Lived Life Quietly Begins its Takeover
7.5.04
Lived life quietly begins its takeover.
Not to say we are completely without the profusive packs of roving words, trivialities and not-so-trivialities that have been commingling in our airwaves over the past several weeks. I'm not just dwelling when I say, we seriously mustn't forget that a mere month ago, Venus traveled backwards across the face of the Sun, an event that hadn't happened since 1882. (In astrology as in life, that time schedule qualifies it as rare.) That same week, presidential icon Ronald Reagan passed away, igniting several days of self-conscious flashing of recent history before our eyes, as the purveyors of fine and not-so-fine information everywhere sought to create encapsulated memory from a complex and contested legacy, not only of Reagan but of our country and our 'modern' state of affairs.
This Venus business has colored everything since mid May, when she headed retrograde in the sign of Gemini and filled the ethers with so many pieces of information, social affiliations, options, affections and brief contemplations made before moving on to shiny diversions. Gemini is a model for relativism at its best and worst—able to consider all sides (though maybe not always at once), yet hesitant to grant moral authority to one (though maybe there is indeed a right and wrong?). Venus retrograde in Gemini, heightened to the n-th degree by its transit of the Sun, resulted in a month and a half of so many musings (enjoyable ones, indeed) and maybe a little actual conclusion-drawing or knowledge-enhancement. But in many ways, we have been too pulled around various stages of the middle to see past it. And that's been more than okay.
Venus only turned direct last Tuesday, and now she must retrace those zodiacal steps she's already visited twice over the last three months. It won't be the beginning of August until she gets back to where she was before all this funny business. She doesn't move into Cancer until Aug 7 (making it an unusually long four-month stay in Gemini for her!), so we still have the chit-chatty influence of words and excitement another month. But the chatter has started to slow down, to progress past circling overstimulation in actual strides, thanks to the combination of other astrological factors. Venus no longer reigns solely supreme.
As conversationally outward as Gemini is, Cancer is equally quiet, internally focused and non-verbally communicative. During this time of year, as the Sun travels through Cancer, the school year and other related informational cycles draw to a summer calm (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), and our lived-in bodies can experience emotional connectedness without having to write as many papers or take as many tests. This year, during Cancer season, we have the added influence of Saturn in this sign, which conjoins the Sun this week and contributes a sense of responsibility to the wordless enjoyment of our lives—it is, in fact, a high-level duty to prioritize care and feeling over 'the fast track', even if we must discipline ourselves to do it. Those who find it hard to keep quiet and enjoy the nuanced beauty in a tree or bird or ray of sun, you must force yourself or risk a total disconnection from essential emotion.
The
Sun-Saturn conjunction highlights a longer-term inconjunct
(an aspect of mildly unsettling incongruence) between Saturn and
Neptune in Aquarius, which had its third and final peak last month
after about a year of influence. Neptune
in Aquarius is a gateway to the Age of Aquarius, as it stimulates
a futuristic amping-up of the unification of humanity, through a
combination of technological advance and psychic sensation, shrinking
the globe and building kinship across vast space. Pretty lofty,
and consequently unintelligible to most everyone—yet we can feel
this shift in the dull anxieties effected when others elsewhere
are treated unfairly.
The rub with Saturn in Cancer comes because, in order to deal with this high-level psychic receptivity to everyone everywhere without going bonkers, we must keep close guard over our own personal emotions. We've got to know what we're feeling—and keep it free-flowing but contained—in order to function better in the wider matrix of a planetful of feelers, and in order to evolve the whole thing together.
This week, Jupiter in Virgo also peaks in its inconjunct to Neptune, as it simultaneously makes a supportive sextile (easy-going flowing aspect) to Saturn. This is a fateful combination of three, and Jupiter is the one offering the good-fortune help and assistance to soothe the pressure. Jupiter in Virgo translates to an expansion in orientation to precise details, so that we can discover other ways of carrying out the regimented and rote practice in our daily lives.
When Jupiter sextiles Saturn, there's a pleasant balance between how we respect certain necessary boundaries while going beyond those others that no longer serve us; it's an aspect of productive give-and-take. In this case, in order to be mature and responsible with putting feelings first (Saturn in Cancer), we include new categories of behavior into our habits with less stress than this expansion would normally entail (Jupiter in Virgo). We still have no control over how our behaviors contribute to the macro-level shifts that tie us ever closer to everyone else (Neptune in Aquarius)—and we thus cannot completely eliminate the lurking discomfort of not-knowing-but at least we have the planetary support to work on ourselves.
Then there's Mars and Mercury coming together this week in Leo—mental and physical energies working in unison toward joyous, self-expressive purposes of our own egocentric choosing. We like this for ourselves, even if it has the potential to ruffle others' feathers. In the Mars-and-Mercury-in-Leo spirit, I hereby abruptly end this astrological review, the one I've offered for everyone else's benefits, and start other things…
…because I can, because I'm done writing, because I have life to live and people to love, and what are these words I've written? and what is their relevance to you? and are you still reading? and I'm not sure I care because I've enjoyed writing, and now there's myself to sha