Venus in Cancer Opposite Pluto in Capricorn

At the moment, we're heading quickly to a Venus in Cancer opposition to Pluto in Capricorn August 1 at the first degree of the signs. This is the first of our big post-Cancer/Capricorn eclipse tests related to the shedding of past-related emotion that was holding us hostage, family patterns, emotional tricks and general emotional dramz we were holding onto...stripping this Plutonic-clean and moving forward with the new emotional realities the two New Moons in Cancer moved us into.

This Venus-Pluto opposition echoes the first New Moon in Cancer (June 22) when the Sun and Moon were at 1 degree Cancer opposite Pluto at 1 degree Capricorn.

We'll see with this opposition how we've done with these themes. It's a status report of sorts. As the opposition tightens and the whole Cancer-Capricorn continuum starts to sing, we'll become aware of any areas left to clear and any remaining detritus left to dislodge and release - long-held emotional resentments it's time to purge and wounds left to integrate, as well as any further emotional ties to sever/transform, especially related to the past, our familial roles and our early conditioning.

There could be some Plutonic gut punches involved if we've been looking the other way when Pluto shows us what needs to go. It's deep, emotional, sometimes gut-wrenching stuff, and Cancer has a tendency to hold on and hold on and hold on...not always conducive to Pluto's psychic surgery and purgery.

Pluto in Capricorn has long-term goals for us. Concrete steps we have to take and progress we have to make to reach our full, shining potentials on this Earth. So relationships now are strengthening the emotional/soul anchor we need to strive for that potential...but at the same time, they're getting the Plutonic strip-down. We're dropping all the remaining emotional baggage we can no longer carry, baggage that would hinder us from reaching those Pluto in Cap achievements, in particular, and transforming dynamics that are past their prime into something more suitable.

This is the balance between honouring our emotional realities and the emotional realities of others (Cancer) and having to do what we have to do to get the job done (Capricorn). The interplay of emotional nurturing and "just getting on with it."

This Venus-Pluto opposition ties in to the opening Venus in Aries squares to Pluto in Capricorn we experienced in April and May. Opening squares create the friction and push to initiate some action in our lives, and with the series of Venus in Aries squares to stationing Pluto in Capricorn, we started off in a blazing new direction, within the broader context of long-term Pluto in Cap progress.

We had to be honest about who we really are now and what we really want...while keeping in mind the context of what is desired for us on an evolutionary/collective level. A fresh start of the most deep and refreshing kind was necessary, and relationships we had outgrown had to be let go of.

If we refuse to let go, Pluto unceremoniously strips things away that would hold us back from our purest and most raw evolutionary drive and process, and relationships hit the chopping block in a big way during the Venus in Aries retro. If not the entire relationship, definitely ways of relating within the relationship that were no longer ringing true. Pluto shifts dynamics in a big way. Anything dishonest is considered worthless. So things got brutally honest there for a while. :-)

We entered a new Venus cycle during the Venus in Aries retrograde:

"During the retrograde period in Aries, Venus had to deal with all the things it would prefer not to: anger, rage, and corresponding passive aggressiveness coming to a head related to all the crap she puts up with from people, the ways she dulls her flame in order to keep the peace with those around her, the way her personal will and desires are put on the back burner in favour of others, the ways her identity is subjugated...

We've become aware, during this retrograde and the squares to Pluto, of relationships and ways of interacting in relationships that have run their course. Relationships that can no longer contain who we really are have been dusted off to make room for more vital ones...or have been gutted and transformed.

There is a new set of rules we started following during this Venus retrograde period. We have to be ourselves 100% and speak up when people project onto us who they (wrongly) think we are. We're expressing a Venus that is no longer willing to put up with any crap."

Now Venus is making her way to Cancer and an opposition to Pluto Rx. This is where we start to come to terms emotionally with where we are now, with the changes that were made March-May as we committed to being truer to ourselves in relation to other people. We headed in our courageous new Arien directions relationship-wise then and have since gotten a little distance between what happened then and where we are now.

Venus transitting Cancer should give us an opportunity to get comfortable with where these new directions have taken us and to recast our emotional anchors where necessary.

Astrology relates to processes, each phase related to what came before and what is up ahead.

And Pluto is very involved with this new Venus cycle. The entire cycle should be looked at as a Pluto-infused transformational process, I believe, related to those things ruled by Venus - relationships, what we love, how we show love, beauty, our needs, self-worth and values. Keeping that in mind as Venus makes her way through the zodiac over the next year and a half will be helpful.

As always: "If we avoided or denied what that Venus - Pluto square was trying to show us then, we could have some nastier experiences as Pluto gets a little louder and more ruthless in bringing certain things to our awareness. We have to sever the dynamics Pluto asks us to sever for our future survival. We have to purge the old emotion we're holding or risk bringing more of the same crap into our lives."

So this Venus in Cancer-Pluto in Capricorn opposition on the heels of so much Cancer-Capricorn eclipse emphasis should be very telling. If we've dug in and done the work Pluto has requested since the Venus in Aries retrograde, we should hopefully just have some finishing clearing to do. If we've been lagging on this front, things will come to a head around this time, making it impossible to deny what is going on beneath the surface.

The only way to appease Pluto is to go as deeply as it says to go...or deeper. It's not much comfort, but the pain we feel doing the work is nothing compared to the long-term damage leaving it undone will do.

Anyway, I know I'm just a little ray of Plutonic sunshine, but what are you gonna do? :-) It's always best to be aware so as not to be blindsided and sucker punched. If we can get on top of the Plutonic game, we can work with the dynamics instead of only being forced to react to them.