The chart is for Thurs afternoon in Raleigh and shows Venus catching up to Mars. It will be late afternoon in England and the Sun will have set in Pakistan. But for all of us on Earth the planet of kindness and harmony will be meeting the one of strife. They are the two closest to us, we live between them in our orbit around the Sun. This meeting occurs as Venus travels toward the far side of Earth's orbit with Sun.
In terms of the zodiac, that poetic breakdown of the realtionship between our celestial equator, our bulging waistline projected like a circular light stick that children carry for night fests, into the heavenly heights - the relationship between that imaginary but at the same time very real belt and the belt of our parh around the Sun; kindness meets striving in the Aries section of Virgo.
You can see them together at 19 Virgo near the top of the chart. I've come to think of this section, just after the halfway point of the sign of apprenticeship, as the step where the student has reached fulfillment of study and practice and must now put their new awareness to the test of the unknown. I picture a student teacher in front of his first students or a scientist executing her first experiment.
A couageous step in learning is the place where these two planets meet.
Meanwhile Moon is in Aries, Mercury is racing at top speed of the inner track around the far side of the Sun.....
And because Sun and Mercury are in Libra they are both disposited by, or disposed to listen to and heed the advice of Venus. Jupiter in Libra has been diposed to Venus all year, and since Saturn in Sagittarius has been disposed to Jupiter, and Pluto in Capricorn disposed to Saturn we have all roads leading ultimately to active kindness.
But kindness itself, the actual planet Venus, will be on the front line helping Mars strive through this learning challenge, this trying out of fresh ideas.
There are so many avenues for meditation in every chart. The opportunities for wisdom are far beyond my little mind. I slip into contemplation of this moment like a swimmer letting herself down into the water.
Why is the glyph for Virgo so similar to the one for Scorpio? Could it be the cross at the foot of Virgo's two humps shows crossing above the ecliptic while the Scorpio arrow shows shows climbing toward the final ascent? As planets advance through Virgo, Libra and then Scorpio we see them progressively lower in the sky. The change in Virgo is rapid, but only apparent to those who consciously measure the change from one day to the next.
The m with the cross reminds me of our day trips up mountains in childhood. We ran through the foothills eager to get to the real fun of scrambling over boulders and jumping across crevices. After an hour of hiking we could look down and see a limited view of the fields and roads from where we started. As we ascended the mountain the valley fell farther behind and smaller in relation to the expanding horizon. Libra glyph, could it be a cloud hovering over a horizon? Then before the final Sagittarian thrill of running around for various views from the top, we had the Scorpio scramble over craggy terrain. The switch backs and hairpin turns made it seem like we were going nowhere. We had to watch our step and keep track of how younger siblings, or the dog that got out of the house and tracked us up the mountain, made dangerous passages. We started gauging time to see how much daylight we had left, some days we had to face the sad realities of delayed starts and turn around before reaching the top. Scorpio - so close we hated turning back - such an investment of time and energy seemingly wasted.
Virgo, Libra and Scorpio - the ascent that leads to the only comprehensive understanding of where we actually began. And when we look at the sky it appears as a descent.
