"The South Node of the Moon in the Via
Combusta: A Period of Karmic Relationship Clean-Up and Pattern-Breaking as We Accelerate
into the Aquarian Era" is an article available to Willow's Web Astrology patrons.
Showing posts with label via combusta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label via combusta. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2022
The South Node of the Moon in the Via Combusta: A Period of Karmic Relationship Clean-Up and Pattern-Breaking as We Accelerate into the Aquarian Era
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Peacekeeping (Libra) Versus Peacemaking (Scorpio)
This might be a controversial assertion, but I don't think the sign of Libra alone is all that skilled in the creation of peace. Libra is the peacekeeper, maybe. But peacemaker? Peace creator? No.
Libra can often maintain, through its slick social skills and airy diplomacy, a form of peace that has already been established, but getting to a state of real peace often involves getting into it, and Libra is a sign that, especially when squared by Cancer or Capricorn, prefers to avoid that unpleasantness.
This avoidance is problematic because getting to a real state of peace often involves complex and longstanding disputes, injustices, imbalances, injuries, and instances of oppression that have been hidden, covered over, smoothed over, let slide, reinforced - made worse, in fact, by Libra's glossing over of realities and nervous insistence on everything staying nicey-nice.
Slapping a Band-Aid on it and forcing a phony handshake over drinks without addressing underlying issues is not the recipe for true, longstanding justice or the peace that stems from that. Keeping everything Libran light and pleasant isn't really the goal when you get right down to it - getting to the root of the discord and injustice is, as well as to a mutual understanding of what caused and continues to cause these things so they can be addressed and the chains broken.
The drawing up and divining sign of Scorpio, then, becomes instrumental in the process of peace creation. The road to peace might be initiated in cardinal air Libra, but it's fixed water Scorpio that digs in and takes the process beneath the surface, where it needs to go to be truly effective.
It's the catalytic power of expressing the raw human experiences of millennia of suppression on this planet, especially emotional and psychological realities, that starts the process toward real peace, equality, and harmony. If we can't get to and express the core realities, we don't get to any real healing, peace, or understanding.
With Scorpio, there is right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust - and these cut-and-dry distinctions can make Libra, which at times searches for common ground that does not exist, very uncomfortable. This is part of the reason why Venus, Libra's ruling planet, is considered to be in its detriment in Scorpio.
Scorpio is a sign that is, or rather, can become, fully aware of core realities and hidden dynamics, especially of the domination/subjugation variety. Skilled Scorpionic types (whether that be a strong Scorpio contingent, a strong Pluto, a strong 8th house, or a combination) can feel a subtle energetic disruption that most other people wouldn't have the radar to pick up, and they can follow that disruption right to the root via sheer intuition.
Scorpionic or Plutonic people can understand the root causes of behaviour that others would write off as bizarre or extreme - especially when that behaviour is an expression of collectively-reinforced repressive/oppressive dynamics. Scorpio understands that at a certain level of collective denial, the pressure on the individuals with awareness cannot be contained any longer, and it erupts. Scorpio is a sign associated with volcanic eruptions and also nuclear meltdowns of the emotional variety.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
A Powerful Via Combusta Mercury Retrograde Propels us into the Last Quarter of Crazy-Ass 2020
Photo: Nathan Coates
"A Powerful Via Combusta Mercury Retrograde Propels us into the Last Quarter of Crazy-Ass 2020" is an article available to Willow's Web Astrology patrons.
Happy Equinox!
Sunday, August 19, 2018
A Via Combusta Venus Retrograde: Reaching Escape Velocity From Old Hurts, Heartbreaks, and Relational Trauma-Prints
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Saturday, February 4, 2017
Jupiter Draws the Fixed Star Goodness Into Its Retrograde Period
Planet of expansion and cosmic blessings Jupiter goes retrograde on February 5 (10:52 p.m. PST) at 23 degrees Libra, exactly conjunct highly fortunate fixed star Spica (23 Libra) and tightly conjunct highly fortunate fixed star Arcturus (24 Libra).
The Jupiter retrograde station conjunct two superfantabulous fixed stars draws the fixed star goodness into the following retrograde period. (This is a good thing since Jupiter will go direct again on June 9 at 13 degrees Libra, conjunct unfortunate fixed star, Algorab, indicating that a bit of the nasties could be possible around that time, especially related to society, justice, or other people.)
With Jupiter in retrograde motion, we're shoring up social and relationship-related expansion we've experienced since Jupiter first entered Libra on September 9, 2016. Throughout the retrograde period, we'll be drawing on benefits and goodness from the social networks we've been developing and interacting with since then.
Any social or relational benefits we are experiencing now will come to
their full and glorious peak as Jupiter direct forms conjunctions to
Spica and Arcturus yet again September 6 - 16, 2017.
The very fortunate fixed star influence indicates a beneficial boost when dealing with all things social and justice-related, and this is carried through the retrograde period. If there are areas that are barely tolerable to you at the moment due to their unfairness, hold on. Things could be restored to a more equitable state as Jupiter Rx goes over the ledgers in Libra. At the very least, you may come into contact with others who find things just as intolerable as you do, finding strength and comfort in numbers.
As Jupiter now goes retrograde in Libra, we're applying the social and relational wisdom we've accumulated through all our social experiences - and maybe most importantly, from the social experiences that didn't turn out quite as we had hoped.
One of the great Jupiter lessons is that some of the deepest wisdom comes after falling flat on our faces. So with Jupiter in relationship-oriented Libra, our social gaffes, our interpersonal frictions, and our general faux pas moments in relation to others are valuable sources of wisdom that can now be applied, making for more successful interactions with other people and with society, in general, as we move forward.
The choices we have made in partnerships of all kinds can now be re-assessed and weighed. We can be grateful for the wisdom our choices have brought and for the richness they have provided, while also making wiser and more balanced choices in future, if necessary.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
New Moon Eclipse in Scorpio Conjunct Saturn: Final Resolution of Via Combusta Themes
The New Moon eclipse falls at 11 degrees Scorpio on November 3 (6:50 a.m. CST), sandwiched in conjunction between Saturn at 13 degrees Scorpio and the North Node and Mercury, conjunct at 7 degrees Scorpio.
This is an important New Moon for a number of reasons.
As stated previously on the blog, Saturn is currently travelling through an area of Scorpio (11 to 16 degrees) to which it will not return in retrograde motion. Saturn is making only one pass through these degrees of the zodiac. This is it. So we have one kick at the cat with the themes of these degrees and one kick at the cat only.
As Saturn shoots through this zone (October 14 to November 26), we have to focus quite intently on keeping the energy in our lives just right. We are cementing a foundation now, halfway through the Saturn in Scorpio transit, that will either support our emotional and psychological health and development for the next 29 years or create hassles, issues, and karmic setbacks at various times over the next 29 years.
As usual with Saturn, we have to be quite serious about things. And in Scorpio, we have to fully understand our lessons - each and every angle - and integrate them into our selves and into our lives. No half-assing it.
If we have doubts, concerns, or intuitive misgivings about anyone or anything in our lives now, we're required to wait before making any further commitments.
From a previous post:
"If all our energetic ducks are in a row and if all the power dynamics have been worked out satisfactorily, this time period (Oct. 14 - Nov. 26) can result in some fairly easy progress with natural next steps occurring with projects and in career.
People will be moving into more structured and solid positions of authority this fall quarter, and this particularly includes positions involving shared power, money, and resources.
Under the ongoing stressors, people who have not fully earned their authority or positions, who have not set the right energetic foundations, will soon be in over their heads, however.
With Saturn conjunct the North Node this fall, be careful not to take on too much, too fast - no matter how promising things seem. The commitments we make or deepen this fall could be life changing and deeply altering for us over the long term. We must be very careful to follow our intuition down to the last twinge regarding decision and commitments made at this time, particularly involving legal contracts or money."
Not only is Saturn crossing the halfway point in the sign of Scorpio in this "single pass zone," but it is also completing its transit of the Via Combusta.
From a previous post:
"The Via Combusta is an area of the zodiac between 15 degrees Libra and 15 degrees Scorpio (except for 23 and 24 degrees Libra) known as the burning path or combustible way. Traditionally, it is associated with "unfortunate and ineffectual events."
My interpretation of the Via Combusta is humanized and comes from the point-of-view of a person experiencing life with key natal placements in this area.
When the Via Combusta is strongly highlighted, there is a feeling of running the gauntlet through sometimes seemingly insurmountable odds, collective karma, booby traps and friction, very often related to relationship dynamics, which are Libra and Scorpio territory.
There's a fire in the Via Combusta and within people with a strong Via Combusta signature that keeps them burning, burning, burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling here that one has to keep going, no matter what, through the wreckage of old, crystallized layers that would keep us stultified, constricted, and unsatisfied with old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.
The basic goal of the Via Combusta is to reach escape velocity. In space travel, this is the point a space shuttle reaches when its speed and momentum allow it to escape the effects of gravity pulling it back down to Earth. In the case of the Via Combusta, it's about reaching the points of awareness and pure momentum where we escape the gravity of the sticky, tricky wreckage trying to draw us back into old territory, especially involving old constructs and dynamics of relating.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Saturn in Scorpio: Grounding the Charge and Avoiding the Wrong Astrological Mixes
From a previous post:
"Scorpio is a sign, co-ruled by Mars and Pluto, that involves complex attractions. Mars is the planet of personal desire, attraction, and sexuality, while Pluto involves attractions of the soul, designed to draw us into deep (and sometimes hellish horrifying) processes of change and metamorphosis. Plutonic attractions catalyze a process that leaves us in an altered, yet ultimately stronger and more powerful, state, not the same as we once were. In Scorpio, we experience the interplay between personal will and transpersonal will, personal desire and transpersonal desire, what we want and what is wanted for and from and through us.
Plutonic attractions are often both magnetic, drawing us like moth to flame, and repulsive. One side of the magnet attracts; the other repels. With Pluto involved, we experience both. There is an intricate interplay, and it doesn't take much to turn passionate love into passionate hate and vice versa.
There is a theme with Scorpio and Pluto of being attracted to those we secretly (or not-so-secretly) hate. This attraction brings us into contact, again and again, with people and situations that disgust, horrify, and enrage...but also fascinate, titillate, and compel. We hate ourselves for being attracted, but it's difficult (though not impossible) to break away."
One of the great things about Saturn's almost three-year transit of Scorpio is: people are going to be able to break away.
Saturn in Scorpio grounds the charge of the sign, and as a result, the cyclical, moth-to-flame attractions have less control. Those who are used to having that sexy, seductive, highly-charged pull at their disposal are going to find their drawing power limited.
People are going to be able to extricate themselves. They just aren't going to be as attracted or transfixed. The old dramatic draws will no longer draw. The sticking points will no longer stick.
People fascinated by "the charge" will willingly stay stuck, but most are going to be looking for more substance (Saturn) than that type of attraction (Scorpio) has to offer. Extrication will take patience and effort, but people are going to be able to get out of orbits that have drawn them in against their wills previously.
This includes astrologers' orbits. The re-jigging of mental pathways indicated by the current Mercury retrograde through Scorpio (November 6 - 26) is a boon for people who need to change their "astrological orbits," especially related to Mercurial paths through the world of internet astrology.
The Sun and Mercury Rx are currently coming together in interior conjunction on the Scorpio North Node (exact November 17). This conjunction acts as a laser pointing the way to more fruitful and satisfying tracks in all areas of life, particularly mental/communicative/informational. To get there, we first have to break the charge and the pattern of the ingrained past, and Saturn is here to assist on that front.
During the transit of Saturn through Scorpio, we're going to be confronted by the lesson that certain people just don't mix. We have to respect the friction and resistance apparent in interactions now and address this in the way we structure things. People at cross-purposes coming into unstructured contact with each other will be sending up sparks.
It's sort of common sense. If you notice friction and resistance between two of your friends, don't make them co-Maids of Honour at your wedding unless you want the possibility of a hair-pulling slap fight looming over you on your blessed day.
But with Scorpio, it's also more complex than straight-up, overt dislike.
We're working with underlying, often hidden friction, charge, and anger coming up from the depths, which tell us in no uncertain terms that strong boundaries and limited contact are required in certain cases if we are to avoid the "powder keg" dynamics.
Even those who are compatible will require solid boundaries and containment over the next couple years, or things can become combustible. Saturn is transiting an area of the zodiac referred to as the Via Combusta. This area between 15 degrees Libra and 15 degrees Scorpio, excluding 23 and 24 degrees Libra, is known as the burning path or combustible way.
From a previous post:
"When the Via Combusta is strongly highlighted, there is a feeling of running the gauntlet through sometimes seemingly insurmountable odds, collective karma, booby traps, and friction, very often related to relationship dynamics, which are Libra and Scorpio territory.
There's a fire in the Via Combusta and within people with a strong Via Combusta signature that keeps them burning, burning, burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling here that one has to keep going no matter what, through the wreckage of old, crystallized layers that would keep us stultified, constricted, and unsatisfied with old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.
The basic goal of the Via Combusta is to reach escape velocity. In space travel, this is the point a space shuttle reaches when its speed and momentum allow it to escape the effects of gravity pulling it back down to Earth. In the case of the Via Combusta, it's about reaching the points of awareness and pure momentum where we escape the gravity of the sticky, tricky wreckage trying to draw us back into old territory, especially involving old constructs and dynamics of relating."
With Saturn transiting Via Combusta Scorpio, the weight of collective karmic charge is great, and it's going to take sustained effort to reach the desired escape velocity.
Saturn will be transiting the Via Combusta until November 21, 2013. The North Node enters the Via Combusta at 15 Scorpio on June 23, 2013, leaving it at 15 Libra on January 4, 2015. The potentially frictional and incendiary relational themes are with us for a while.
Over the next year, the strong Scorpio energy in the zodiac is drawing together certain people, situations, skills, talents, and elements in an attempt to create a new alchemy that will really get things done during these crisis times on the planet. It's the "last ditch," if you will. The Scorpio energy is attempting to bring about fusion, creating alchemical combinations that have never before existed, and this process can be particularly combustible. New allies and allegiances will be both forming and melting down in spectacular fashion.
This Scorpionic fusion effect will be apparent across many different disciplines, and we all hold some personal responsibility for what elements are brought together and in what ways.
As Scorpio is a sign related to divination and the "alchemical arts" like astrology and tarot, this is a time period when potentially discordant astrological traditions will be making contact.
In this Google era, astrological knowledge, traditions, and techniques are accessible to people in ways they never have been before. Different traditions and different astrologers are coming into contact with each other in ways they never have in recorded history. And we have to understand that mixing the wrong elements can create some very nasty reactions.
There are belief systems, allegiances, motivations, and traditions underlying anyone's practise of astrology, and Saturn in Scorpio is a time to be very clear on that. Certain astrologers, as well as certain astrological traditions, don't mix well. The level of astrological cross-pollination going on today has never been seen before in recorded history, and we have to be careful to what and to whom we expose ourselves. Readers of astrology should be aware of this, careful of the elements and of the astrologers they bring together.
Astrology is not necessarily a case of "more is better."
Scorpio relates to what we're connected to ancestrally - themes, dynamics, and carryover from generations past - as well as to what we're furthering within our own lifetimes. With Saturn in the sign, there are challenges related to the ancestral lines, and there are grudge matches waiting to play out if we are not careful to maintain boundaries.
We have to feel out what we're connected to (what runs through our blood), what they're connected to (what runs through their blood), whether there is compatibility there, and how to maintain proper boundaries even when there is compatibility.
Saturn in Scorpio is a time period of restrained and restricted energy. There just isn't time or energy for the same old dramas. Because of this, it's in the best interests of most to responsibly avoid the powder keg dynamics.
Starting to work with these themes now, shoring yourself up and creating solid boundaries, is a great way to proactively use the Saturn in Scorpio energy to your long-term benefit.
Venus is currently in Via Combusta Libra, making relationships, money, and values particularly charged territory. Conjunctions to fixed stars Spica and Arcturus on November 16 and 17 will hopefully provide some temporary respite from the heat of the relational burning path.
Venus enters Scorpio late on November 21, leaving the Via Combusta December 4.
Venus forms a conjunction to the Scorpio North Node December 12, and at that time, we should be well aware of which relationships are moving forward, which have run their course, and which are better left alone altogether.
"Scorpio is a sign, co-ruled by Mars and Pluto, that involves complex attractions. Mars is the planet of personal desire, attraction, and sexuality, while Pluto involves attractions of the soul, designed to draw us into deep (and sometimes hellish horrifying) processes of change and metamorphosis. Plutonic attractions catalyze a process that leaves us in an altered, yet ultimately stronger and more powerful, state, not the same as we once were. In Scorpio, we experience the interplay between personal will and transpersonal will, personal desire and transpersonal desire, what we want and what is wanted for and from and through us.
Plutonic attractions are often both magnetic, drawing us like moth to flame, and repulsive. One side of the magnet attracts; the other repels. With Pluto involved, we experience both. There is an intricate interplay, and it doesn't take much to turn passionate love into passionate hate and vice versa.
There is a theme with Scorpio and Pluto of being attracted to those we secretly (or not-so-secretly) hate. This attraction brings us into contact, again and again, with people and situations that disgust, horrify, and enrage...but also fascinate, titillate, and compel. We hate ourselves for being attracted, but it's difficult (though not impossible) to break away."
One of the great things about Saturn's almost three-year transit of Scorpio is: people are going to be able to break away.
Saturn in Scorpio grounds the charge of the sign, and as a result, the cyclical, moth-to-flame attractions have less control. Those who are used to having that sexy, seductive, highly-charged pull at their disposal are going to find their drawing power limited.
People are going to be able to extricate themselves. They just aren't going to be as attracted or transfixed. The old dramatic draws will no longer draw. The sticking points will no longer stick.
People fascinated by "the charge" will willingly stay stuck, but most are going to be looking for more substance (Saturn) than that type of attraction (Scorpio) has to offer. Extrication will take patience and effort, but people are going to be able to get out of orbits that have drawn them in against their wills previously.
This includes astrologers' orbits. The re-jigging of mental pathways indicated by the current Mercury retrograde through Scorpio (November 6 - 26) is a boon for people who need to change their "astrological orbits," especially related to Mercurial paths through the world of internet astrology.
The Sun and Mercury Rx are currently coming together in interior conjunction on the Scorpio North Node (exact November 17). This conjunction acts as a laser pointing the way to more fruitful and satisfying tracks in all areas of life, particularly mental/communicative/informational. To get there, we first have to break the charge and the pattern of the ingrained past, and Saturn is here to assist on that front.
During the transit of Saturn through Scorpio, we're going to be confronted by the lesson that certain people just don't mix. We have to respect the friction and resistance apparent in interactions now and address this in the way we structure things. People at cross-purposes coming into unstructured contact with each other will be sending up sparks.
It's sort of common sense. If you notice friction and resistance between two of your friends, don't make them co-Maids of Honour at your wedding unless you want the possibility of a hair-pulling slap fight looming over you on your blessed day.
But with Scorpio, it's also more complex than straight-up, overt dislike.
We're working with underlying, often hidden friction, charge, and anger coming up from the depths, which tell us in no uncertain terms that strong boundaries and limited contact are required in certain cases if we are to avoid the "powder keg" dynamics.
Even those who are compatible will require solid boundaries and containment over the next couple years, or things can become combustible. Saturn is transiting an area of the zodiac referred to as the Via Combusta. This area between 15 degrees Libra and 15 degrees Scorpio, excluding 23 and 24 degrees Libra, is known as the burning path or combustible way.
From a previous post:
"When the Via Combusta is strongly highlighted, there is a feeling of running the gauntlet through sometimes seemingly insurmountable odds, collective karma, booby traps, and friction, very often related to relationship dynamics, which are Libra and Scorpio territory.
There's a fire in the Via Combusta and within people with a strong Via Combusta signature that keeps them burning, burning, burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling here that one has to keep going no matter what, through the wreckage of old, crystallized layers that would keep us stultified, constricted, and unsatisfied with old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.
The basic goal of the Via Combusta is to reach escape velocity. In space travel, this is the point a space shuttle reaches when its speed and momentum allow it to escape the effects of gravity pulling it back down to Earth. In the case of the Via Combusta, it's about reaching the points of awareness and pure momentum where we escape the gravity of the sticky, tricky wreckage trying to draw us back into old territory, especially involving old constructs and dynamics of relating."
With Saturn transiting Via Combusta Scorpio, the weight of collective karmic charge is great, and it's going to take sustained effort to reach the desired escape velocity.
Saturn will be transiting the Via Combusta until November 21, 2013. The North Node enters the Via Combusta at 15 Scorpio on June 23, 2013, leaving it at 15 Libra on January 4, 2015. The potentially frictional and incendiary relational themes are with us for a while.
Over the next year, the strong Scorpio energy in the zodiac is drawing together certain people, situations, skills, talents, and elements in an attempt to create a new alchemy that will really get things done during these crisis times on the planet. It's the "last ditch," if you will. The Scorpio energy is attempting to bring about fusion, creating alchemical combinations that have never before existed, and this process can be particularly combustible. New allies and allegiances will be both forming and melting down in spectacular fashion.
This Scorpionic fusion effect will be apparent across many different disciplines, and we all hold some personal responsibility for what elements are brought together and in what ways.
As Scorpio is a sign related to divination and the "alchemical arts" like astrology and tarot, this is a time period when potentially discordant astrological traditions will be making contact.
In this Google era, astrological knowledge, traditions, and techniques are accessible to people in ways they never have been before. Different traditions and different astrologers are coming into contact with each other in ways they never have in recorded history. And we have to understand that mixing the wrong elements can create some very nasty reactions.
There are belief systems, allegiances, motivations, and traditions underlying anyone's practise of astrology, and Saturn in Scorpio is a time to be very clear on that. Certain astrologers, as well as certain astrological traditions, don't mix well. The level of astrological cross-pollination going on today has never been seen before in recorded history, and we have to be careful to what and to whom we expose ourselves. Readers of astrology should be aware of this, careful of the elements and of the astrologers they bring together.
Astrology is not necessarily a case of "more is better."
Scorpio relates to what we're connected to ancestrally - themes, dynamics, and carryover from generations past - as well as to what we're furthering within our own lifetimes. With Saturn in the sign, there are challenges related to the ancestral lines, and there are grudge matches waiting to play out if we are not careful to maintain boundaries.
We have to feel out what we're connected to (what runs through our blood), what they're connected to (what runs through their blood), whether there is compatibility there, and how to maintain proper boundaries even when there is compatibility.
Saturn in Scorpio is a time period of restrained and restricted energy. There just isn't time or energy for the same old dramas. Because of this, it's in the best interests of most to responsibly avoid the powder keg dynamics.
Starting to work with these themes now, shoring yourself up and creating solid boundaries, is a great way to proactively use the Saturn in Scorpio energy to your long-term benefit.
Venus is currently in Via Combusta Libra, making relationships, money, and values particularly charged territory. Conjunctions to fixed stars Spica and Arcturus on November 16 and 17 will hopefully provide some temporary respite from the heat of the relational burning path.
Venus enters Scorpio late on November 21, leaving the Via Combusta December 4.
Venus forms a conjunction to the Scorpio North Node December 12, and at that time, we should be well aware of which relationships are moving forward, which have run their course, and which are better left alone altogether.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Upcoming New Moons in Libra and Scorpio - More Spice Than Sugar For the Next Two Months
- New Moon in Libra September 27 Square Pluto in Capricorn -
The New Moon in Libra September 27 is exactly square Pluto in Capricorn within tight cardinal t-square formation, and this isn't the sort of "everything's nicey nice" Libra that a lot of astrologers talk about. This is more like my version of Libra. So I'm actually happy that this New Moon is (potentially) such a bitch.
The squares to Pluto indicate there are things that have been sliding by in the collective that can no longer be glossed over. The Plutonic buck stops here, and this especially relates to social dynamics within workplaces/work structures.
This is the energy of dignified human relations and social justice squaring off with corporatized, commodified channels of existence - the McLives being sold en masse.
Also opposite Uranus Rx in Aries, this is the difficulty of interacting and connecting as distinct human beings within mainstream structures that work to shape us like clay into more mechanical, roboticized, conditioned, segmented and isolated versions of ourselves.
Mercury in Libra, exactly opposite Uranus Rx in Aries, is closely conjunct the New Moon.
The idea of what's right squares off with a "way things are" that is anything but. The pressures of maintaining a semblance of sanity and humanity within mainstream McLife channels are making people crack a little around the edges. Over a long enough timeline, maintaining becomes impossible. Expect some Plutonic meltdowns if people have been chronically making nicey nice when they should have been digging heels in on certain issues.
That said, the Sun entered Libra this morning, marking Autumn Equinox. The focus is on keeping things balanced, so if you can keep things socially smooth and harmonious without compromising yourself, by all means, do so. Grit your teeth and do so. In most cases, you'll be happy you did. Just don't falsely believe you have the power to hold back the force of Pluto when it's determined to destroy phony, manipulated and ultimately useless social constructs. When the Plutonic wrecking ball has been unleashed, it's best just to step well out of its way.
The Sun and Moon form the New Moon conjunction at 6:09 a.m. CDT exactly square Pluto at 4 degrees Libra/Capricorn, just past an exact opposition to Uranus Rx at 2 degrees Aries. The New Moon also happens within a large stellium of bodies in Libra, including five planets (Mercury, Sun, Moon, Venus, Saturn) and one asteroid (Juno).
As mentioned, this New Moon position indicates that certain situations have been simmering for a while now. Beefs have been building, false friends have been gathering, bullshit has been accumulating, and snipey words have been slung under the protection of social gloss.
Brad Pitt is taking pot shots at Jennifer Aniston in the press, saying his marriage to her made him a boring person. (Um, Brad, you were fully boring pre-Jen, and you're even more boring as Brangelina. Also add "complete cad" to the list.)
Insufferable Brad Pitt ex-girlfriend Gwynnie Paltrow is pissing off the non-mother women out there, saying her kids were what gave her a "real life." (I wish I could really roll with this stuff like Mikey K from Dlisted.com, but I don't want to deal with the comments, so I'll leave it to him...)
Libra also relates to high society life, and these oddly, inexplicably celebrated members of society reflect back to us the strategic positioning of the planets at this time and the incendiary value statements people are using to reinforce their positions.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Juno Conjunct Saturn in Libra Starts the Autumnal Procession Through the Via Combusta
- Saturn in New Degrees September 18 -
Saturn in Libra is currently clearing its previous 'retrograde shadow' - the degrees of the zodiac it retrograded over from January to June, 2011 - and moves into new territory at 17 degrees Libra on September 18. Until then, we experience a concentrated, fairly constricting (yet also highly desirable) final resolution period for all that has come about since fall of 2010 when Saturn entered the retrograde shadow it is now clearing.
In effect, though, the resolution period we've now come to reaches all the way back to the end of October, 2009 when Saturn first ingressed Libra, the sign of relationships, balance, and social justice.
As previously mentioned, it's time to get very serious about who we have in our lives ahead of Saturn's transit of Scorpio in mutual reception to Pluto in Capricorn, beginning October 2012. The next six weeks are somewhat condensed with those responsibilities as we dig in on relationship standards and refuse to sell ourselves even a penny short. We're about to clear a big chunk of Saturn's transit in Libra here.
By early November, we are more than two-thirds through Saturn's transit of the sign. This has a relieving effect, but there are some final maturation and strengthening required related to the Libra lessons we have learned so far before we officially move on. Pluto in Capricorn is stationing direct (September 16) at the same time as Saturn moves into new degrees of the zodiac, and this increases the pressure and adds an incendiary quality to interactions.
- Willow's Web Astrology on the Via Combusta -
As of August 29, Saturn re-entered the crackling Via Combusta zone where it will remain until November 19, 2013, and this is a very interesting combination of energies. The planet relating to the weight and constriction of our concrete, structural set-ups has just hit molten lava. Let's see how Saturn contains this. I wrote about Saturn in the Via Combusta when it first dipped into this zone December 5, 2010 to March 18, 2011, stationing retrograde there January 25, 2011.
From January 30, 2010: Saturn Retrograde in Libra and the Via Combusta Venus Themes Come Up For Review
The Via Combusta is an area of the zodiac between 15 degrees Libra and 15 degrees Scorpio (except for 23 and 24 degrees Libra) known as the burning path or combustible way. Traditionally, it is associated with "unfortunate and ineffectual events."
My interpretation of the Via Combusta is humanized and comes from the point-of-view of a person experiencing life with key natal placements in this area. When the Via Combusta is strongly highlighted, there is a feeling of running the gauntlet through sometimes seemingly insurmountable odds, collective karma, booby traps and friction, very often related to relationship dynamics, which are Libra and Scorpio territory.
There's a fire in the Via Combusta and within people with a strong Via Combusta signature that keeps them burning, burning, burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling here that one has to keep going, no matter what, through the wreckage of old, crystallized layers that would keep us stultified, constricted, and unsatisfied with old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.
The basic goal of the Via Combusta is to reach escape velocity. In space travel, this is the point a space shuttle reaches when its speed and momentum allow it to escape the effects of gravity pulling it back down to Earth. In the case of the Via Combusta, it's about reaching the points of awareness and pure momentum where we escape the gravity of the sticky, tricky wreckage trying to draw us back into old territory, especially involving old constructs and dynamics of relating.
But with Saturn in the Via Combusta, we have to earn the right to pass. We have to prove that we're mature enough, serious enough, and that we've taken full responsibility for moving on completely, resolving the bits of dramatic charge and the last karmic tendrils that would catch us, tempt us, and drag us back. This is escape velocity for the long-term, under the weight of Saturn.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturn Retrograde in Libra and the Via Combusta Venus Themes Come Up For Review
Saturn retrograde, 17 to 10 degrees Libra - January 26, 2011 to June 12, 2011
"This is not your standard Neptunian-glossy, Hollywood-manufactured love and relationship, either. This is Saturn in Libra dispositing Pluto in Capricorn love. It's gritty business. Remaining Neptunian illusions about love and togetherness are unceremoniously stripped, a big part of which being the money drying up, and people stop being able to fake it."
This is what I wrote after Saturn first entered Libra in June 2010 and moved into cardinal t-square formation. It remains relevant, as difficult as it is to hold relationships and relationship dynamics under the cold, hard light of day without Neptunian buffer.
Neptune is messing with us on multiple fronts this far into tail-end Pisces, and following its familiar siren song is a surefire false path designed to waste time we don't have time to waste.
Saturn has just dipped into the early Via Combusta degrees of Libra and gone retrograde. Until June 12, we're doing backtrack restructuring of the relationships (and relationship issues) that have come into focus since October 22, 2010, post-cardinal t-square summer. Things shifted in a big way this past summer. They got very real very quickly. And during this retrograde, we work on getting our legs solidly under us with the partnerships we find present in our lives after the dust has settled.
Jupiter is back in Aries, heading to its final incendiary square to Pluto in Capricorn February 25, and the themes stirred this past summer of movement, forging out way out of the muck, dynamism, action, new territory and survival in the face of brutal Pluto in Capricorn corpo-governmental oligarchy intensify.
There is a necessity here to work together with those compatible with us in whatever ways will catalyze win-win forward progress, especially along structured career lines.
Banking on glossy potentials and wished-for outcomes remains perilous. Concrete, here-and-now, show me my return on investment.
The themes of the most recent Venus retrograde through the Via Combusta degrees of Scorpio and late Libra also remain potent until May/June 2012 when Venus retrogrades again in Gemini.
Because Saturn is in Libra and Venus is considered by most to be the ruling planet of Libra, Venus' transits through the signs until October 2012 add a crucial layer of influence to our successful dealings with Saturn in Libra. Venus in whatever sign it is transiting is referred to as the dispositor of Saturn in Libra.
Regardless of the sign Venus is transiting, though, until the next Venus retrograde in Gemini, the overarching thematic flavour of our relationship work has been set to "Scorpionic deep" and "cut the crap." There is a necessary ruthlessness here, a clarifying realism, with an impetus to intricately rebalance and restructure especially the subtle energetic and vibrational levels of relationship.
We're working for and carving out a new level of justice - energetic justice - in our relationships "related to the hidden energy exchange (Scorpio) between the sexes, which includes money as well as misuses of sexual energy. Huge issues, culturally reinforced for millenia."
Scorpio is a healing energy. It intuitively knows where the trouble is and gets right to work, divining and digging to trigger multi-layered release points. It isn't just treating symptoms, either. Scorpio knows it's either go deep or go home, and it puts forth immense stores of energy to go to the mat for people, driving right to the root of the problems that keep them locked up, inauthentic, programmed, and less effective than they could otherwise be.
Scorpio digs the poisoned thorns out - and if it's masterful enough, it gets them all.
But Scorpio's mastery is also it's downfall. Here's where the betrayal aspect of the sign comes into play. Scorpio is a liberating energy, an almost magical transformer of all things oppressive and stagnant and intolerable - and its emotional, psychological and psychic currency is woefully undervalued. Quite often, it's used and abused with little to nothing offered in return. It's left holding the bag with nowhere left to put the shit.
What Scorpio does is mostly in the energetic realms, and because so few people have developed the sight to see this type of energy work, people take it and run. Often, they take it and run right back into the same unhealthy patterns and dynamics Scorpio was expending so much energy to extricate them from in the first place.
Moving out of the ass-burning, should-have-known-better depleting and into the vital and mutually sustaining. Choosing carefully when and how to apply the potent Scorp medicine. Determining the most worthy recipients - and ensuring they are ready and willing to take full responsibility for what is given. This is Scorpio territory, and this is a major theme embedded in our Saturn in Libra relationship work.
"We're in the midst of a five-year gutting, restructuring and energetic rebalancing process in relationship that will not reach ultimate completion until the end of a period of mutual reception between Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn when Saturn leaves Scorpio September 2015...Our collective progress out of the Pluto in Capricorn rubble hinges on the successful rebalancing and restructuring of relationship constructs and dynamics, especially related to the ways men and women interact."
So all these tricky, winding, hidden dynamics are being brought back into play for a Saturnine sober second look during the Saturn retrograde in Libra.
We've got a blazing opportunity now until spring of 2012, infused by the Via Combusta Venus retro, to forge through and beyond complex layers of relationship dynamic detritus and half-decayed constructs that will constrain us, keeping us from the love that will truly nourish and sustain, if we allow it.
More on the Via Combusta Venus retrograde review later...
"This is not your standard Neptunian-glossy, Hollywood-manufactured love and relationship, either. This is Saturn in Libra dispositing Pluto in Capricorn love. It's gritty business. Remaining Neptunian illusions about love and togetherness are unceremoniously stripped, a big part of which being the money drying up, and people stop being able to fake it."
This is what I wrote after Saturn first entered Libra in June 2010 and moved into cardinal t-square formation. It remains relevant, as difficult as it is to hold relationships and relationship dynamics under the cold, hard light of day without Neptunian buffer.
Neptune is messing with us on multiple fronts this far into tail-end Pisces, and following its familiar siren song is a surefire false path designed to waste time we don't have time to waste.
Saturn has just dipped into the early Via Combusta degrees of Libra and gone retrograde. Until June 12, we're doing backtrack restructuring of the relationships (and relationship issues) that have come into focus since October 22, 2010, post-cardinal t-square summer. Things shifted in a big way this past summer. They got very real very quickly. And during this retrograde, we work on getting our legs solidly under us with the partnerships we find present in our lives after the dust has settled.
Jupiter is back in Aries, heading to its final incendiary square to Pluto in Capricorn February 25, and the themes stirred this past summer of movement, forging out way out of the muck, dynamism, action, new territory and survival in the face of brutal Pluto in Capricorn corpo-governmental oligarchy intensify.
There is a necessity here to work together with those compatible with us in whatever ways will catalyze win-win forward progress, especially along structured career lines.
Banking on glossy potentials and wished-for outcomes remains perilous. Concrete, here-and-now, show me my return on investment.
The themes of the most recent Venus retrograde through the Via Combusta degrees of Scorpio and late Libra also remain potent until May/June 2012 when Venus retrogrades again in Gemini.
Because Saturn is in Libra and Venus is considered by most to be the ruling planet of Libra, Venus' transits through the signs until October 2012 add a crucial layer of influence to our successful dealings with Saturn in Libra. Venus in whatever sign it is transiting is referred to as the dispositor of Saturn in Libra.
Regardless of the sign Venus is transiting, though, until the next Venus retrograde in Gemini, the overarching thematic flavour of our relationship work has been set to "Scorpionic deep" and "cut the crap." There is a necessary ruthlessness here, a clarifying realism, with an impetus to intricately rebalance and restructure especially the subtle energetic and vibrational levels of relationship.
We're working for and carving out a new level of justice - energetic justice - in our relationships "related to the hidden energy exchange (Scorpio) between the sexes, which includes money as well as misuses of sexual energy. Huge issues, culturally reinforced for millenia."
Scorpio is a healing energy. It intuitively knows where the trouble is and gets right to work, divining and digging to trigger multi-layered release points. It isn't just treating symptoms, either. Scorpio knows it's either go deep or go home, and it puts forth immense stores of energy to go to the mat for people, driving right to the root of the problems that keep them locked up, inauthentic, programmed, and less effective than they could otherwise be.
Scorpio digs the poisoned thorns out - and if it's masterful enough, it gets them all.
But Scorpio's mastery is also it's downfall. Here's where the betrayal aspect of the sign comes into play. Scorpio is a liberating energy, an almost magical transformer of all things oppressive and stagnant and intolerable - and its emotional, psychological and psychic currency is woefully undervalued. Quite often, it's used and abused with little to nothing offered in return. It's left holding the bag with nowhere left to put the shit.
What Scorpio does is mostly in the energetic realms, and because so few people have developed the sight to see this type of energy work, people take it and run. Often, they take it and run right back into the same unhealthy patterns and dynamics Scorpio was expending so much energy to extricate them from in the first place.
Moving out of the ass-burning, should-have-known-better depleting and into the vital and mutually sustaining. Choosing carefully when and how to apply the potent Scorp medicine. Determining the most worthy recipients - and ensuring they are ready and willing to take full responsibility for what is given. This is Scorpio territory, and this is a major theme embedded in our Saturn in Libra relationship work.
"We're in the midst of a five-year gutting, restructuring and energetic rebalancing process in relationship that will not reach ultimate completion until the end of a period of mutual reception between Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn when Saturn leaves Scorpio September 2015...Our collective progress out of the Pluto in Capricorn rubble hinges on the successful rebalancing and restructuring of relationship constructs and dynamics, especially related to the ways men and women interact."
So all these tricky, winding, hidden dynamics are being brought back into play for a Saturnine sober second look during the Saturn retrograde in Libra.
We've got a blazing opportunity now until spring of 2012, infused by the Via Combusta Venus retro, to forge through and beyond complex layers of relationship dynamic detritus and half-decayed constructs that will constrain us, keeping us from the love that will truly nourish and sustain, if we allow it.
More on the Via Combusta Venus retrograde review later...
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Venus, Eros and Mars in the Via Combusta and Karmic Love Cleansing Through the Alchemical Fires
And it burns, burns, burns...
Venus, Eros and Mars are currently travelling conjunct through an area of the zodiac called the Via Combusta, also known as the burning path or fiery way.
The combination of Venus, Eros and Mars travelling in tight conjunction through this area of the zodiac makes for a potent force starting a final strip-down in areas pertaining to love, sex, attraction, beauty, money and partnership - all the spicy stuff - as we end the astrological Piscean era.
There is an intense charge building here that will not be fully discharged until Venus enters Sagittarius January 7, 2011 designed to purge us of our baggage, our unhealthy attachments, and our sabotaging patterns and reactions in relationship so that we can truly move on, be propelled, even, into a new era.
The Via Combusta is the degrees of the zodiac from 15 Libra to 15 Scorpio, except for 23 through 24 degrees Libra, which are considered safe degrees due to the fixed stars Spica and Arcturus residing there. This area generally relates to running the gauntlet in certain areas of life - pushing through seemingly insurmountable odds, heavy collective karma, booby traps and weapons wielded, often in relationship dynamics (Libra and Scorpio territory). There is a fire with the Via Combusta (and within people with natal planets in the Via Combusta) that, when brought strongly into the cosmic mix, keeps us burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling that you have to keep going, no matter what - that the only way past it is through it, and this is how we hit our marks.
Our evolutionary marks here relate, in part, to the release of mass collective love karma from the astrological Piscean era - processing and purging for the whole through our personal lives so as to bust through no-longer-vital collective dynamics and programming reinforced for millenia.
This Venus retrograde in Scorpio is the last Venus retrograde of the astrological Piscean era. How's that for a tall order? Layer upon layer of etheric unfinished business through time and space, coalescing with us at this time on this planet.
This is the vibe as we leave the cardinal t-square-dominated summer and enter the final quarter of 2010. We've parted the curtain and stepped inside. When we exit in the New Year, our relationships and we within those relationships will be forever changed. After an earnest and honest effort here, we can truly say: no more.
The Venus retrograde in Scorpio (October 8 - November 18) takes place within the Via Combusta, and Venus enters the degrees of its retrograde shadow September 5 at 27 degrees Libra. This marks our first real taste of Venus retro themes.
As Venus goes retrograde in Scorpio, our hearts go back - to love-related soul work we need to complete and connections we need to either make or let go of. We can trigger the release of younger versions of ourselves, other time-and-space versions of ourselves, from the aftermath of not-quite-right love dynamics we previously constructed, releasing others from the same. We can retrieve soul-bits of ourselves left behind with loves past and reintegrate after the bitter, hard-earned lessons we learned. Fusing the old wounds once and for all, healing them with a sweet and tender kiss. Blazing a trail out of tricky, sticky, entrapping karmic relationship dynamics for ourselves and for anyone who desires to do the same...
Venus enters Scorpio September 8 and stations retrograde October 8 at 13 Scorpio. Interesting numbers, aren't they? Eight and 13 showing up generally mean...this ain't play time. And I must say, it really isn't. Highly karmic energy dynamics and scenarios, especially in relationship, with root causes going far beyond these individual lifetimes. Grandscale collective karmic love clean-up, aisle Planet Earth!
Bring the mop bucket, Al. This is a messy one.
Purification through the alchemical fires is putting it mildly. Deep initiations through relationship, love, sex are possible.
The sexual element is strongly involved here, and sexual expression gets the same purifying treatment in an attempt to bring it back to a fully loving, respectful and energetically-responsible merger and exchange.
A process of deepening emotional authenticity and layer-peeling, resulting in a new honesty around sex, money, and relationship dynamics.
The intimacy of sharing the raw truth about our experience of being human on Planet Earth in relation to another and receiving the same.
Squirmy territory, but exciting.
At this point of tail-end Pisces, it's not just two individuals in relationship. We've got imprints involved of lovers through the ages in every possible circumstance and every possible combination - with separations, cruel twists of fate, ill timings, and disappointments all adding up to a collective haunting by heartbreak, longing, and a faded soul-memory of a love we are not even sure ever existed on this planet.
Scorpio is a sign that does not like sharing its bed or its partner, including with the ghosts of loves past. Venus in Scorpio, in particular, needs to be the only one. She's loyal, devoted, passionate, sexy, committed, but she requires the same in return. And all this tail-end Piscean era layering is energetically disturbing and irritating as hell for Venus-Eros-Mars in Scorpio. It can't continue. We can't do what we need to do within relationship under these clouded, noisy circumstances, so with this retro process, we kick the ghosts out of bed, out of our partnerships, and get back to one-on-one.
Liberation of the soul. That's the real goal of the sign of Scorpio.
Burning away crystallized layers that keep us stultified, constricted, unsatisfied in old, ingrained patterns, dynamics, habits, reactions. With old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.
With the Venus in Scorpio retrograde, the first of the Saturn transit of Libra, we're liberating our love, our hearts, each other, ourselves by restructuring and transforming the ways in which we relate, how we show our love, how we receive love. Digging through the sticky tar wrapped around our hearts - regret, anger, resentment, disappointment, pain, sadness. Dropping them in a heap of ash. To get to that person and that feeling and that love that holds you, all of you, the way you need to be held.
In Scorpio, it's never easy, though. Scorpio asks us: how badly do you want it, this liberation? Show me. Yeah? You think you want it badly enough? Enough to be dragged through the muck and the betrayals and the pits of hell to get to it? Yes? All right then.
Do you want it enough to let go of every single non-essential thing, person, place, self? To be stripped to the absolute bone? To the point that it will terrify you at times because you do not recognize the person you see in the mirror?
Do you want it enough to admit you may not even get it in your lifetime on this planet? To break your own heart by accepting that the entire process might exist for a goal and an end that is beyond this physical life? An energy more than a someone. Will you keep going even then? For your liberation?
Because to go all the way, that is what's asked.
And you just know we're going all the way this time.
Let's be honest. There's some sadism with this sign Scorpio. It'll fool you and trip you and then once you're down on the ground, it'll grind your face into the dirt to reinforce the point. It'll laugh in your face that you thought it was going to be that easy, that you were going to get away with carrying that much illusion and baggage and non-essential desire and want and human will through the checkpoints. That you would be allowed through while that out of line with what is demanded of you by transformational collective progress, by God's will, the universe's will, the will of life itself.
But the vision. The beauty. The highest spiritual highs. The memory of that which truly feels right. The quiet of the eagle soaring over beautiful, idyllic settings. The peace. The other side of the coin. The soul memory of how it once was and how it maybe can be again. The liberation. That's what keeps you moving through it. Even when all you want to do is stop and rest or give up and spontaneously combust. When you would do almost anything to get out of it. When you're a trapped animal about to gnaw its own leg off to get out. When the desire to not experience what you are experiencing is the strongest thing - except for that. Except for the desire to get it just right - the merger and alignment of personal will with what is willed for you. And to experience the results of that, especially with another.
Venus and Eros trine Neptune and Chiron as they enter the retrograde shadow, and the wounding of our shattered hopes and dreams, the innocence that opened us to scalding hurt, is a big part of the retrograde process. If we have the inner resources and the courage to really look, we can peel illusion from reality here and release an older Piscean version of love, especially spiritual love, which then liberates us.
But it's sticky, tricky, highly karmic territory demanding our full commitment.
Venus, Eros and soon Mars in Scorpio are here as our friends: the ones who will tell you the truth about your new amour when you are too love-blinded to see the major faults or red flags.
You might hate it with a passion that this friend is telling you these things, but in the end, it saves a world of hurt - not to mention time.
Saturn's in Libra, and we don't have time to waste within the maturing and restructuring process relationships are going through. A sober eye is a beautiful thing now, and with the planets in Scorpio along with the Sun and Mercury retrograde in practically analytical, no-nonsense Virgo, we've got just that - as long as we are willing to listen.
Venus, Eros and Mars are currently travelling conjunct through an area of the zodiac called the Via Combusta, also known as the burning path or fiery way.
The combination of Venus, Eros and Mars travelling in tight conjunction through this area of the zodiac makes for a potent force starting a final strip-down in areas pertaining to love, sex, attraction, beauty, money and partnership - all the spicy stuff - as we end the astrological Piscean era.
There is an intense charge building here that will not be fully discharged until Venus enters Sagittarius January 7, 2011 designed to purge us of our baggage, our unhealthy attachments, and our sabotaging patterns and reactions in relationship so that we can truly move on, be propelled, even, into a new era.
The Via Combusta is the degrees of the zodiac from 15 Libra to 15 Scorpio, except for 23 through 24 degrees Libra, which are considered safe degrees due to the fixed stars Spica and Arcturus residing there. This area generally relates to running the gauntlet in certain areas of life - pushing through seemingly insurmountable odds, heavy collective karma, booby traps and weapons wielded, often in relationship dynamics (Libra and Scorpio territory). There is a fire with the Via Combusta (and within people with natal planets in the Via Combusta) that, when brought strongly into the cosmic mix, keeps us burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling that you have to keep going, no matter what - that the only way past it is through it, and this is how we hit our marks.
Our evolutionary marks here relate, in part, to the release of mass collective love karma from the astrological Piscean era - processing and purging for the whole through our personal lives so as to bust through no-longer-vital collective dynamics and programming reinforced for millenia.
This Venus retrograde in Scorpio is the last Venus retrograde of the astrological Piscean era. How's that for a tall order? Layer upon layer of etheric unfinished business through time and space, coalescing with us at this time on this planet.
This is the vibe as we leave the cardinal t-square-dominated summer and enter the final quarter of 2010. We've parted the curtain and stepped inside. When we exit in the New Year, our relationships and we within those relationships will be forever changed. After an earnest and honest effort here, we can truly say: no more.
The Venus retrograde in Scorpio (October 8 - November 18) takes place within the Via Combusta, and Venus enters the degrees of its retrograde shadow September 5 at 27 degrees Libra. This marks our first real taste of Venus retro themes.
As Venus goes retrograde in Scorpio, our hearts go back - to love-related soul work we need to complete and connections we need to either make or let go of. We can trigger the release of younger versions of ourselves, other time-and-space versions of ourselves, from the aftermath of not-quite-right love dynamics we previously constructed, releasing others from the same. We can retrieve soul-bits of ourselves left behind with loves past and reintegrate after the bitter, hard-earned lessons we learned. Fusing the old wounds once and for all, healing them with a sweet and tender kiss. Blazing a trail out of tricky, sticky, entrapping karmic relationship dynamics for ourselves and for anyone who desires to do the same...
Venus enters Scorpio September 8 and stations retrograde October 8 at 13 Scorpio. Interesting numbers, aren't they? Eight and 13 showing up generally mean...this ain't play time. And I must say, it really isn't. Highly karmic energy dynamics and scenarios, especially in relationship, with root causes going far beyond these individual lifetimes. Grandscale collective karmic love clean-up, aisle Planet Earth!
Bring the mop bucket, Al. This is a messy one.
Purification through the alchemical fires is putting it mildly. Deep initiations through relationship, love, sex are possible.
The sexual element is strongly involved here, and sexual expression gets the same purifying treatment in an attempt to bring it back to a fully loving, respectful and energetically-responsible merger and exchange.
A process of deepening emotional authenticity and layer-peeling, resulting in a new honesty around sex, money, and relationship dynamics.
The intimacy of sharing the raw truth about our experience of being human on Planet Earth in relation to another and receiving the same.
Squirmy territory, but exciting.
At this point of tail-end Pisces, it's not just two individuals in relationship. We've got imprints involved of lovers through the ages in every possible circumstance and every possible combination - with separations, cruel twists of fate, ill timings, and disappointments all adding up to a collective haunting by heartbreak, longing, and a faded soul-memory of a love we are not even sure ever existed on this planet.
Scorpio is a sign that does not like sharing its bed or its partner, including with the ghosts of loves past. Venus in Scorpio, in particular, needs to be the only one. She's loyal, devoted, passionate, sexy, committed, but she requires the same in return. And all this tail-end Piscean era layering is energetically disturbing and irritating as hell for Venus-Eros-Mars in Scorpio. It can't continue. We can't do what we need to do within relationship under these clouded, noisy circumstances, so with this retro process, we kick the ghosts out of bed, out of our partnerships, and get back to one-on-one.
Liberation of the soul. That's the real goal of the sign of Scorpio.
Burning away crystallized layers that keep us stultified, constricted, unsatisfied in old, ingrained patterns, dynamics, habits, reactions. With old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.
With the Venus in Scorpio retrograde, the first of the Saturn transit of Libra, we're liberating our love, our hearts, each other, ourselves by restructuring and transforming the ways in which we relate, how we show our love, how we receive love. Digging through the sticky tar wrapped around our hearts - regret, anger, resentment, disappointment, pain, sadness. Dropping them in a heap of ash. To get to that person and that feeling and that love that holds you, all of you, the way you need to be held.
In Scorpio, it's never easy, though. Scorpio asks us: how badly do you want it, this liberation? Show me. Yeah? You think you want it badly enough? Enough to be dragged through the muck and the betrayals and the pits of hell to get to it? Yes? All right then.
Do you want it enough to let go of every single non-essential thing, person, place, self? To be stripped to the absolute bone? To the point that it will terrify you at times because you do not recognize the person you see in the mirror?
Do you want it enough to admit you may not even get it in your lifetime on this planet? To break your own heart by accepting that the entire process might exist for a goal and an end that is beyond this physical life? An energy more than a someone. Will you keep going even then? For your liberation?
Because to go all the way, that is what's asked.
And you just know we're going all the way this time.
Let's be honest. There's some sadism with this sign Scorpio. It'll fool you and trip you and then once you're down on the ground, it'll grind your face into the dirt to reinforce the point. It'll laugh in your face that you thought it was going to be that easy, that you were going to get away with carrying that much illusion and baggage and non-essential desire and want and human will through the checkpoints. That you would be allowed through while that out of line with what is demanded of you by transformational collective progress, by God's will, the universe's will, the will of life itself.
But the vision. The beauty. The highest spiritual highs. The memory of that which truly feels right. The quiet of the eagle soaring over beautiful, idyllic settings. The peace. The other side of the coin. The soul memory of how it once was and how it maybe can be again. The liberation. That's what keeps you moving through it. Even when all you want to do is stop and rest or give up and spontaneously combust. When you would do almost anything to get out of it. When you're a trapped animal about to gnaw its own leg off to get out. When the desire to not experience what you are experiencing is the strongest thing - except for that. Except for the desire to get it just right - the merger and alignment of personal will with what is willed for you. And to experience the results of that, especially with another.
Venus and Eros trine Neptune and Chiron as they enter the retrograde shadow, and the wounding of our shattered hopes and dreams, the innocence that opened us to scalding hurt, is a big part of the retrograde process. If we have the inner resources and the courage to really look, we can peel illusion from reality here and release an older Piscean version of love, especially spiritual love, which then liberates us.
But it's sticky, tricky, highly karmic territory demanding our full commitment.
Venus, Eros and soon Mars in Scorpio are here as our friends: the ones who will tell you the truth about your new amour when you are too love-blinded to see the major faults or red flags.
You might hate it with a passion that this friend is telling you these things, but in the end, it saves a world of hurt - not to mention time.
Saturn's in Libra, and we don't have time to waste within the maturing and restructuring process relationships are going through. A sober eye is a beautiful thing now, and with the planets in Scorpio along with the Sun and Mercury retrograde in practically analytical, no-nonsense Virgo, we've got just that - as long as we are willing to listen.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Redefining "Unfortunate" Placements
It's interesting that other people reading this blog have experienced the constant moves and situational changes that seem to come with the Plutonic/Scorpionic transformational process we're a part of (or, um, whatever you like to call it). I don't usually meet people who have had similar experiences, so that's really nice.
There are many different placements and aspects that can create these similar dynamics. For me (to clarify where I'm coming from on this blog), I was born during a part of the zodiac called the Via Combusta (the burning path or the fiery way).
The Via Combusta is the degrees of the zodiac from 15 Libra to 15 Scorpio, except for 23 through 24 degrees Libra, which are considered safe degrees due to the fixed stars Spica and Arcturus residing there. I don't have anything there, of course. My Pluto, Sun, IC, Mercury and Uranus are in Via Combusta degrees. (My mother was also caught in a tornado two months before I was born, which was quite fitting, I must say. All this has added up to one hell of a changeable and bumpy ride from birth on.)
The funny thing about the Via Combusta is that it's another piece of my birth chart that many astrologers (and outside observers, in general) would find "unfortunate." The Via Combusta's astrological definition includes this: "an indication of unfortunate or ineffectual situations."
Yeah, I've had more than my share of those. But as I was saying in the Venus "Affliction" post, when you actually live these so-called "unfortunate" placements, you can come to understand them in a deeper way. You can comprehend the purpose of them and the long-term (sometimes way long-term) benefits.
The way I've explained living the Via Combusta in the past is that it's like running the gauntlet. Pushing through seemingly insurmountable odds, heavy karma, booby traps and weapons wielded, very often related to relationship dynamics (Libra and Scorp territory).
There is a fire in a Via Combusta individual that keeps him or her burning a path through life, as you would imagine a shooting star burning a sometimes accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling that you have to keep going, no matter what. Just keep burning through it. It has a lot to do with the desire to break out of past patterns, dynamics and structures in an attempt to get to something more fulfilling and workable, something good and right, personally and collectively.
The Via Combusta is about burning through and, therefore, past - hitting the evolutionary marks. "The only way past it is through it."
It's also a huge collective karma aspect (especially when Pluto is there and especially when Pluto is there conjunct the Sun). Themes of processing and purging for the whole through your personal life. Busting through collective dynamics that have been reinforced for decades, maybe centuries, maybe millennia. It isn't easy.
And we've got a whole Pluto gen (Libra 15 to Scorpio 15, excluding 23 through 24 Libra) working on just these dynamics. (You also have to know, of course, what to refuse to take on personally from the collective. "Nope. Sorry. That isn't my baggage to deal with!")
So to me, my supposed unfortunate placments are very purposeful and very important - not just to me personally, either. But from an outside perspective, viewed by people who don't fully comprehend the underlying dynamics, all this adds up to a very unfortunate individual who has to deal with a lot of turmoil and difficulty and angst. As would the (often) difficult conditions symbolized by many other placements or aspects...whether it's natal planets in detriment, in retrograde, afflicted placements, heavy Saturn or Pluto, a full sixth, eighth or twelfth house, a tonne of squares or oppositions, or whatever.
Again...true from one level of perception...but not the whole story by any stretch.
This is why it's so important not to let other people define us and our lives. When people again and again paint you into the same corner, perceive you in the same superficial ways, interact with you from the same limited grasp of the issues, it's difficult not to let it affect you. Unless you're willing to constantly define yourself on your own terms and (often) correct the mis-perceptions people place on you, it can become a damaging burden and a disconnect from your true reality that can eat away at you. Again, it's not easy to be that vigilant, but it's definitely worth it.
This is one of the most important things I've learned from living an "unfortunate" chart - to stand up for myself and my life, especially the difficult parts. Refusing to let people define me according to their limited understanding is a constant effort, but it's getting easier.
I now know to give them a little zap when they need one. Being misunderstood is hurtful, so it really is worth the effort to reframe things.
Anyway, the heaviest parts of the Via Combusta path are behind me now. I've done what I can do, and I just don't have the youthful energy to continue with that craziness anymore. This reminds me that things do progress, cycles do complete, alchemical fires do lose their charge, even when it feels as if things will never let up.
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