Transcript Ep. 67 | Venus Joins a Crowded Aquarius Party
Show notes and link to episode hereJen: Welcome to the Big Sky Astrology podcast, with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and cohost Jen Braun. Hey friends, Jen here. Today is February 1st, 2021. And here with me, as always, is my friend – who always sees her shadow because she’s living in sunny San Diego – astrologer April Elliott Kent. Hi April.
April: Hello Jen. You’re not wrong about that. Although it has been a little bit chilly and rainy here the last few days, which has been quite a treat.
Jen: You did say it was a treat over the weekend when it was raining, and it was kind of chilly, and you were in front of the fire. And I thought, “That was spoken like a person who does not live in the Midwest.”
April: And never has to deal with real weather. Yes. Can you even believe as we’re recording this, of course, it’s still the end of January, but I’m sitting here thinking, “Is it really possible that it’s almost the beginning of the second month of this year already?”
Jen: It has flown by. And we were talking before about how the days go slowly and the years go quickly.
April: Well, the last couple of certainly have any way. So, yes, and of course, it’s almost one of our favorite holidays, Groundhog Day.
Jen: Of course. We love the movie Groundhog Day, which we talked about in Episode 10 “Neptune and the Zen of Groundhog Day.”
April: It is actually well documented throughout the run of the podcast. We often invoke Bill Murray. He almost made it onto the bingo card, but not quite. He got narrowly pushed out at the final hour.
Jen: To hear more about the bingo card, listen to last week’s episode.
April: Yes. And if you are a donor or a contributor to this fine podcast, you should have received a mailing that tells you how to access this fun little gift that we have provided for you all.
Jen: Yes. And if you are a donor, and for some reason we missed you, we’re sorry. And you can email April(at)bigskyastrology(dot)com.
April: And check your spam folder first because we send these things out through an automated system and sometimes spam filters are a little too enthusiastic about categorizing our fine missives as being spam.
Jen: Nothing wrong with enthusiasm, though.
April: Well, that is true. Jen?
Jen: Yes.
April: I understand we have some new reviews.
Jen: We do. Let me pull up the first one here.
April: Please do.
Jen: We have a review from “it’s_me_mixy” via Apple podcasts in Great Britain who wrote “April and Jen’s podcast is always a great start to the week. They introduce the week’s themes in a way that makes sense, whatever your understanding of astrology is. I’ve learned loads!” Isn’t that nice?
April: Yes. I like that she’s learned loads.
Jen: Yes.
April: That’s a lot of Ls. I mean, that’s what we’re going for. So that’s so wonderful. And thank you so much. Mixy for that lovely review.
Jen: Yes. And just so Mixy knows, and everybody else, too: If you live in another country, we will eventually see your review, but they don’t come through into the United States Apple feed automatically. So it sometimes takes a little while, but we’ll see them eventually. So please keep leaving them.
April: Yes. Please.
Jen: You want to read the other one, April?
April: Yes. Actually this was on Apple and it was from “SOS,” which stands for See Our Stars.
Jen: Love that.
April: Who wrote, “What a lifesaver. So great to hear your show this past year, just listening to you laugh at yourselves and each other, generally spread good cheer and provide great astrological insight has been wonderful. Many thanks. Hope you both have a great year. I hope we all have a great year.” Amen to that. That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. It really kind of brightens our day to see this sort of feedback and it’s been encouraging.
Jen: It’s awesome.
April: So we really appreciate it.
Jen: Yes, it just means people are listening and that we’re resonating. The podcast is resonating. It’s helpful. So thank you to both of you.
April: We are resonant.
Jen: Absolutely.
April: You also sent me a text, I think it was during the week alerting me to the fact that we got a little shout-out in the Mountain Astrologer.
Jen: Yes. Mary Plumb wrote an article with some new astrology podcasts… and was it blogs, too?
April: It might’ve been…
Jen: …to be aware of. And we just want to say thank you, Mountain Astrologer for mentioning us, and Mary Plumb.
April: That’s wonderful. Mary has been very encouraging of my work through the years.
Jen: That’s great.
April: I remember she gave a really wonderful book review of my second book, “The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology.” So thank you. Thank you to Mary. And thank you to the ever-wonderful Mountain Astrologer Magazine, which is a tremendous resource for people at all levels of astrological knowledge. And they’ve been through a lot of big changes in the last couple of years. They lost their wonderful founder and publisher. And actually, I think the magazine’s been sold and they’re going in a new direction, but a very happy and exciting direction I think for everybody. So yes.
Jen: The latest issue arrived for me the other day and I happily dug into it. So I am a happy subscriber.
April: Oh hurray.
Jen: Yes.
April: Jen, we have a lot of things on our show sheet today. Shall we get to them?
Jen: Do we ever. Yes, please. Why don’t you kick it off, pal.
April: Okay. Well on February 1st, this actual day, when people will be listening to this episode, the Sun is making a square aspect to Mars at 02:33 AM Pacific Time at 12° and 47 minutes of Aquarius and Taurus. And all of the Aquarius planets, everything’s starting to crowd into the sign of Aquarius and they will all be squaring Mars and Uranus in Taurus. All of these aspects that we cover in the coming couple of weeks will be to some degree about the struggle between moving forward, which is what Aquarius wants, to make progress. And on the other hand, resisting change, which I think is a bit of the message of Uranus in Taurus a lot of the time. This of course produces great pressure. And this is why it’s appropriate to me that the Sun, while it squares Mars is on the Sabian symbol, “A barometer,” which is measuring the pressure of things.
Jen: How heavy is the air?
April: Pretty darn heavy, I think. This is the latest aspect in a Synodic cycle that began on September 2nd, 2019, when the Sun was in a conjunction with Mars at 9° and 41 minutes of Virgo. Does that sound right?
Jen: That is correct.
April: Oh, okay. Alright. That’s the symbolism of the Sun with Mars, is always that there is increased amount of tension, conflict, airing things out, I think with Sun and Mars. Do you have any other thoughts on that one?
Jen: This is the closing square of that cycle and the cycle ends October 7th. So between now and October 7th – when the next conjunction happens – would be time to sort of clean up stuff that would have begun September 2nd, 2019.
April: And it’s very apt that you use the terminology that you did, “cleaning up,” because the conjunction was in Virgo…
Jen: Yes.
April: Which does like to clean things up.
Jen: That’s funny.
April: For sure. That’s great. If we want to think in a positive way, it’s not just about conflict, it’s also very energizing. Mars does have that component and it can really get us up and moving. It’s just that there is conflict between the style of the Sun in Aquarius and the Mars in Taurus. They’re both fixed signs, so they want to do things their own way and at their own speed, but their speed differs.
Jen: Sure.
April: And Venus enters Aquarius this week, as you would say, sort of squishing itself into the clown car, the Aquarius clown car that we’re having this year.
Jen: Well, yes, she’s the fifth planet to enter Aquarius over the last six weeks or so.
April: Yes. Well, and by the time most people will be listening to this episode, this will have already occurred because it was 06:05 AM today, Pacific Time.
Jen: February 1st.
April: And Venus will be in Aquarius through February 26th. So Venus, “What do we love? What gives us pleasure? What gives us a sense of being satisfied and complete in our lives?” The sign that a planet goes in, the sign that Venus goes in specifically will tell us about the nature of the kind of things that we’ll get pleasure from that we’ll enjoy in the next few weeks. So with Aquarius friendships, and that’s a little bit hard depending on where you live and the state of lockdown and that kind of thing.
I think we’re all getting a little bit more accustomed to getting together with people on Zoom or on the telephone, or however we can do it. Still a little bit of social distancing going on there.
Also, Aquarius rules, gadgets, electronics, mechanical gizmos. You might find yourself hankering for a new laptop, a new phone, a new whatever.
Jen: But let’s remember Mercury is retrograde.
April: I was just going to say that. Yes. It’s probably not the best time to be giving into that, but what you can get is little accessories, maybe that are less technical in nature and less of an investment. So maybe a new cover for your phone that’s real funny or cute or something and that kind of thing. It’s more what we’d recommend. And that is absolutely a good time for making plans for the future. And I would say that if you’re the kind of person who gets inspiration from brainstorming with others, this would be a good week to do that as you’re thinking ahead. You and I were talking before we recorded Jen about how we’ve been trying to lock down our plans for this year, both individually and for the podcast.
And it’s been hard, it’s felt really difficult to do that. And part of it is because it’s still a little bit hard to envision what the future holds for us in light of the last year and how unusual everything’s been. But this is a week we’re bringing together this idea of collaborating with others and enjoying your friendships and people who are, like-minded maybe getting together with a friend or putting together a mini-informal mastermind meeting to get together and talk about, “Well, what do we all want to do?” People that do the same kind of thing that you do, that kind of thing.
Jen: Yes. And again, with Mercury retrograde, it’s a good time to review plans. And words that begin with “re” are always good things to do during Mercury retrograde, so they say.
April: Right. When Mercury turned retrograde in Aquarius last week, it was the first time it actually turned retrograde in that sign since 2015. The way I described it on my blog was about, it is a good time for cleaning out the cabinets and the closets in the Aquarius area of your chart. And if you have trouble figuring that out, we’ll link to my blog post in those show notes that describes how to find the Aquarius house in your chart. But depending on the symbolism of that house, you probably get some stuff you’ve been collecting in there, metaphorically speaking, perhaps literally speaking, that could stand to be let go of this week. What’s your Aquarius house, Jen?
Jen: Third and fourth. So literally the home.
April: Getting rid of old dead electronics and gizmos and that kind of thing. It might be a good idea. It’s in my third house too. I’m definitely looking at cleaning up a lot of old files and a lot of old files on my computer, things like that.
So Venus is always our friend. It’s always a happy, lovely planet and having it joining up with all those other planets in Aquarius, along with having Jupiter there, which is the other really benefit planet. So having them both together in this sign, I think does a lot to offset the more potentially problematic placement of Saturn in that sign.
Jen: And Venus is following in the Sun’s footsteps. So the aspects that the Sun has been making in the last week or two, Venus will come through and make those same aspects.
April: Yes. And we have that a little later in this episode, we’re going to go into some detail on a couple of those.
Jen: Cool.
April: But first, Jen?
Jen: Yes?
April: Guess what time it is?
Jen: What time is it?
April: Moonwatch…
Jen: Moonwatch…
April: Play it!
April: Yes, good friends. It’s Moonwatch. And this week we have a Last Quarter Moon on February 4th at 09:37 AM Pacific Time at 16° and seven minutes of Scorpio. Mysterious Scorpio.
I love the Sabian symbol. I’ve always been fascinated by this one, 17 Scorpio, “A Woman, The Father of Her Own Child.”
Jen: Yes. I remember we talked about that once and how it has a self-sufficiency aspect to it.
April: Yes, definitely. It’s a bit of a contentious chart, which it always is for the Last Quarter Moon because by definition, the Sun and Moon are always square, but this one is particularly fraught. The Sun and Jupiter are square and the Moon is opposed Mars and Uranus in Taurus. This is the Last Quarter of the Capricorn New Moon cycle that began on January 12th or 13th of this year, depending on where you live. But it also concludes the lunar phase family that began on November 7th, 2018 at 15° and 11 minutes of Scorpio.
Jen: Just to translate that for folks. You mean, folks can think back to November 7th, 2018, as well as the most recent January 12th or 13th, just a few weeks ago? And stuff might come up that reverberates from your life from those two times. Is that right?
April: Exactly. And perhaps a completion. You’re at a point of getting ready to make the final push to complete something that was initiated at those New Moons. It is action oriented, but it’s action that’s based on past information, on past experience, unlike the First Quarter Moon, which is more instinctual. It’s taking action because you just feel you have to do something, but you’re just hoping for the best, but the Last Quarter has a lot more context and perspective associated with it. And as we said, that Sabian symbol for the Moon about self-sufficiency and also about owning our circumstances. I like Scorpio because Scorpio doesn’t fool itself.
Jen: How so?
April: Well, it looks at itself honestly.
Jen: Maybe a little too honestly sometimes.
April: Maybe a little too honestly. Yes, they can’t hide from themselves at all. So having the Scorpio Last Quarter Moon, we will tend to be a little hard on ourselves, perhaps about how we have found ourselves in whatever various circumstances we’re in. I would say, “Hey, take it a little bit easy on yourself. We’re living through a pandemic. Things have been pretty tough.”
But it’s also a really good thing to look clearly and to be willing to own where you are and own your complicity, to the extent that you’re complicit in your current circumstances. Because that’s ultimately very freeing. It’s a thing that we often say about Saturn is that to the extent that you take authority, you take control of a situation. It’s not the same as being to blame for your circumstances. It’s a whole different thing. It’s saying, “Okay, well, because of certain choices I’ve made, perhaps I find myself here right now, but I can make other choices to go in a more productive direction.” And I think that’s probably what a Last Quarter Moon in Scorpio wants from us.
Jen: Aha. Okay. Also, the release point – which we talked about this T-square thing last week as well – would be in Leo.
April: Leo…
Jen: Leo…
April: Indeed it would. What does that say to you, Jen? What does that sing to you?
Jen: You mentioned how you can be tough on yourself with the Last Quarter Moon in Scorpio, but in Leo… Leo likes to be playful and fun and follow the path with heart. And so maybe we can find some relief in those types of activities.
April: Yes. Maybe creative activities, little artsy-craftsy things you like to do, singing, watching particular programs that bring you good pleasure, whatever it is. Yes. I’m glad that you picked up on that. That there’s always at the release point, the point of the same modality that doesn’t have the planet in it. So the missing fixed sign here is Leo. And that can harken back also to the Full Moon in Leo that we just had last week, which was not too far from these degrees.
Jen: Pretty darn close.
April: Yes. So look back to what was revealed at that Full Moon about how you should be honoring yourself in the midst of all these planets in Aquarius that are very communal and very group oriented. There is still something about the sovereignty of the self, the creative genius of the individual that was revealed and needed to be celebrated at that Full Moon.
Jen: What does your heart want to sing?
April: Yes, it probably wants to sing Leeeeoooo…
Jen: Leeeeoooo…
April: So that is Moonwatch for this week.
Now my friend, as you pointed out before, Venus this week is following in the footsteps of the Sun.
Jen: Yes. Venus is joining up with Saturn on February 5th at 11:07 PM. Pacific Time at 5°, 54 minutes of Aquarius. And this occurs to me – Jen’s Beginner Tip for you…
April: Okay.
Jen: I don’t think we’ve ever said that there are 60 minutes in a degree.
April: There you go. There are 30 degrees to a sign and 60 minutes to a degree.
Jen: Yes. So at 5° 54 minutes of Aquarius is very nearly at 6° Aquarius.
April: A very good point. And something that’s very confusing to people sometimes when they’re looking at their chart and they are trying to figure out, which is the degree in which is the minutes. And you always know it’s minutes if it’s over 29.
Jen: Oh sure. And I’ve heard some astrologers say it’s like the degree on your oven. So you just look for the degree sign.
April: I like that.
Jen: Yes.
April: That’s very good. And I think of it like keeping time, hours and minutes and the degrees or the hours and then the minutes make up each degree. So thank you for pointing that out.
Jen: My pleasure. What can you tell us about this?
April: Well, we’re beginning a new synodic cycle of Venus and Saturn. And this is a cycle of committing to Venus things, so relationships, values. Earlier in the week when we explored Venus going into Aquarius and contemplating, “What is it I like? What is it that brings me pleasure?” This point in the week is where we’re asked to commit to something that we really love that is really meaningful to us or something that is in keeping with our value system and really dedicating ourselves to that. It can be about coming up with a plan, a financial plan, which can quickly get blown out of the water the next day as Venus squares Uranus on February 6th at 07:33 PM Pacific. Because it’s the very next day after saying, “Okay, this is what I’m going to do.” Say, “Okay, I’m going to go on this diet. I’m going to change my diet in some way, while Venus is conjunct Saturn.”
And then the very next day a friend shows up and leaves some delightful cookies on your porch or something.
Jen: Mmm…
April: Yes, Uranus. Mmm is right. And it’s something unexpected that comes along that you think, “Well, this is the exception. I’ll eat this one cookie.” And it’s a square, so we have a choice to make, “Okay. Is it going to be an aberration? Or is it going to be ‘Okay I’ve completely blown my commitment to the plan that I made the previous day’?”
Jen: Got it.
April: So I think just maybe being aware of that and thinking, “Okay, have a cookie, that’s okay. But don’t use it as an excuse to totally give up your dedication to your plan that you’re going to make.”
Jen: I like that. It’s delightful, and it lets you still eat the cookie.
April: Exactly. It has cookies involved. There is nothing lacking in this metaphor.
Jen: And again, let’s remember Mercury’s retrograde. So maybe reassess your plan.
April: “Okay. I can change my diet, but there has to be room for cookies in there.”
Jen: Recommit to already existing plans…
April: I like it. Any other thoughts that you have about that Venus/Uranus square, Jen?
Jen: I sure do. Because Venus squares Uranus just after meeting up with Saturn, it indicates to me that we’re getting pretty darn close to that Saturn/Uranus square… which is just a week or two away, and is a main feature of 2021. Arguably the main feature of 2021. Is Venus sort of waking up that incoming Saturn/Uranus square? And if so, is there anything you could prepare folks for? Because that square will happen three times – the first one’s February 17th.
April: Yes. That’s a good question. I think that all of the faster moving planets in turn, as they’re going into Aquarius are sort of waking up this area of your chart. First, it was awakened with Jupiter and Saturn, of course, at the end of last year. And now as the faster moving planets, Mercury, the Sun. Mercury being retrograde in there, and now Venus. I think it’s part of this whole huge emphasis storming into a particular house of your chart and also around kind of the earlier degrees of fixed signs, especially Aquarius and Taurus we are gradually awakening.
I think what Venus might be bringing in Aquarius and square Uranus especially is waking up to new things that we didn’t realize we desired or waking up to desire. We did that a little bit recently as Venus came together with Pluto, that’s intensely passionate. It’s like that first stage in romance where you just can’t get enough of the other person. That’s all you want to do is be folded in their arms. It’s very intense. That was the end of Capricorn. And then Venus goes into Aquarius and wants a little more space. You’ve been in the relationship for a while, you’re ready to, wow, maybe spend a Friday night alone or something, you just get some breathing room.
And I think all of these planets going into Aquarius are just building a profile of stating the Aquarius principles with exclamation points after them. How do you want to be in love with someone and yet still have your own space? How do you want to be part of a group, a community, a hive mind, and yet still have your individuality? You may have new exciting interests and passions and ideas as these faster moving planets are going into Aquarius, but which ones are really going to turn into something lasting, which is more the dominion of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius?
It is kind of interesting. So I think from that point of view, I would say, yes, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, all in Aquarius, there are all kind of pointing the way and trying to orient us towards thinking of a future that as I said before, we haven’t had the luxury of really counting on in the last year. And I’m not sure we do now, but at the very least I think we are ready to say, okay, well the future’s coming. We may not be able to anticipate exactly what it’s going to look like. But to be honest, we’ve never been able to completely accurately envision what the future’s going to look like.
So, I like Venus here because it says, “Well, maybe part of what is going to determine your future is what makes you happy? What do you like? What gives you pleasure?” And just having Venus there for a few weeks is enough maybe to just sort of make us ask those questions. It’s all good and well, to envision a future, to have some great vision or ambition or scheme with Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius. But what does that look like day to day? And this week it looks like Venus going into Aquarius and square Uranus. Does that help?
Jen: That’s great. Yes.
April: I like too… I’m wanting to mention something that occurred to me about the Sabian symbol for seven Aquarius, which is where Venus is here. “A Child Born of an Eggshell.” And we talked about this on a previous episode. But I had a little bit of input from – there was one thing I heard on Anne Ortelee’s podcast that grabbed my attention because she was talking about how viruses mutate.
Jen: Okay.
April: And somebody else had written something about, I think it might’ve been Blane Bovee that wrote about this symbol and talked about it as being something to do with a mutation where something is changing. So I wonder if we’re going to start to hear more about that. We’re already hearing a bit about how we have different strains of the Coronavirus that are starting to catch people’s attention.
Jen: Yes.
April: So that’ll be interesting. But I also remember reading for a client recently who had a planet at this point and both of us realizing how much she was changing her family. She was becoming the outlier.
Jen: Oh, I see…
April: The one who was really breaking the old patterns in the family – and that maybe that has something to do with this aspect as well.
Jen: That feels very appropriate for Aquarius.
April: Doesn’t it?
Jen: Yes.
April: Yes, they are natural little change agents.
Jen: Exactly.
April: Well, my friend, believe it or not, that is everything on our show sheet. Have we done it?
Jen: We’ve done it. And we’re coming up on 70 episodes pretty soon.
April: Oh my gosh. That’s pretty great.
Jen: In a couple of weeks.
April: Virtual five. Woo!
April: Well, thanks to all of you who listen to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast and perhaps for 67 times now!
Jen: Exactly. Yes.
April: Yes. If you like what you’re hearing here, we hope that you will subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a rating or a review and maybe we’ll even read it here. And we hope that you’ll help us spread the word by telling a friend about our show. You can read show notes and full transcripts and leave your comments about each and every episode at our website, bigskyastropod.com.
Jen: We’re so grateful to everyone who showed support during our Podathon. Each week we’ll be thinking one or two of you by name. Who do we have this week, pal?
April: This week, we want to give a Big Sky Astrology Podcast shout-out to Sarah Pope and Ruthann Fischer.
Jen: Yay… woo hoo!
April: Yay… And there was much rejoicing. Sarah and Ruthann, we appreciate you both. We want to thank you so much for listening to our podcast and especially for supporting us during our Podathon,
Jen: We are grateful to both of you, Sarah and Ruthann. Thank you so much. If you’re a listener who didn’t get a chance to support us during our Podathon, you can always make a contribution at our website, bigskyastropod.com. If you donate $5 or more, we’ll invite you to our special episodes for the Equinoxes and Solstices, and you’ll also get access to that fun Bingo card that we just created last week, exclusively for donors.
April: “And bingo was his name-o!”
Well, that is it for us this week. Join us again, bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground…
Jen: …and your eyes on the stars.
Thank you for listening! To learn more about April Elliott Kent, please check out her website, www.BigSkyAstrology.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter, read her thought-provoking weekly essays, purchase her books, sign up for a personal astrology reading, and more.
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© 2021 April Elliott Kent and Jennifer Braun
