Astrology of 1/25-1/31: The Gravity of Venus

(“Galactic Punch” by Eugenia Loli, just in time for the Venus in Pisces – Saturn in Sagittarius square)

Welcome to another week with fairly intense astrology going on, as maybe is just the case in this backdrop of a separating but very close Uranus-Pluto square which had started accelerating our evolution in 2012. Saturn in Sagittarius is squaring Venus, Mars and Chiron in Pisces, creating storyline around longing and the ways in which we are structuring our lives to meet these longings or not, and what seems to be in the way. Squares are crisis astrology, implying there is definitely some difficulty to those storylines. And we have a New Moon in Aquarius later in the week, with Mercury aspecting both Pluto and Uranus. There are still new frontiers of consciousness to cross and new information = new realities!

January 27
Venus in Pisces square Saturn in Sagittarius: 9:50 AM PST

Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

-Kabir

Saturn in Sagittarius is still conjunct Juno in Sag, Venus in Pisces is a new phase conjunction with Chiron in Pisces, and a balsamic conjunction (catching up to) Mars in Pisces. Jupiter in Libra forms a harmonious sextile to Saturn in Sagittarius and a difficult aspect – inconjunct, to Venus. Assimilating these dynamics, here are some possibilities:

• A turning point in the status quo of relationship to self, and relationship to other; based off the meeting of fantasy and reality (dreams becoming more real, or becoming disillusioned from a dream).
• Relationship choices or developments which are effectively rites of passage and herald a process of maturity. Relative to where a person is at, this can be a really clear accomplishment feeling like making a decision you feel good about that an older version of you wouldn’t have had the wisdom to make. It can also be a decision to plunge into the unknown and to make a riskier choice. At the bottom line this can speak to conscious self-development along the lines of being receptive to a spiritual reality in which the Universe offers us adventures which are always learning experiences, and we’re in this make-your-own-adventure book. The question becomes how do we integrate the dream beckoning at the edges of all that is known, with the wisdom of what is historic, tried and true (or is it true?).
• Beliefs about relationship and about Other can facilitate or restrict love, depending.
• There is some collected awareness of what hasn’t worked in the past, and a juncture in which that very situation is emerging again. We might ask “why does this keep happening to me?” A starry-eyed, Venus in Pisces perspective might realize this is a theater from the Universe offering the potential to make a new choice in the make-your-own-adventure book. There might be a surprising amount of grace and relief when it comes to attending to a situation with honesty where there was the choice to instead repress and continue on as normal. Or it’s really not the time – but the choice finally exists.
• In conflict, there are a lot of possibilities available for new choices; and a conditioned comfort for making a more familiar choice that led to the conflict in the first place.

• Much of this calls to the forefront one’s inner-authority and inner-knowing as well as honoring what one is legitimately longing for. Longing is a force of gravity, and what is its message? A high function of Venus is to listen, to others and also ourselves. Our thoughts and longings might take some deeper listening than what they present at face value, and we might be challenged to not judge them.
• Adjustments in how one accesses heightened states. For example, a recovering addict who is so stoked to be sober, that it’s almost like being sober is the new high. Venus in Pisces loves being high. Saturn in Sagittarius and Venus in Pisces squaring brings in an element of how can one be high in a way that supports one’s life purpose and incrementally moves someone forward.
• A situation arises in which setting boundaries is a new choice that is more loving than not setting those boundaries. Instead of equating no-boundary with love, boundary might be put in place so that abusive dynamics no longer take place. An issue with Pisces is to be so understanding, so compassionate, that one sacrifices themselves. There may be an actual time and place for sacrifice, but often it’s not actually helping anyone. It just enables abusive behavior.
• “If it’s heavy – drop it!” might, but not necessarily, apply. The situation that is heavy remains as long as it is fulfilling a purpose or an inspiration. A Saturnian catchphrase comes to mind – “Until you deal with it with grace, it stays in your face.” Venus in Pisces represents inspired feeling that is a gamechanger for the status quo that Saturn represents here. When status quo is unable to integrate new feeling into structure; there is conflict. And Venus in Pisces can imagine defeat before even trying, and therefore not give the necessary attention to their inspirations. If something is going to make way in this heavy collision, Venus in Pisces (one’s dreams and how those dreams and longings are valued) needs more authority, and Saturn in Sagittarius needs Eros, love, and imagination and sensitivity.
• This transit speaks to the possibility to take responsibility for oneself in a conflict where one had before felt like a situation was happening to them. Some things that open the possibility for this can be inner depth work, dreaming, or feeling inspired by a belief or cosmology that presents insights that simply didn’t exist in cognition before.
• The romances (relationships, romances of ideas, career romances – etc… things we idolize) that just don’t function might fulfill an actual psychological need to be temporarily shaped or conditioned by an experience beyond us, such as someone else’s experience. Venus in Pisces is nebulous and might like to absorb the value systems of others, to mature, expand and grow.
• One actually has to grow out of love karmas that no longer suit them by going through those karmas until the longing for those kinds of karmas are gone (and often, disillusionment ensues because an actual fantasy has died) or one is inspired by something else beyond it. Growing out of love karma is hard and comes with growing pains, but promises new ways of relating that just didn’t enter one’s life before. The insights become integrated into the very being, like sequential rings of bark around a tree.

Note: The thought that karma is simply reward or retribution for deeds done is like a Western interpretation of karma. Karma is a force of gravity and attraction in which we play out scenarios over and over again until we extract or become one with the driving purpose and desire nature present in these scenarios, and exhaust the psychological attachment involved. Working with karma is more about becoming deeply self-aware and evolving on all levels than it is about being good or bad.

New Moon in Aquarius: 4:07 PM PST

• The New Moon forms a balsamic phase semi-sextile aspect to Neptune in Pisces. This symbolizes a potential disparity between a creative vision and the actual reality wanting to unfold through us. It could mean that a dream or vision we have is a symbolic focusing agent, but something that will change form as we draw closer to it, into something that is actually beyond our current imagination. If there is on the other hand, a sense of ennui – having a dream that is a focusing agent for consciousness to direct itself toward may invite unseen and magical circumstances into alignment.
• The theme that self-actualization is activism. Trusting that our innate individuality specifically resources us to be part of the network of humanity can give us the inspiration to amp up our light, rather than dim it for fear that there is no place we could possibly fit in if we were just who we actually were. It is like becoming a transpersonal being.
• A humility emerges when one perceives that their actual existence is a virtue and enjoys and self-nourishes that being – and this also creates a deep inner and outer friendliness, where one can see the specialness and uniqueness of others.
• Universal friendship, occupying an ivory tower; or being part of a group consciousness, are all Aquarian phenomenons happening at different levels.
• A new storyline of electric connection can occur – one has to put out the radio signals.

Mars enters Aries: 9:39 PM PST

• Look to where Aries covers in your natal chart and this will be the area Mars touches over the next couple months – until March 9. This can be an area of increased will, which also plays out as conflict. On a subtle level, if we are needing to engage the will in one area of life but aren’t, difficult circumstances can appear to spur action.
• Mars is experiencing its home sign in Aries – matters of will can appear more basic and straightforward than they did while Mars was in Pisces and the actional plane of life seemed to be about co-creation.
• Mars in Aries is pretty basic and innocent as an energy which is charming in some situations, and really not in others. Perhaps lacking forethought, Mars in Aries learns by doing. It can be very brash.
• Mars in Aries places Mars in a reactive, defensive sign. Taking direct action has a rebound effect when the action affects other people – it’s just simply at the surface, like kids getting into an argument as quickly as they are inspired to, and then it settling down just as quickly. Quick flare-ups and resolutions can even be a sign of vitality, such as there being enough trust or common ground between people that honesty can happen in the moment without damage or a need to process or prepare. Aggression however, can be damaging and boundary-crossing, and reflects a need for maturing the emotional body.
• People with strong Mars (or even just fire) signatures in their natal chart have lessons to learn around wielding fire. Aries is cardinal fire; like scorching an entire forest at once, by impulse. The boldness of Aries is a specialty: Aries also learns timing, balance, and foresight to hone its impulse.
• This marks a lot of energy toward initiating new impulses. Mars will later on enter a T-square with Uranus in Aries, Jupiter in Libra, and Pluto in Capricorn, in which the impulses we are starting to feel now may mature into a space where they create interaction in our larger world. Vesta (keeper of the hearth, keeper of the sacred flame) in Cancer weighs in to make this line up a Grand Cardinal Cross – it may be especially rewarding to keep a tranquil, restorative living environment so that there is a tangible way to cool off in-between moments of Martian heat building.

January 29
Mercury in Capricorn conjunct Pluto in Capricorn: 12:18 PM PST

• The mind, and our perception of reality, may exhaust things leading up to this transit – like throwing notes into the fire.
• The registry of real danger may actually be an experience of impulse and authority – it may feel nothing like fear, and more like empowerment to decisively act. Fear, on the other hand, is slippery and dragonlike, able to slither through the corridors of mind and take on all sorts of acrobatic postures as though to rationalize its validity under any perspective. See if you might observe the difference between fear and the actual mental registering of danger. Honoring this certainly creates a life on the edge which fascinates more Scorpionic or Plutonian types.
• Having fear is not a bad thing – but we can condition ourselves to recognize it as a guardian at the threshold of deep change and transformation. It’s as though treasure is hidden in labyrinths. The soul itself, resonates with labyrinth and fear. Fear is our edge and the soul is a force of depth and expansion. Fear and soul simply go together in that way and facing fears is a way of becoming self-aware at the soul level.
• If you are under pressure or high-performance pressure, this is a good time for self-care rituals that nourish the nervous system and induce deep relaxation. Just don’t be surprised if you end up processing a lot.

January 31
Mercury in Capricorn square Uranus in Aries: 7:31 PM PST

• Surprises or shocks to the mind create freedom.
• New information challenges the status quo and creates the question of what one is to do with information that is impossible to ignore – the information itself induces responsibility (if not jadedness, which is a step along the way).
• We have the right to think freely; to have logical structures and mental patterning which are innately unique to us. Trying to conform one’s thoughts according to an external authority when it is at odds with one’s own authority is a form of trauma, no matter what clever name it’s called by that external authority.
• Disciplining the mind via inner-authority is a choice, and while it is in one way an act of restriction, it can create accelerated freedom.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me! For the last few years it’s been part of my spiritual path to love all the archetypes and planets. Let’s just look at what it means if we are one with them. Our resistance to external factors speaks to an interior resistance. When Saturn astrology comes around, I’m reminded of the presence of hard work – even if I love Saturn, I still feel I’ve been knocked over sometimes. And when Pluto astrology comes around, I’m reminded of mystery; and the way that the truth is sometimes covered up and that we have to actually dig for clarity. This week found me with some major planetary transits, including Saturn crossing my midheaven a few days ago for the first time in my life – it’s really a shift for me. Pluto’s just days away from touching my natal Uranus in Capricorn and I was at a gong bath this last week with a Pluto gong (shout out cause that was really cool!) which definitely triggered a lot of deep nervous system processing (Uranian). I feel so in astrology and the way it presents itself in the theater of life in a way that continues to enchant and humble me and I’m grateful for this cultural renaissance around magic, depth psychology and astrology. We need it. It’s in our bodies; in the blueprints of our higher selves, and it’s such an adventure to communicate with these vast potentials of cosmos and psyche.

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~Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys yoga, hiking and creative writing. You can subscribe to receive her weekly forecasts by email here.

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