It has been really powerful for me to be attuned to Venus in these recent weeks as she has moved from being a very bright evening star (in a long, heart-chakra-opening, square to Neptune), to her moving retrograde and between the Earth and the Sun, where she is not currently visible. I am really looking forward to greeting her in a week or so as she becomes a morning star and continues her daily reminder to stay in our hearts.
A sextile has a special feeling of harmony and stimulating closeness for the planets involved, and as you observe one, you can understand why astrologers have associated this angle with positive meanings. This is a great time to get a feeling for the sextile, as the visible planets involved here (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) are moving slowly enough that you can really feel into it’s quality over these next three weeks, and with the Moon crossing that 60 degree span over the next 5 nights this a particularly great week for experiencing it.
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This is the third time the Moon has made a return to what I’ve been calling the “Council of Elders Super Portal,” since it first formed (along with Mars) three months ago. It happened to first come into alignment as San Francisco instituted the shelter-in-place rules that are just starting to loosen up in the last couple of weeks. It has been three full lunar cycles since our US crisis began, and the world has completely changed.
It is difficult to briefly go into the astrological meaning of such complex and mutually activating alignments, but I think they do speak to the unique power of this collective moment in history. As the United States (and the rest of the world) protests against systemic racism and violence after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a militarized police system, we can clearly see the energy of the once-in-a thousand-years tight triple conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto at work.
I’ve been describing the intense potential for the conjunction of these three outer planets since the end of last year, and they certainly seem to be living up to that potential. Together they relate to both the epic and global scale of of the ongoing Covid pandemic and the massive and growing resistance movement against the structures of power and control which serve the interests of corporations and wealthy (mostly white) elites.
The Mars-Neptune conjunction (which has been particularly potent this past week, as they both have been square to a Venus Sun conjunction), can be seen coming through in a range of ways, from the wide use of tear gas and pepper spray on protesters, to the largely peaceful nature of the growing protest movement. This alignment reminds us how sensitive we are on all levels, from our sensitivity and vulnerability to pathogens, to our sensitivity to both macro and micro aggressions wielded by those with power and privilege. It is both the call of the peaceful warrior and the attacks against those same warriors.
In addition to this alignment, it is still possible with clear skies to observe Mercury after sunset. Once the sky becomes darker, look above where the sun went down for a rare opportunity to catch our fast moving messenger before they start to go retrograde on the 18th and are blocked by the light of the Sun. Meanwhile, Venus is still in retrograde until the 25th and currently not visible, as she moves through the underworld to become a visible morning star around the 12th.
It has been really powerful for me to be attuned to Venus in these recent weeks as she has moved from being a very bright evening star (in a long, heart-chakra-opening, square to Neptune), to her moving retrograde and between the Earth and the Sun, where she is not currently visible. I am really looking forward to greeting her in a week or so as she becomes a morning star and continues her daily reminder to stay in our hearts.
For more of my thoughts on all of this I hope you will check out my new video which shows my experience of one special night of sky watching two nights ago. It starts with my response to the early morning lunar display and moves backwards to the previous evening when I sang a song to Mercury as they revealed themselves against the darkening sky. I end, in reverse, with a particularly stellar San Francisco Sun-Venus sunset over Twin Peaks.
So, I really hope you can get out there in the next few nights to catch this beautiful display of nature. Here in my latitude, the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn rise over the eastern horizon around midnight, followed by Mars about 90 minutes later. After that, they are all visible until sunrise, so you can either stay up late or get up early, to pray to, and seek guidance from, this very rare gathering of lights in the sky. Its definitely worth setting a strong intention to experience this, and I wish you all joyful skywatching. Blessings!