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Big Sky this Week for April 27-May 3, 2020: Voice of Calm, World on a Swing, Extended Engagement

The Voice of Calm, the World on a Swing, & an Extended Engagement

Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone. Click them to see the date and time where you are.

Voice of calm

In his book, This is Chance!John Mooallem remembers the 1964 earthquake that devastated Anchorage, Alaska. But it’s really the story of Genie Chance, a part-time radio reporter and working mother who became the unlikely hub and heart of the region’s communications in the days following the disaster. She remained on the air for 59 continuous hours, acting as the hub of emergency response communication, reuniting families, and giving the rest of the world a glimpse into the stricken city.

Chance was a sun-sign Aquarian, but the qualities for which she won praise brought her to mind as I thought about Mercury entering Taurus this week (April 27, 12:53 pm PDT). Genie’s calm tone, focus on practical details, and sheer stamina embodied the best qualities of Mercury in Taurus: calm, practical, with no drama. That’s a helpful mindset and delivery for the next few weeks. And it won’t be particularly easy, with Mercury square Saturn (April 28, 2020, 10:27 am PDT) and conjoined Uranus (April 30, 2020, 8:40 pm PDT).  But as Genie Chance’s story reminds us, extraordinary times may try our calm, patience, and sense of normalcy, but can’t extinguish them altogether.

The world on a swing

PPeople of my generation, born in the late fifties and sixties, love to reminisce about our idyllic upbringings. We pride ourselves on having survived and even thrived from the benign neglect of parents who let us run wild, hanging out together and exploring on our bikes.

Maybe it wasn’t all exactly as we remember. But I do feel that the security and slow pace of my early life had everything to do with the development of my creativity. When you have a roof over your head, plenty to eat, and a relatively peaceful family life, you have the luxury of time and energy – to play, to learn to play an instrument, to study astrology.

The Taurus New Moon gives way this week to the First Quarter Moon in Leo (April 30, 2020, 1:38 pm PDT). Its Sabian symbol, Children on a swing in a huge oak tree, paints an idyllic picture of how Taurus’s security provides the platform for Leo’s playfulness and creative fun. Even during stressful times like these, we quickly fall into routines and patterns that pass for normalcy. To the extent we’re got adequate resources, the challenge now is to push ourselves to reach for more than just survival. It’s a lunar phase that invites us to embrace what makes life worth living in the first place.

Extended engagement

Transiting Venus squares Neptune for one day at least a couple of times each year. These quick transits provide fleeting moments to examine what we value, who we love, and the meaning of love altogether.

This week, though, as Venus squares Neptune (May 3, 2020, 8:52 pm PDT), it’s for the first of three times. After Venus turns Rx on May 12, it will make a second square to Neptune on May 20; then, after turning direct on June 24, it will eventually make its final square to Neptune in the series on July 27.

The point is that this no ordinary, one-night-stand Venus aspect that flits by without leaving much of a mark. This is the opening night of what will prove to be an extended engagement, and the nature of the play pits witty wil o’ the wisp Venus in Gemini against the deep, mysterious undertow of Neptune in Pisces.

In the 1948 film Portrait of Jennie, Joseph Cotten plays an undistinguished artist who one day meets a charming, talkative young girl in Central Park. Intrigued by her anachronistic dress and description of New York landmarks long gone, he later paints her portrait from memory. Jennie periodically reappears to him, older each time, until she grows into a beautiful young woman and Cotten’s character falls in love with her. He becomes obsessed with finding out her story, only to eventually learn that Jennie died years earlier in a terrible storm at sea. He follows her into the final moments of her life but in the end, he can’t save her.

Let’s suppose that the lovely, ever-changing young woman in the story represents Venus in Gemini. Cotten’s tortured artist is Pisces, and his search for the truth about Jennie is symbolized by the square aspect. And the mysterious timeline of their relationship is Venus’s retrograde period, coming up on May 12. Let’s call it a story about the ways we fall in love with a fantasy, and the ways in which love – over time –  both changes and transcends change. Sometimes, we fall out of enchantment with a lover over time, but sometimes we fall more deeply in love.  In this wistful love story, as in all of them, Neptune – the planet of love, loss, enchantment, and disillusionment – gets the final word.

Writing and collages © 2020 April Elliott Kent

Jen and I dig deep into all the week’s highlights
in our latest podcast episode, 23| Talkin’ Taurus and the Void (of Course!) Moon

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