Expanding the Frontier
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Beauty and the Bookstore
Imagine you’re in your favorite aisle of your favorite bookstore, browsing. Which books’ covers beckon to you, have compelling imagery, feel nice to the touch? Passing a table of new releases, two or three might practically leap into your arms before you know it.
It’s not quite the same thing to order books online, is it? I do it myself, and it’s a handy way to order books if you know exactly what you want… but it doesn’t offer the bookstore’s sensuous experience of exploration.
Venus symbolizes what we enjoy and what brings pleasure to our senses. While she’s traveling through a sign, usually just for a few weeks, she draws us to its particular pleasures. While Venus is in Gemini (April 10, 2023, 9:47 pm PDT through May 6), she delights in beautiful books, purchases multiples of a favorite sweater in a variety of colors, takes a trip to Staples to load up on pens and paper, savors the sound of a beautiful voice. She might put you on a plane, train, or automobile to spend time with siblings or old friends, to revisit childhood haunts, or just to enjoy being in motion and the feeling of the wind in your hair.
Empty Space
Here’s why I love the desert: it’s so empty, and the sky is so big, that I feel free to do and be anything. I love my creature comforts, and my real life is filled with beloved possessions. But there’s no question that “stuff” weighs us down in many ways as we pay for it, store it, and maintain it. It’s probably a common fantasy to think of chucking it all and starting over someplace new, with a big, empty slate and limitless possibilities.
There comes a time when even cherished possessions have outlived their usefulness. The emotional connections they represent may need to be released, or we simply want to lighten our load for the journey ahead. As Venus trines Pluto (April 11, 2023, 3:14 am PDT) this week, don’t be surprised if you feel a sudden desire to get rid of some things and to treat yourself to some empty space of your own.
Expanding the Frontier
Once each year, the Sun comes together in a conjunction with Jupiter (April 11, 2023, 3:07 pm PDT and we ask: Am I dreaming big enough for myself? The sign of the conjunction describes the nature of this self-examination. This year, the two come together in Aries and demand that we take a bold, unapologetic approach to expanding our personal frontiers.
In Aries, the Sun and Jupiter aren’t concerned with making the world a better place, or even with our own success. Rather, they symbolize the part of us that couldn’t wait to be born because we hungered for adventure, and that wants to wring every bit of experience out of each moment we’re alive. The Sun and Jupiter in Aries want us to boldly go where no one has gone before.
This spectacular conjunction is on the Sabian symbol 22 Aries: The gate to the garden of desire. What do you desire? Are you moving toward it, or just spinning your wheels? What’s the next big YES in your life? What’s your new frontier?
The Regretful Phase
There is important business to resolve at this Capricorn Last Quarter Moon (April 13, 2023, 2:11 am PDT, at 23°11′ Capricorn). It’s business that has its origins in the March 21 Aries New Moon, and it directly affects the Capricorn and Aries portions of your chart. (Not sure where that is? This blog post and video might help.)
The Last Quarter Moon is the phase in the lunar cycle for taking stock. You have one more chance to take action toward your New Moon goals, this time with more knowledge and experience than at the First Quarter phase, the other action point in the cycle. But before you do, you need to move into a state of introspection, like the woman in the Sabian symbol for this Last Quarter Moon, A woman entering a convent, and contemplate what has and hasn’t been working.
The Last Quarter can be a regretful phase; we may still be haunted, held back by, or recovering from what was revealed at the beginning of this Lunar Phase Gestation cycle – the Capricorn New Moon of Jan. 12, 2021, bound in a fearful conjunction to Pluto. Still, you made a promise to yourself then to reach a cherished goal, and at last, you’ve got the vitality of the Sun in Aries conjoined Jupiter– and the tenacity and ambition of the Capricorn Moon – to push you over the finish line. Don’t give up now!
The Challenge of Just One Thing
When everything we desire seems to have been denied us, we can give up or we can try harder. Sometimes, we’ve been wishing for the wrong things, and the universe holds up a stop sign for our own protection. Other times, the approach we’re taking is wrong, or the timing is off.
But as Venus squares Saturn (April 14, 2023, 9:38 am PDT) in the flexible signs of Gemini and Pisces, focusing on just one thing that we want for ourselves is often more challenging than the hard work it will take to make it ours.
Fortunately, this aspect forms the same day as Saturn’s sextile to the Moon’s North Node (April 14, 2023, 10:30 am PDT), which provides a roadmap: Take our cue from the Sabian symbol for the Sun-Jupiter conjunction a few days earlier, The gate to the garden of desire, Focus on a garden filled with flowers, honeybees, and hummingbirds, or whatever your equivalent “garden” contains. Then, figure out what you can do today to make it a reality. How can your most valuable assets – your cleverness, your kindness, your imagination – be used to build this garden? Keep your eyes open for ideas, opportunities, and invitations to use even your most humble and practical gifts to make the world a little better.
Writing and images © 2017-23 by April Elliott Kent
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