CAMBRIA — In joyful defiance of Mercury’s aspects (opposed Saturn, square Pluto) we took off on Wednesday for a leisurely drive up the coast. There is a family celebration in Carmel this weekend, but that was just an excuse; we could have flown or something, but this way we’ve got five delicious days away. We spent a night in Santa Barbara, then arrived yesterday in Cambria, a beach town south of Big Sur. We took a two-mile walk on a boardwalk overlooking Moonstone Beach, had too much dinner at an undistinguished but competent restaurant, and slept soundly in an absurdly romantic inn, the fireplace toasty, to the music of the Pacific’s crashing waves.
I’m writing this pre-coffee in front of the fireplace, catching a glimpse of the waves between fog banks, and I’m thinking, so this is how nice a transiting Venus trine to the natal Sun can feel. It’s a quick, few-day transit, a mini-planetary-vacation. And it’s a welcome balm on the wounds of several tough months of struggling with that Mars retrograde, and Saturn and Pluto tag-teaming my natal Venus. Those have been rough transits, and I’ve been really tired and discouraged and heartsore a lot of the time. Maybe you have been too. I hear variations on this story from lots of people, many of whom read this blog and my website and write to share their stories.
Times can be hard, living gracefully is a challenge, and we have to enjoy little pockets of blessings, the quick, happy Venus trines and Jupiter sextiles that, regrettably, pass so much more quickly than the difficult transits. Not all happy transits will find us overlooking the ocean and snuggled in eiderdown, and believe me, I’m grateful to be in a position to enjoy this. But all of them offer some measure of blessing. Quick, happy transits are our mini-vacations, our get-out-of-jail-free cards, our benedictions, our inns by the ocean, our tiny reassurances that the world does not hate us wholesale and that God, should such a thing exist, doesn’t want us to lose hope completely.
