The Mysteries Revealed
It’s commonly understood that in order to navigate the world successfully, we have to “play the game,” and play it in a very particular way. There’s some truth to that, as far as it goes, but it kind of depends on your version of success. What happens if you “succeed” in the way prescribed by others, but not in any way that’s truly important to you?
Mercury in Virgo insists on naturalness, truthfulness, and integrity; that we speak in our natural voice and sign our true name. That we identify what we’re after, and pursue it utterly without artifice.
Mercury makes the second of three trines with Jupiter this week (Sep. 4, 2023, 3:29 am PDT, 15º34′ Virgo/Taurus; the first was on Aug. 9, and the last is on Sep. 25). Mercury is on the Sabian symbol 16 Virgo, An orangutan – we’ll visit that symbol again later this week – as it trines Jupiter on 16 Taurus, Old man attempting vainly to reveal the mysteries. Scanning the forest canopy, the old man spots an orangutan making himself comfortable in a tree, reclining on his leafy mattress, savoring a fig. He’s happy in his solitude, relaxed in his skin, with no need to impress anyone. The old man’s face softens into a smile; the mysteries have been revealed.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Writer Edward Packard entertained his children at bedtime with stories he invented about the adventures of a character named Pete, who lived on a remote island. One night, unable to come up with an ending to the latest tale, he asked his daughters what they would do in Pete’s place. Delighted and enthused, they came up with two different paths, and Packard devised a different ending for each. He knew a good thing when he saw it and went on to write children’s books in this fashion, in a genre known as “interactive fiction” – which eventually became famous as the “Choose Your own Adventure” books.
Why were Packard’s children – and the millions of readers who embraced the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books – so enamored of this style of storytelling? Because it’s always exciting to be part of the adventure!
Jupiter is the planet of adventure and storytelling, but too often, our adventures are built to a conventional scale, like taking a vacation to a place other people think is exciting. When Jupiter is retrograde (Sep. 4, 2023, 7:11 am PDT, through Dec. 30), we’re offered the chance to choose our own adventure – to pick the path we yearn to explore, and to write our own ending.
The Story of the Family Tree
Families tell themselves stories about what they are. They tell it through ritual and tradition, often unconsciously. As the Sun and Mercury come together in a conjunction (Sep. 6, 2023, 4:09 am PDT, 13º36′ Virgo) on the Sabian symbol 14 Virgo, A family tree, they bring a meaningful insight into belonging. What is your place in the family, and how has it affected your sense of your place in the world?
When Mercury travels close to the Sun, the Sun’s powerful rays can prevent us from seeing the truth. But at the moment the conjunction is exact, Mercury is in a condition called cazimi – “in the heart of the Sun,” where the truth is revealed. We see, with all our hearts, our true place in the family – both our own, and the family of the world.
Speaking One Another’s Language
The Last Quarter Moon is the phase for reckoning with what we’ve done, what we’ve failed to do, and what’s been done to us. Its sign tells how we process this understanding; and the Last Quarter Moon in Gemini (Sep. 6, 2023, 3:21 pm PDT, 14º03′ Gemini/Virgo) turns to conversation.
The Sabian symbol for this Last Quarter Moon is 15 Gemini, Two Dutch children talking. But it could just as well be Two siblings talking or long-time friends talking, any combination of people who speak one another’s language. And this can mean anything from sharing a native tongue to having spent years together in shared circumstances.
I remember sitting in a restaurant north of Auckland, New Zealand, and suddenly hearing an American accent from a nearby table. My heart leapt a little from the warm familiarity of it. It’s not that I couldn’t understand the other conversations around me, but the accent of my homeland implied a different kind of understanding – one that would be unremarkable if we encountered each other at a café in California, but that felt a bit more precious so far from home.
The Sun is on the Sabian symbol 15 Virgo, An ornamental handkerchief. It speaks to the temptation to measure your journey in terms of its perfection, and by appearances. But maybe perfection is a less useful measure of success than whether the path we’ve taken has brought us to a better understanding with others, and a warmer appreciation of what we share in common.
Our Best Version
I’ve often been moved by Virgo’s great love of the natural world, particularly animals. I suppose it’s their honesty and lack of pretension that makes animals so appealing. And maybe it’s also that animals seem to lack the drive for self-improvement, the curse as well as the gift of humankind.
The sign of Virgo, in particularly, is associated with the impulse toward perfectionism. But look at the Sun’s Sabian symbol, 16 Virgo, as it trines Jupiter this week (Sep. 8, 2023, 4:13 am PDT, 15º33′ Virgo/Taurus): An orangutan. It’s an excellent creature, the orangutan, among the most intelligent of the primates and the most solitary of the great apes. There’s something bold and arresting about the orange beast. He’s not the most beautiful or graceful animal, and yet we can’t look away from him. In his natural state, he’s perfect.
The Sun on this degree whispers that if we let ourselves be, if we accept ourselves in our naturalness, then the world will embrace us as we are. We do have to curb our more anti-social tendencies, but overall, we probably spend more energy than we need to in trying to conform to a shape that others find attractive.
The Sun trines Jupiter in Taurus, a symbol of abundance that is effortlessly acquired. It suggests that the key to gaining the world’s support is to know what we are, instead of trying to be something fundamentally different. To be the purest version of ourselves, rather than an awkward, unconvincing version of something else.
Writing and images © 2017-23 by April Elliott Kent
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