TRANSCRIPT – EPISODE 180 (May 29, 2023)
Listen and read shownotes hereApril: Hello, invisible friend, April here, and the date today is May 29th, 2023. Welcome to Episode 180 of The Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
This week, Jupiter comes together with the North Node and pays off on our dreams. Venus and Neptune provide a beautiful moment for showing affection and opening our hearts. The Sagittarius Full Moon takes us to Egypt – if only telepathically; and Mercury and Uranus brings sudden inspiration. Plus, I answer a Listener Question about Empty Houses in the Horoscope.
Jupiter conjunct North Node (June 1, 2023, 5:43 pm PDT)
The week begins with a conjunction from Jupiter to the Moon’s North Node on June 1st at 5:43 pm PDT, at 3°37’ Taurus, on the Sabian symbol, 4 Taurus, The rainbow’s pot of gold.
We’ve had a really lively last couple of weeks as Mars has been connecting with Jupiter and Pluto and kicking us out of our complacency to a great degree. Now, Mars also made a square to the Lunar Nodes on May 26th, which I thought was an opportunity to move us toward what represents to us true wealth, true success.
Now, Jupiter makes a conjunction with the North Node, and I think it is time for a bit of a payoff on our Taurus North Node dreams. The North Node of the Moon represents our potential for growth. And, since the North Node entered Taurus on January 18th, 2022, that North Node has been pushing us in the direction of Taurus things. Taurus is a sign that represents prosperity and also security, a sense that Everything is more or less okay…, and that It’s safe to take things at face value set financial goals.
Now, at the same time, the Moon’s South Node has been moving through Scorpio, and the South Node represents the fearful qualities of a sign. With the South Node being in Scorpio, it has been really hard to trust. We’ve been looking under the surface to try to find problems a lot of the time, and it’s not that there isn’t legitimate cause to be a little suspicious in the world a little bit fearful, but the South Node going through Scorpio says, We must not dwell there. We need to propel ourselves away from that and have a little confidence in the world, our ability to build something wonderful.
So now we’re getting closer to the end of that Nodal Cycle, and the Moon’s North Node will enter Aries in July, on July 17th. That’s an entirely different journey, but for now, I think it’s a lovely time as Jupiter is coming together with the North Node to say, what have we learned over the last 18 months about trust, about security, and about building true wealth and true prosperity, not just trying to add to our balance sheet, but to do so in a way that honors our true selves?
Venus trine Neptune (June 2, 2023, 3:42 pm PDT)
On June 2nd at 3:42 pm PDT, Venus in Cancer makes a trine aspect to Neptune. This is one of our lovelier aspects. It’s about music and love and harmony. The Sabian symbol for Venus is 28 Cancer, A modern Pocahontas. And what we can really take away from this Sabian symbol is that, it is about that image of someone who can mediate between two very different worlds. That is the beauty of Venus on this degree, and it’s trine Neptune, which is on the Sabian symbol, 28 Pisces, A Fertile Garden under a full Moon. That’s one we’ve been seeing quite a bit lately, because of course Neptune moves very slowly.
So I think the potential of Venus, this loving, harmonious, diplomatic symbol, connecting with Neptune, and what’s beautiful and magical, makes this a week for showing real affection to the people we care about in our lives. And also, that it’s a time that we might see come to fruition some of our artistic leanings as well.
When it comes to things like money, which is also ruled by Venus, we do have to, I think, be a little bit careful when Venus is connecting with Neptune, and maybe especially when it’s connecting in a nice aspect like a trine. Because, what that indicates is, we may have particular fantasies about what we would like to do in terms of money and finance.
This is also true, I think a little bit with Jupiter on the North Node in Taurus, we have to guard a little bit against unrealistic thinking when it comes to our finances. So, instead of maybe considering a purchase and thinking to yourself, I’m sure I can make this work. I don’t know how it’s going to work, but it’ll work out somehow. That’s Venus-Neptune thinking. And, maybe it will work out, but maybe it won’t, so I would say that this is actually a time to sort of hold off on making major purchases or major financial decisions.
Sagittarius Full Moon (June 3, 2023, 8:42 pm PDT)
And now for the Moon Report for the week of May 29th. And it begins with the Sagittarius Full Moon on June 3rd at 8:42 pm PDT, at 13°18’ Sagittarius on the wonderful Sabian symbol, The pyramids and the sphinx. And that’s why I said this Full Moon was going to take us to Egypt. The Sun meanwhile is on the Sabian symbol 14 Gemini, A conversation by telepathy.
Now, the Sagittarius Full Moon generally is the point in the year where it’s revealed to us how we have maybe been thinking a little too small for ourselves, and it always acts as a sort of luminous movie screen where everything is being revealed about where we have been headed since the New Moon. So in this case, it really is about expanding our ideas of what’s possible for us.
The Sun and Moon at this Full Moon are in a T-square configuration with Saturn, which is at 7°3’ Pisces, on the Sabian symbol, A girl blowing a bugle. So I think this is an interesting combination of symbols, because the pyramids and the spanks do represent for many of us who live far away from them, the ultimate ideal of going to a very, almost magical seeming place, and in doing so, really expanding our minds and our experience and our horizons, which of course is what Sagittarius likes for us to do. And then, the Conversation by telepathy talks about the ways in which we can communicate with each other without really communicating. If you know what I mean? When you live with somebody for a long time, you have so much shared experience and little inside jokes and phrases, and it can get to the point where you forget to actually even talk to each other. So, I think that that’s indicated a little bit by the Sun Sabian symbol.
And then, we have the Girl blowing a bugle, and uncharacteristic of something in Pisces, as this Saturn is, this is noisy. This is the image of a kind of a wake-up call and coming between the Moon in Sagittarius and the Sun in Gemini. I think that there is a little bit of a tendency with those two signs to go around and around and around and never actually find a point to land on. So, this is a little bit of the Conversation by telepathy, maybe we’re not really having the kinds of realistic conversations we could hopefully have with the people close to us. And The pyramids and the sphinx is maybe a little bit about being elsewhere and having this wonderful experience. Maybe we have been thinking about traveling, a lot more people are traveling these days, but Saturn being in Pisces and this Girl blowing a bugle is saying, All of that’s well and good, but what does your heart tell you? What does your soul tell you?
Pisces brings the mental energy of Gemini and Sagittarius back down into the body a little bit, at least, the emotional body. And perhaps, that’s a lot of what we’ll be looking at this Full Moon, Are we fully awake to the people around us and where we are right now?
In the chart for this Full Moon, Venus is leading up to its opposition to Pluto, which will happen next week after Venus enters Leo. It will also square Jupiter in the Node, make a conjunction to Mars. And more about that in my next episode. But Full Moons are often important times for relationships, so I thought it was really worth mentioning that so we could start getting into that mindset of Venus, especially coming up to the aspect to Pluto, which brings a great intensity to the idea of what it is we desire? And also the conjunction with Mars, which is a really important moment in the Venus-Mars Cycle, particularly for relationships.
This Full Moon is the midway point in a Lunar Phase Family Cycle that began with the New Moon on December 3rd, 2021 at 12° Sagittarius, then there was a First Quarter Moon in this Cycle, on September 3rd, 2022 at 11° Sagittarius, and the Last Quarter Moon, the last critical moment in this Lunar Phase Family Cycle comes on March 3rd, 2024 at 13° Sagittarius. So, we’re right smack in the middle of this Cycle that began back in December, 2021. Very interesting time to step back, take stock, and remember what we were trying to achieve then and how we’re doing in that journey.
Void-of-Course Moon
Let’s look at the Void-of-Course Moon periods for this week. They all occur when the Moon is in her First Quarter Phase. And this is a really tricky combination because the Void-of-Course Moon generally is a time when it’s more helpful to kind of let things go a little bit, not be too driven and not be too scheduled. But, the First Quarter Moon gives us a very different message, which is, you’ve got to get moving. We have to initiate the things that we imagined or planned or thought about at the New Moon.
The first Void-of-Course Moon period begins on May 29th when the Moon in Virgo will make an opposition to Neptune at 2:45 am PDT, it’ll be Void of Course for about five hours, and then, enters Libra at 7:50 am. Whenever we see Virgo and Pisces together, because Neptune is of course still in Pisces, a few key words come to mind, this is about forgiving, forgetting, healing. And, in the case of a Virgo Moon during a First Quarter Phase, maybe it’s about giving your nervous system a little bit of rest. But, overall, I think the potential of this Void-of-Course Moon, is about weighing in our minds that tension between Virgo and Pisces. Virgo is very exacting and very particular, and Pisces is pretty much the opposite of that. Somewhere between these two extremes on this continuum, there is a place where we can be discerning as Virgo demands, but also compassionate and forgiving as Pisces wants us to do.
On May 31st, the Moon in Libra squares Venus at 7:53 am PDT, it’s Void of Course for a little under nine hours, so it is our longest Void of Course period this week and it happens during the day, at least, here in the United States, where we will mostly be conscious and really in a position to work with the Void of Course period, it will then enter Scorpio at 4:45 pm. So, this is a combination, the Moon with Venus that can tend towards a little bit of moodiness and maybe some domestic discord. There is this sense sometimes of how things aren’t fair, there can be in your home, one person who really feels like going out, it’s the Moon in Libra, and then the other one, the Venus in Cancer person who really just wants to stay home and relax.
So, this is a time on May 31st, and it’s a weekday, where you can expect that if you’re going to work or whatever you do to interact with people during the day, there is a little bit of this tension, Are we going to be sociable? Or, are we going to sort of hold back and stay within? And both of these have to be honored. We have to find a way to give both feelings their due.
And then, on June 2nd, the Moon in Scorpio trines Venus at 5:51 pm, it’s then Void of Course for a little over four hours, and then, enters Sagittarius at 10:03 pm. What a nice trine, the Moon and Venus in water sign. This is a little bit of a conciliation after that square between Moon and Venus on the 31st. So now we’re getting to the trine, and we’re all a little bit more, maybe on the same page of the idea of being with people who we’re close to, that we trust, that we really feel comfortable with. So, this is a Void-of-Course period for examining the role of harmony and affection and being comfortable in our daily lives.
Mercury conjunction with Uranus (June 4, 2023, 12:49 pm PDT)
On June 4th at 12:49 pm PDT, Mercury makes a conjunction with Uranus at 20°24’. Taurus, on the Sabian symbol, 21 Taurus, A finger pointing in an open book. Now, Mercury coming together with the Uranus is always something that makes me think of sudden realizations, sudden revelations, sudden perceptions, and it can also be a time when we don’t have a really tight rein on the things that we say and the way that we say them. That’s not always a bad thing. There are times that we’ve been sitting on some stuff for a while and we really need to just blurt it out and get the ball rolling in terms of communication.
In this Sabian symbol, I get this picture of the ways in which we can see unexpected developments as being part of some divine order. I’m thinking of that Finger pointing in an open book and saying, Here is the answer. It sort of depends on your philosophy of things. Maybe there is a divine order and unexpected developments come our way as part of that. It certainly can be a good way to look at such things.
But Mercury with Uranus reminds us that we can’t predict what might happen. I think this is a time really at this conjunction on June 4th to celebrate the unexpected and to kind of try to go with it. This is hard when Mercury is in Taurus, and it’s been hard while Uranus has been in Taurus, and it’ll be a little bit tricky with Jupiter in Taurus. Taurus does represent that part of us that doesn’t want things to change and doesn’t like surprises, especially unpleasant surprises. So, Mercury coming together with Uranus, I think, is a moment and it’s a fast transit, just like a day or so, but a way to realign our thought processes so that we can at least acknowledge that unexpected things are going to happen, we don’t have to act on them right away or react to them right away. We can take a minute or two and just absorb it, especially in our bodies because Taurus is a very physical sign.
Listener Question: In this week’s Listener question, Listener Arlene asks, I have a lot of empty houses. So, when I first looked at my chart, I wondered how that works, if there’s no planet in there?
April: And Arlene, I really want to thank you for that question because it’s a very common one that astrologers hear from those who are first learning about their birth chart. You get somebody who comes to you and they really want to have a relationship, and they’re upset because there are no planets in their 7th House, which is a house of marriage and serious partnership, and they’re honestly sometimes very afraid that it’s not going to be in the cards for them.
But, let’s slow down and look at this. First of all, in terms of math, we use 10 planets in modern astrology, that’s not counting things like asteroids and all of that, 10 planets, and there are 12 Houses in the chart. So, the math is pretty simple. There are going to be houses that do not have any planets in them, but does that mean that that part of a person’s life represented by that house is a barren wasteland? If an empty house in the chart means that nothing will happen for you in that area of life, I ask you, how come I am a workaholic when my 6th House, the House of work, does not have any planets in it? So obviously, there is more to this story than just the fact that there’s an empty house.
The way to find out what’s happening in this empty house of your chart, or more specifically, the areas of life that are symbolized by these Houses, is to consider the sign on the House cusp and the planet that rules that sign. I’ll give you a little cheat sheet that you can download. We will link to that in the show notes, that reminds you of what the planetary rulerships are for each sign. Then what you do is you consider the condition of that ruling planet. You look at the house that that planet is placed in, it will be in a house somewhere, the sign that it’s in, the aspects that it makes to other planets, and when you take those and put them all together, this is going to give you a very full picture of what to expect in that area of life.
So at first, it may seem like really bad news to have no planets in a house of your chart, but let me give you a slightly different perspective about that. In my experience, having planets in a house gives us extra homework to do in that area of life. Because, what a planet represents in the chart is some dimension of our character, our personality, that needs to be developed in particular ways.
So, if you have a ton of planets, you have a big Stellium of three or more planets, let’s say in a particular House of the chart, let’s say it’s the 5th House, there’s a lot of pressure in that area of life. All of those planets are kind of champing at the bit to help you explore your creativity and your individual personal self-expression, your relationship with children, with the arts, all of those things we associate with the 5th House, would then have an out-sized influence in your life.
I think Donna Cunningham, who wrote a wonderful book about Stelliums, pointed out that it’s kind of like having a lot of eggs in one basket when you have a lot of planets in one house of the chart, means you have a lot at stake there. So, a house with no planets in it, I think in a lot of ways might actually be an easier place to spend time. So, we would look at the ruling planet for that house, we consider its condition. We definitely are going to look at things like transits going through a house of your chart, how you are developing in that area of your life. It’s just that it isn’t quite as high tension and emotionally fraught. Sometimes it’s a house with a lot of planets in it.
And in fact, things like transits, you know, looking at the current position of the planets relative to your birth chart and watching them go through the houses of your chart that don’t have any planets in them, and especially with measurements like Secondary Progressions, which tend to move a lot more slowly than a lot of transits, and watching them move gradually through one of these empty houses of your chart – can really give you great insight and a way to really interact with the matters of that house experientially.
I hope that answers your question, Arlene? It is a very common one, and this is why I really was excited to share it with the podcast audience. It does look a little disappointing if something dear to your heart, it’s represented by an area of your chart where it looks like nothing’s going on, but as I’ve explained, there’s always something going on. It’s just about how you drill down just a little bit more to find out what’s happening.
Now, if you, my invisible friend, have a question that you would like me to answer on a future episode of the show, please leave a message of one minute or less at speakpipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast, or email me at april@bigskyastrology.com and be sure to put Podcast Question in the subject line.
Donor Thanks
Well, that is everything I have on my show sheet, so I’m going to wrap this one up. Thank you for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, please be sure to subscribe or follow the show in your app of choice. Leave a rating or a review and maybe spread the word by telling an astrology loving friend about the podcast. You can read show notes and full transcripts and leave your comments about each episode at bigskyastropod.com.
I want to thank everyone who has shown so much support for the podcast over the past year. On each episode, I’m thanking some of my financial Podathon donors by name. This week, let’s give a Big Sky Astrology Podcast shout out to Jessica Lynn and Eve Gaeta!
April: Jessica and Eve, thank you so much for listening to the podcast and for supporting the show with your donations!
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That is it for this episode. Join me again, bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars!
