 Aries. Not only does this week’s conjunction fall in the last degree of Aries – a grand finale – this conjunction won’t fall in Aries again for another 84 years.
Double grand finale. If you have planets or angles at 29 degrees of any sign, but especially the Cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, you’ll need to find some footholds as this is the stuff of major transition.
As far as love matters are concerned this Valentine’s Day could be a major shakeup.
Rocky relationships could get even rockier as Uranus is the divorce planet and often signifies the final bust up, usually over something unexpected and unpremeditated.
Getting let down on Valentine’s Day may be the final deal breaker – if you know that in reality you’ve been in denial or just been marking time
Or
If the person you’re interested in ignores the event. Affairs are especially sensitized at this time as divided loyalties get put to the test.
There’s definitely a ‘now or never‘ feel about this conjunction, underlined by Mars the action and lust planet being in his own sign of passionate Aries, a sign often characterized by a sense of urgency and love of immediacy.
Sun and Uranus
The Sun’s final aspect before moving into Pisces is also to explosive Uranus, and as I’ve said for the last couple of weeks, note that these two are in ‘mixed reception’
- The Sun in Aquarius (Uranus’ sign) and Uranus in Aries (the Sun’s sign of exaltation).
- A swapping over, an exchange of some kind, will be powerful, sudden and for the best, but not without some fireworks. This could be:
- Affairs are resolved
- New jobs are found because someone else gets fired
- Moving house, even emigrating.
- Look out for the context of new arrangements coming to light in your own life.
All this Uranus activity can be disruptive but can also be very exciting.
Uranus isn’t just about shocks of the unwelcome kind. For example, the ‘out of the blue’ event that gets life moving again, meeting someone who wakes you up, head-spinning information that makes you rethink a person, a project, an idea etc.
Whatever the context, Uranus usually has a way of making himself felt that is unmistakeable.
On Valentine’s Day itself we also have another planet changing sign:
Thursday 14 February
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Mars ingress Taurus 10.52
So a second planet is moving into a sign of ‘detriment’.
In traditional astrology Mars rules Aries (his masculine sign) and Scorpio (his feminine sign).
Taurus is the opposite sign to Scorpio and is therefore one of Mars’s signs of ‘detriment’.
Taurus the Bull is slow and sensual, comfortably at home with Venus, but can punch and bellow when expressed through Mars.
Actors with this natal Mars and who embody this symbolism in their work include:
- Robert de Niro (the boxer in Raging Bull) and
- Bruce Willis (the indestructible hero of Die Hard).
Mars in Taurus
Alternatively, the Mars/Taurus combination is inertia, the couch potato or the nature that is peaceable until provoked.
Physically this Mars has the constitution of an ox but is something of a plodder and hates rushing.
Results are won through soldiering on, stubborn perseverance, or the ‘I’ll prove you wrong’ kind of determination.
This placing is often associated with brutality and bully boys. This doesn’t mean that everyone born with Mars in Taurus is a bully! But it’s often the stuff of hard knocks and can signify experiences of abuse, especially in a woman’s chart.
Charlize Theron has this Mars and was 15 when her mother shot her father. The shooting was ruled as self defense. The end result of years of drunken assaults on both his wife and daughter.
Mars and Venus
The good news is that relationships starting at this time coincide with this new cycle that puts the love planets, Venus and Mars, also into a ‘mixed reception’:
Venus currently being in Capricorn (Mars’ sign of exaltation) and Mars moving into Taurus (Venus’ own sign). This favours all that is reciprocal and mutually beneficial.
Also Mars moving out of Aries (me first, do it my way) into Taurus (sensuality, money matters) bodes well for the transition from the single life to a ‘let’s make this work’ hands-on approach to a new or current relationship.
The very best of Mars in Taurus is the ability to hang on in there:
- Putting energy into money-making and home-building
- Connecting with nature and growing things and
- Building a deeply satisfying love life.
So it’s out with immediate gratification. And in with hanging out for the rewards of everything that is worth nurturing, including self-worth, and worth waiting for.
With love, love, love from Greece!
Joanna