Holy Wars and Purification
Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone.
Relax and Remember
I recently ran across an article about psychologists reporting a dramatic uptick in middle-aged patients who are troubled by memory loss and the inability to retrieve names and common words. As it happens, stress and anxiety – the kind you might experience after nearly two years living with a global pandemic – can also have a profound effect on memory (and tend to be a bit more common than dementia among people in their 40’s and 50’s).
I found this a relief, because in recent months, I’ve been finding it really tough to focus. I move rapidly from one task to another, only to freeze in my tracks with no memory of what I was on my way to do. I’ve found that if I sit for a few seconds and take a deep breath, by the time I release it I can feel myself relax, and I immediately remember what I was going to do.
Mercury in don’t-sweat-the-details Sagittarius makes a square aspect to Neptune this week (Dec. 7, 2021, 7:16 am PST). Mercury’s the planet of cognition, and Neptune is the planet of forgetfulness – but also, of deep relaxation. So this week, if you find yourself struggling to retrieve details from your brain’s hard drive, the answer might be to stop trying so hard.
Holy war
I remember the day the pandemic began shutting things down in my city. It was Friday, March 13, 2020, and I was scheduled to go to a concert that night with friends. I felt uneasy about it, but I didn’t want to pull out because it was a gift for my friend’s birthday. Turns out that event, along with many, many others scheduled for that evening, was cancelled.
Initially, there seemed to be a consensus around the virus and the measures that should be taken in response to it. In hindsight, this seems to have lasted for about fifteen minutes. More likely, it lasted until about one week, until March 20. That’s when Mars joined with Jupiter at 22.48 Capricorn – the same degree as the Saturn/Pluto conjunction two months earlier. And that’s when the war began. Suddenly, people in my life who’d never had a moment’s disagreement about important matters were vociferously divided. Sides were taken. Rhetoric turned thermonuclear.
The tension continued across three Mars/Jupiter squares: in August and October 2020, and Jan. 2021. It intensified when federal vaccination mandates were announced at the July 29, 2021 Mars/Jupiter opposition. And this week, Mars and Jupiter meet in one more square (Dec. 7, 2021, 10:21 pm PST), signaling the final critical juncture in the Mars/Jupiter cycle that began in March 2020.
When people are free, or wish to be, conflicts arise. Sometimes, it’s because the law no longer accurately reflects the way a society has agreed to live. Other times, it’s because society itself is divided about what it wants to be. This last square between Mars, the fighter, and Jupiter, planet of courts, religion, and beliefs, feels like the final campaign in a protracted holy war.
Faith and Fog
Neptune always gets bad press for causing confusion or deception. But first of all, Neptune doesn’t “cause” anything; and second, like all the planets it symbolizes positive as well as negative qualities.
This First Quarter Moon in Pisces (Dec. 10, 2021, 5:35 pm PST) is in a conjunction with Neptune, and the Sun is square Neptune (exact on Dec. 11 at 10:21 pm PST). Does this mean a week of bumping into furniture and forgetting everyone’s names? I mean, there could be some of that. The First Quarter phase urges us to take action, but it can be a little bit tricky to do that under foggy, Pisces/Neptune conditions.
The Sun at the First Quarter Moon is on the Sabian symbol 20 Sagittarius, Men cutting through ice; it’s trying to cut through the fog so we can bound ahead with typical Sagittarian enthusiasm and optimism. But its square, and the Moon’s conjunction with Neptune remind us that taking action can often be a leap of faith – and that such a leap is safer if we first sit for a moment and come to grips with what our senses and intuition are telling us.
Purification
The coming few months are complicated ones for Venus. Next week, she enters her retrograde period (through Jan. 29, 2022). And this week (Dec. 11, 2021, 8:28 am PST), Venus makes the first of three conjunctions with Pluto. (The other two conjunctions are exact on Christmas Day and on March 3, 2022.)
Venus symbolizes love (or money), and Pluto symbolizes obsession, so this is something of a fateful showdown between the two. In her book “Making the Gods Work for You,” Caroline Casey offers the memorable example of a friend who was obsessed with a man, and the ritual we she did to rid herself of the obsession. She lit a candle and, in the time it took it to burn out, gave herself completely to all her obsessive feelings. Once it burned out, she was free of the obsessions, free to simply love the man (who eventually became her husband). As Casey writes, “Always use Pluto to free yourself of Pluto. You can only kill the dragon with a knife made from the dragon; you can only cure obsession with obsession.”
Another astrologer, Michelle Gould, says that when Venus and Pluto meet, Pluto “burns away everything that doesn’t look like love.” And that includes obsession, as well as manipulation, jealousy, and control. So this Venus and Pluto journey is about purification through getting rid of what isn’t truly loving, valuable, and necessary.
Most years, the Venus/Pluto conjunction is a brief influence, just a few days, really. You might clean out a few drawers and have a yard sale. But this Venus/Pluto season will be a months-long process. We’re getting rid of much more than a few bags of unwanted stuff. In the area of your chart where Capricorn falls, you’ll be asked to choose between love and obsession.
Writing and collages © 2020-21 April Elliott Kent
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