Blog
by Steven Forrest
Venus turned retrograde on December 21st, right on the Winter Solstice. Those two pregnant moments coinciding is a rare event and it tells me that we should pay a lot of attention to the strong Venusian signature on the coming year.
On January 11, that retrograde Venus conjuncts the Sun at 21°12' of Capricorn. It remains retrograde for the usual forty-day period, finally turning direct on the last day of January at 13°33' Capricorn.
The Sun-Venus alignment on the 11th is called an “inferior conjunction.” Despite the term, there’s nothing wrong with it! “Inferior” here only means that Venus is directly between the Earth and the Sun. On the other side of its orbit, Venus again aligns with the Sun, but this time with the Sun between us and Venus.
We can usually count on nice weather in Portland in September. It's often like a much-needed extension of summer – a sweet memory to tuck away for the rainy months to come. But no such luck this year. In fact, it's been raining cats and dogs. And it usually only rains butterflies and hummingbirds here, if you know what I mean (light sprinkles and mini drops).
So after about 5 days in a row this week without seeing the sun, I started getting grumbly. But now as I prepare October’s newsletter, it's all perfect fodder for this month's subject: The Grace in Debility! Because if we're evolving well in life, we learn to appreciate the benefits in "taking our medicine," whether that means eating our greens for health, or accepting the first frost, which might signal the start of winter, but also lays the stage for the coming rebirth of Spring.
September opens straightforwardly with Venus in Libra and Mercury in Virgo. Each planet is in the sign it naturally rules, in other words. And that symmetry can be a bit bland, like a beige rug in a beige room. But then things get a lot more interesting. On the 9th, Mercury crosses into Libra where it resides for the bulk of the month, until finally entering Scorpio on the 29th. Two days after Mercury slips into Libra, Venus leaves it, crossing the border into the classic sign of its “detriment,” Scorpio, where it remains until the end of the first week of October.
It is this period from September 11th onward, with Venus in Scorpio and Mercury in Libra, that I'm interested in. Harnessed in an evolutionary way, this planetary combination can trigger conscious deepening, support both truth-telling and truth-hearing, and foster the resolution of tough, longstanding intimate conflicts. Experienced unconsciously, it can read like the script of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. People can tear each other apart in the name of love, in other words.
MERCURY
“When the pickpocket meets the saint, he sees pockets.”
Orbital Period: 88 days
Synodic Period: Approximately 116 days (115.87754 days)
Archetypes: Teacher; Student. Writer; Reader. Storyteller.
Rules: Gemini and Virgo
Core Concept: The reception and transmission of data between a person and the surrounding social, physical, metaphysical, and psychic environments.
Developmental Focus: Evolving perception. Evolving thought. Evolving speech.
Positive Subjective Response: Curiosity, wonder, open-mindedness. Alertness. Comfortable self-expression; good listening.
Negative Subjective Response: Mental rigidity, intellectual defensiveness; compulsive speech, running around in circles.
Existential Emphasis Under Transits, Progressions, or Arcs: New information; omens and synchronicities; key conversations; speedy, chaotic developments; education in any sense; physical motion. Contact with young people or siblings.
Want to Learn More? Read Steven’s article The Out of Bounds Moon. Learn how to calculate the out of bounds moon using Solar Fire and Winstar. Learn more about the Out of Bounds moon and lunar phases with the following programs: Preview of Full Workshop: The Moon Out of Bounds Buy Now
