Venus in Aquarius and Mars in Pisces for the First Official Valentine's Day, Post-12212012

A little Willow spice for Valentine's...



Jupiter has just stationed direct in Gemini square Chiron-Neptune in Pisces, and the Jupiter-Chiron square is with us strongly for the next couple months.

As part of that astro flavour, I've noticed an increase in search terms about "twin flames" lately. This is the twins (Gemini) combined with the New Age/Piscean-era ideology (Pisces). But it's also wounding (Chiron) Piscean-era ideology that becomes less and less effective and satisfactory as we go.

There seems to be an almost obsession with all things "twin flame" in certain circles. A lot of pining, longing, fantasizing, wishing, hoping. The entire ideation stirs psychic torture. People are being tied up in knots, craving and desiring what they've been taught by the New Age is the most exciting, spiritual, and "enlightened" relationship construct. The Twin Flame Relationship. Two Become One.

Now would be a great time, as we head into Valentine's Day Post-12212012, to examine the corrupted ideology of the New Age and flush those ideas down the Piscean-era drain, by the way.

If it keeps you stuck like a skipping record, it's time for it to go. And the "twin flames" ideation needs to go.

A few couples - almost all of which have to be New Age, no? - are held up as poster children for the blissful, "you complete me" Twin Flame Relationship. Their story of love, separation, and then divine and spiritually-orgasmic union against all odds becomes the desired love story for all who become entranced by it.

There's an image being projected onto a screen. A candy-coated Neptunian shell of real love. A version of life where all one has to do is find this person, this second half, this twin flame, and suddenly all life's problems fall away miraculously. And then you reach enlightenment. Together. As one.

The first problem with this little scenario is: it's New Age. If you look into the roots of New Age, you will see some immediate red flags.

The second problem is: it sets up a hierarchical situation where some people are in "special" relationships, relationships that are so much better than the relationships of regular people. These are the enlightened relationships. And all others who do not find themselves so gloriously and meaningfully matched can look up to these twin flame couples. They can strive to be like them. Desire to be like them. Emulate them. They can turn themselves inside out in Herculean effort to draw their very own twin flames.

And then they can fall into the pits of despair when they repeatedly do not achieve this holy 'Duo of Flame' union. (Don't worry. There will be plenty of crystals and readings and Love Abundance aromatherapies to buy. I mean, try.)

I don't do twin flames, but I do soul mates. And there, again, are some seriously problematic applications of the term...

Jupiter direct is in an applying square to Chiron in Pisces (wounding illusions, deluded thinking, disappointing information and realizations of the truth) for the next two months, forming its third exact square to Chiron on March 27, 2013. This Jupiter-Chiron square will be lit up as Mercury, Mars, the Sun, and Venus conjunct Chiron in Pisces and square Jupiter over the next couple months. This square colours all of Pisces season (Sun in Pisces, February 19 - March 20), and we're strongly challenged to outsmart the end-of-Pisces themes over the next months.

The Piscean era is over - if we choose to make it so. And these last layers of wounding Piscean-era thinking, particularly around love and relationship, are set to go now.

We can have the best of Pisces in relationship - the full and spiritual love, the delightful intermingling of auras, the compassion, the magic, the bliss, the romance, the sweetness. But we don't have to turn relationships into one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs by insisting in juvenile fashion that they be ONLY those things. Or even primarily those things.

Pisces has a place in love and relationship in the astrological Aquarian era. A big place. But it isn't the ONLY place, as it has been. It doesn't colour the ideals as heavily. It isn't the version of love placed atop a pedestal to worship.

Love and relationships are different in the astrological Aquarian era. That's all there is to it.

Under this umbrella, we're complete as we are. Self-contained. We don't need anyone to prop us up, to complete us, to add what we lack. That doesn't mean we don't need people or that we don't need love. It means that we aren't incomplete without it. We aren't damaged beyond all recovery by not having a personal love relationship.

We come together as two (or more) equal and self-contained units in Aquarius. We create the win-win by being ultra fabulous and skilled in what we bring to the partnership and in partnering with others who bring ultra fabulous skills to the table.

We don't fully immerse ourselves in the energetic forcefield of another. We don't lose ourselves or allow another to be lost in us. We don't join with people purely for healing purposes. We stand on our own and accept the healing that comes to us through love and relationship.

We don't pin illusory expectations on anyone to fulfill our pink-tinged dreams of Hollywood romance and Happily Ever After. We make the Happily Ever After ourselves. We build it together one step at a time. And some of those steps are pretty fucking rough. Don't let that convince you that your relationships are anything less than those "twin flame" couples'...

Love and relationship planet Venus enters Aquarius this evening (8:47 p.m.), after a long, hard confab with Pluto in Capricorn about the necessary next steps in the ongoing transformation of love and relationship. Sex and desire planet Mars enters Pisces this evening (7:54 p.m.), as well.

Venus will be in Aquarius for the first Valentine's Day of the post-12212012 era, and Mars will be in Pisces. Venus in Aquarius has her clear-headed gaze set on the future of love and relationships. The long-range view. She's leading the way, maintaining objectivity and pristine detachment. All that Aquarian detachment and space drives Mars in Pisces a little crazy, though. These are primal Piscean desires we're having. Mars in Pisces wants complete immersion in love - and in a loved one. It wants to be wrapped up in a cocoon of unending love, adoration, and support from the universe and from other people. It wants to do the backstroke in the auric field of the one it desires. Blissful communion and spiritual ecstasy, particularly through sex.

The personal relationship planets are in Aquarius and Pisces this Valentine's Day, and the transition of the eras is being translated through love, sex, desire, companionship, relationship, and friendship.

Venus in Aquarius is a good time to fall fully and deeply in love with your friends, as well as with your lovers/mates.

Part of the shift into Aquarian-era relationship constructs involves the friend relationship coming into its full status. It has been relegated to second best for far too long. Friends have taken a lot of shit playing second fiddle to the ideal of the Glorious and Perfect Love Relationship, and this has been very painful at times.

With Venus in Aquarius, our friendships are love relationships. We're in love with our friends.

During the Venus in Aquarius transit, we can hold a space open, a new Aquarian space, for the high privilege of and deep gratitude for real friendship. Friendship can come into its full value now. And it's deep - with Venus in Aquarius squaring Saturn in Scorpio February 11, still in effect on Valentine's Day.

Venus in Aquarius tells us: We are not too weird for love. We are not too weird for relationships. There is a match for anyone who needs love.

Venus in Aquarius square Saturn in Scorpio tell us: We are not too damaged for love. We are not too damaged to love. There are people who are traumatized by the same things that traumatize us. They'll understand. They'll love you for all you've been through, just as you'll love them for it.

From a previous post: "The beautiful thing about the Scorpio-Aquarius square, highlighted throughout 2013 during a Juno retrograde in Aquarius, is that we are all pretty much damaged by the way things are. We've been damaged by it, and we continue to be damaged by it. The Scorpio-Aquarius square democratizes the damage. We're egalitarian comrades, like it or not, in our inability to remain fully unscathed - physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, psychically, spiritually - by the current ways of doing things on this planet."

Honouring the love, companionship, and sanity that friends provide for us (including friends who are lovers) is a beautiful way to spend this Valentine's (Juno) Day. Friendships deepen and blossom into new levels of love this February, and this could include sexual/romantic love, if that's on the docket.

The Aquarius Sun is conjunct Eros (erotic love) in the last degrees of Aquarius this Valentine's Day.

What did I tell you? Friendship is hot. Our friends are super cool hotties. This is a Valentine's Day when the friendly and the erotic are intertwined, when we can appreciate all the depth and the nuances of friend love.

Venus is in Aquarius February 1 to February 25.
Mars is in Pisces February 1 to March 12.