The Kindness of Venus in Scorpio

I am often asked why the time of birth from a birth certificate is important.  An astrological example from a memorable moment of life is a good way to illustrate the power of knowing the exact time and place of first breath.  Today's post is such an example in my chart.

Venus passed over the location of my natal Moon yesterday, Dec 19.  It was late, actually I should have said the transit was last night.  I was going to the car to do a couple of night errands; I needed to pick up a winter jacket I had left at my customer's house Monday, the day before, and then head to the Food Lion (the one on Avent Ferry that stays open till midnight) for onions and greens etc.  

Venus is in 3rd house (bottom left quadrant of circle) at 18°♏15'

As I was walking to the car I called for Brownie - she'd been missing since Monday when I left for work at lunch time.  She was not out front in the morn, when I got up, waiting patiently in the sun, facing the front door so she could see me when I looked out the little window.  There was still no sign of her when I left for work just before 1pm.  I wasn't worried, just figured that was lucky because I was running a bit late and feeling very sluggish.  If she had been out front I would have been pressed to return to the house to put crunchies in her dish and fresh water in her bowl.  She does occasionally skip a meal.  Saturday night I was up till 4am cleaning windows to beat the coming storm.  And she was in and out the whole time.  Then Sunday while it rained all day she spent a lot of time inside and on my lap.  It seemed natural that she would want to enjoy the clear skies after so much time in the house.  She likes to lick water from the various buckets I use to catch the rain.  There was a wide assortment of freshly filled buckets to taste from.  So even though I didn't see her around I figured she'd be waiting for dinner when I got home from work.

It was after dark, 7:15 and pretty chilly.  I missed her meeting me at the car, meowing loudly as she approached the driver's side door.  Lately, she is at the foot of the driveway and wanders from one side to the other a couple of times; I stop, back up a bit and talk to her from behind the windshield, asking her to get out of the way.  Ugh, wondering if I will have to put the car in park, turn off the engine and get out to move her, but no, she always crosses to the roots of the giant oak tree eventually.  I pull in the driveway, park the car, and our evening conversion begins as soon as I exit with my bag of cleaning gloves, and 'cleaning uniform', an old pair of shorts and a t-shirt covered with bleach marks.  We talk all the way to the mailbox and into the house.  Unless it's really cold she stops at the door and waits for me to come back out with food.

On the bottom left of the chart you can see Venus; most non astrologers will recognize it as the female symbol, but don't be fooled, Venus is about much more than traditional notions of sex and gender.  That pie slice is the 3rd house counting counter clockwise from the AC (ascendent).  When we say Venus is in the 3rd house we are saying it is in the 3rd section of the ecliptic lined up to rise above the eastern horizon.  See the Sun (little circle with dot) in the 4th house?  Right now Venus is a morning 'star', it rises before the Sun, so early birds can see it in the wee hours of darkness right before daylight.

At 9:54 Tuesday night, when I found Brownie's corpse on the other side of the street, Raleigh was turning back toward the Scorpio area of the ecliptic where Venus is currently traveling.  The Sun is almost finished going through Capricorn, while Venus is flyng through the second half of Scorpio.  

Plato had Timeaus talk extensively about how our casual notions of up and down are very misleading.  The chart makes it look like Venus will eventually (in about 6.5 hours) cross above the horizontal line, but actually, we in Raleigh are revolving toward Venus and it just looks to us like 'her' beautiful light rises up out of the sea of darkness before daybreak. 

When we go backwards in time, by 12 minutes, we can see Sun in 5th house and Pluto in 6th. 

I do feel the loss, but writing about the detailed order of our sister planets helps enormously to keep me focused on the long haul of life.  A taste of immortality does actually diminish the ache of loss and worry about failure.

So there she had probably lain, her corpse at least, since Monday morning when she did not show up for breakfast.  All those times I had called her, night and day, her body was within hearing distance.  But the breath of life was gone.  Psyche in Greek, ruach in Hebrew.  

I skooped her up in an old towel, placed her on a rug in the mudroom, it was down in the 20's last night so I was not worried about bugs yet, then I went to run my night errands with no more worries about where she was.

That's the kindness of Venus in Scorpio.  

My natal chart showing Moon at 18°♏ 14' in the 2nd house.

My natal Moon is 18° ♏ 14'.  During the 12 minutes that I was making my mind up to pick up the jacket and go to the store, instead of putting it off till morn, Venus was passing over the place where the Moon was the moment I was born.  The Moon travels at least 12° in the Zodiac every 24 hours.  That means it takes about 1 minute of clock time for the Moon to travel half a minute in the Zodiac, which is about 1/120 of a degree.  That's pretty specific.  We're not talking about Venus being in the same sign as my natal Moon - Venus has been in Scorpio since Dec 5.  That's 2 weeks.  We're not even talking about the same degree.  Venus right now takes about 24 hours to pass through a degree.  We're talking about the 12 minutes of clock time Venus took to pass through 1/2 a minute of the Zodiac - the same 1/2 minute of arc my natal Moon passed through in just one clock minute 65 years ago.

Only by having my exact time of birth from my birth certificate could I know that last night, while I was about to find Brownie's body, Venus was moving over the same position as the Moon when I drew my first breath.

Brownie was 21 years old when she died.  Though she ate and lingered around my husband as he used to sit on the front porch, noone could touch her.  Her greatest fear was to be touched by us or enter the house.  That was when she first appeared. She was young, but already full size.  She never sprung or jumped from one place to the other.  After a few years and auspicious but seemingly tragic events: she lost a litter of kittens to a predator and tried to steal another litter from the cat who left her babies in my closet to go out.  I had no screen in my bedroom window, and she snuck in to nurse the babies.  Only then could we touch her.  Gradually over many years she came to love sitting on our lap or having her thick winter coat brushed out in the summer. 

She never iniated play like a kitten.  She would occasionally swat at a crumpled paper at the end of a string.  Sometimes at night I would see her stalking something under the street light.  But there was always something very humble, practical and uncatlike about her.

Scorpio is associated with procreation and death.

The Hour is Nigh

 

A further quote from Philo.  I just love that this is stuff people were reading when Jesus was walking on Earth.

XXV. (77) And some one may inquire the cause why it was that man was the last work in the creation of the world. For the Creator and Father created him after every thing else as the sacred scriptures inform us. Accordingly, they who have gone most deeply into the laws, and who to the best of their power have investigated everything that is contained in them with all diligence, say that God, when he had given to man to partake of kindred with himself, grudged him neither reason, which is the most excellent of all gifts, nor anything else that is good; but before his creation, provided for him every thing in the world, as for the animal most resembling himself, and dearest to him, being desirous that when he was born, he should be in want of nothing requisite for living, and for living well; the first of which objects is provided for by the abundance of supplies which are furnished to him for his enjoyment, and the other by his power of contemplation of the heavenly bodies, by which the mind is smitten so as to conceive a love and desire for knowledge on those subjects; owing to which desire, philosophy has sprung up, by which, man, though mortal, is made immortal.

This Mars conjunction of Sun is getting to me.  A bit of astrology helps distract my mind from all the distressing thoughts generated by distressing events.  They're always out there.  But sometimes they really grab our attention and squeeeeeze!  They wring it like the final spin on a Maytag wash cycle.

Sooo - in case anyone is wondering how I got this time.  It really is not hard to get to.  Just follow these 7 easy FREE steps.  We're entering the deep, dark secrets of the Swiss ephemeris.  Oooh!  This will be an adventure for sure.

First go to the astro.com page.  Go from All about Astrology (at top of page) > Ephemeris > 9000 Years Ephemeris > Planetary Cycles > Mars Cycles 1600-2100. I made the images for these steps small, but you can click on them to get a better look.

Now for the wand waving -- That 5:43 time next to the Nov 18 date is UT which is kind of like GMT.  (London Calling)  If you scroll back up and look in box of info above the chart you'll see Time and then Univ Time right under that.  To get the time for Raleigh, I subtracted 5 hours from the Univ Time.

I got a chart for Nov 18, 2023  Raleigh, NC 00:43 and there you can see (in the bottom left quadrant) Sun right next to Mars at 25Scorpio37. 

Venus Ruling in Sign of Diplomacy

The chart below is for the moment the following phrase came into my mind:  

They anthropomorphized universal traits and called them gods.

For several months I've been pondering the ancient Greek stories of gods, especially as told in the Illiad.  I have struggled for years with the Bible, mythologies of various cultures and miracle stories.  I used to find them all very irritating and just wanted to make them go away like flies at a picnic.

Now, on the internet, we all have access to scholarly presentations from people who are steeped in the languages and cultures from which these tall tales originate.  It's so refreshing to get a respectful but sober perspective on these ancient writings.  Here is a link to one of my favorites Mueller on Menis.

I still have many moments of profound irritation:  do they really have to make it all so convoluted and complicated?  And after a break from study, a return to the everyday ups and downs of human existence, I am reminded of just how frought and complicated life is, all life.  Scientifically and psychologically life is a barrel of monkeys and very often a fight to the death.

Sure, when we get a better look we can see that the nucleic acids in our cells are all neatly wound on spools, and the amino acids in the proteins that hum away like invisible robots hidden deep in our cells are all folded according to a rule that precedes the oldest form of human knowledge.  But it took an incredible amount of human striving, searching, real suffering and dispassionate cooperation to unravel those secrets.  This morning I clicked on an article about how scientists have linked forms of lead and silver to various ancient mines to trace the early spread of silver coinage and the rise of Athens.  They neglected to mention the slave laborers who extracted ore from those mines.

I like to quietly give thanks for the social justice rabble rousers when I see mentions in articles, say in wikipedia, that make a note of slave labor.  A fact that once would have been considered unworthy of mention.

But back to my chart for this post.  See Venus at the top?  It looks just like the symbol we use for female.  It's in the sign Libra ♎ where it actively rules.  It's only been in this place of power since Wed.  Can you see diplomacy on the rise?

Meanwhile the Sun is less than 2.5 degrees from its lineup with Mars.  They have this meeting every couple of years, but it rarely happens in a sign where the planet of passion is ruling.  See the blue M to the left of Libra with the arrow on it?  That's Scorpio ♏.  So while the planet of the ego is lining up with War in the sign of self preservation, the planet of diplomacy is in a section of its cycle where it too has power.

÷    =    ÷    =    ÷    =    ÷    =

The Moon (crescent at top of chart) in ♎, was crossing the meridian the moment that phrase came to me.  That really means Raleigh, where I live, was facing toward the Moon in the sign of diplomacy, just at the moment that phrase was finally born in my little mind.  A location on Earth only faces a particular planet along the ecliptic for a few minutes, then passes on to the next degree in the 360degrees it passes each day.

I've been reading Philo of Alexandria.  He was about 25 years older than Jesus.  Like most Jews of those days living in Egypt, he didn't speak Hebrew.  He knew enough to make Hebrew references in his writings, but by that time most Jews in Egypt were reading their sacred books in Greek.  Also like a lot of Jews he read a good bit of Greek philosophy.  And though I never see it mentioned, I would guess he was familiar with a good bit of Egyptian and Achaemenid writings.  I'm reading his work 'On the Creation', a commentary on the Book of Genesis.  I'm delighted with many passages, but I made a note of the one copied below, which refers to a place in Genesis where 'God' is referred to in a plural rather than singular term.

XXIV. (72)   "And he would not err who should raise the question why Moses attributed the creation of man alone not to one creator, as he did that of other animals, but to several. For he introduces the Father of the universe using this language: "Let us make man after our image, and in our likeness." Had he then, shall I say, need of any one whatever to help him, He to whom all things are subject? Or, when he was making the heaven and the earth and the sea, was he in need of no one to co-operate with him; and yet was he unable himself by his own power to make man an animal so short-lived and so exposed to the assaults of fate without the assistance of others? It is plain that the real cause of his so acting is known to God alone, but one which to a reasonable conjecture appears probable and credible, I think I should not conceal; and it is this. (73) Of existing things, there are some which partake neither of virtue nor of vice; as for instance, plants and irrational animals; the one, because they are destitute of soul, and are regulated by a nature void of sense; and the other, because they are not endowed with mind or reason. But mind and reason may be looked upon as the abode of virtue and vice; as it is in them that they seem to dwell. Some things again partake of virtue alone, being without any participation in any kind of vice; as for instance, the stars, for they are said to be animals, and animals endowed with intelligence; or I might rather say, the mind of each of them is wholly and entirely virtuous, and unsusceptible of every kind of evil. Some things again are of a mixed nature, like man, who is capable of opposite qualities, of wisdom and folly, of temperance and dissoluteness, of courage and cowardice, of justice and injustice, in short of good and evil, of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, of virtue and vice."

=    ÷    =    ÷    =    ÷    =

Somehow, thinking on Philo's commentary on Genesis helped formulate the idea I've been striving for, just like the Titans whose name means to strive or reach, those early generation gods of the Greeks.  I keep thinking of Paris being pressured into choosing the fairest of 3 goddesses, and how that was not even the root cause in the tragic war recounted in the Illiad, but a step along the long descent into madness.  Beauty personified, righteous anger personified - not just personified but elevated to a godlike status.  Why?  Maybe because all humans have been striving since first memory  (Mnemesone, another early generation goddess) to free themselves, ourselves from the bondage of these universal traits.

Link to Philo of Alexandria 'On the Creation' 

Scorpio as Quiet Strength

Mercury lines up with Mars tomorrow morn US east coast time.  The meeting occurs in the sign Scorpio.  

Mercury on point of overtaking Mars.  They are in upper left quadrant under the sign Scorpio.

The blue M in outer circle with an arrow is the symbol for Scorpio.  Here is a video that introduces some of the zodiac signs including Scorpio.  This link goes to a page about how the amount of radiation we get from a body changes as it moves from one sign to another.  We have lost quite a bit of light during Sun's passage through Libra, and it is continuing to decrease in Scorpio.

Early Scorpio (almost 12 degrees Scorpio) is the area of the ecliptic where Mercury meets Mars tomorrow.

Then it will take almost a few more weeks to reach the Sun Mars line up.  They will still be in Scorpio.

Sun is next to Mars in lower left quadrant.  They are meeting near the end of Scorpio.

Scorpio is often associated with secrets, death etc.  I like to imagine food cooked, stored safely in sanitized jars and stashed away for future use.  Then of course there is the unattractive fruit left behind whose seed will find a place in the soil to germinate when the time is right.

Naturally (as in according to the patterns of nature) with Mars in the mix there will be quite a bit of adrenaline involved.  Mars comes with an acute sense of urgency, and it rules passively in Scorpio.

I've got to save this chart.  It's for the moment I got the thought that kindness is not something that can be enforced, it has to be learned by example.

Moon meeting Venus in early Virgo at top of chart opposing Saturn in Pisces at bottom.

It's possible to enforce politically correct behavior.  But what's correct is hard to agree on.  Kindness.  Venus is kindness.  It just entered Virgo, the sign of correct behavior.  How to hold kindness in our hearts as we debate on correct politics, correct government, correct behavior.

I learned kindness by watching carefully the people who have been kind to me and everyone they encounter, regardless of their beliefs.  We can't all do that.  The world needs fighters.  People who will heroically defend their right to exist.  But if you feel a need to be kind don't let political correctness get in the way.  It's like Jesus said about the poor, applying that same logic, political correctness will always be with us.

 

Desantis on Stono Rebellion

I'm distracting myself from finishing a difficult book on Mongolia.  At the rate I'm going I will not finish before the Fri due date, but this is too rich to let pass.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion  That's the link to an article about a courageous  rebellion around Charleston SC Sept 9, 1739.  

@          ?       @          ?

I was studying the chart for the Qing dynasty empress dowager's imperial decree to take first steps toward constitutional monarchy.  The road leading to that event was long and winding, or downright circular.  She had imprisoned a relative some years earlier for trying to initiate similar reforms and now here she was acting like a western radical.

I circled Neptune at 12° Cancer in top right quadrant of the chart.  You can see Jupiter at 6° Cancer following close behind along the ecliptic.

I do this all the time.  Not sure how people put up with it - are you wondering what the impending fall of Qing dynasty has to do with The Negro Act of 1740?

Well... my dizzy little astrological mind was wondering about the last time Neptune was in Cancer!  I played around in the ephemeris, a kind of mathematical river of organic time, and saw that was around 1740.  Since I am most familiar with US history I gravitated to the opposite side of the globe from China/Mongolia, and looked up events for US in 1740.

Up popped the Negro Act of 1740 precipitated by the Stono Slave Rebellion of 1739.  Get this!  The rebelling slaves were trying to escape to Spanish Florida!  Politics are so dynamic and slippery.  Moments like this I give myself a pass for feeling lost.  It's hard to keep up with all the twists and turns and byways of history.

Of course with all the controversy about Disney Land and how to teach history I had to make a note of this event in American Colonial history.  

Below is the 1740 paragraph from the Wikipedia US History timeline 

• 1740 – The Plantation Act of 1740 is passed to encourage immigration to the Thirteen Colonies and regularize the colonial naturalization procedures. Battle of Cartagena de Indias, where the colonists are called "Americans" for the first time. James Oglethorpe fails to take St. Augustine. South Carolina enacts the Negro Act of 1740.

Next is the chart for 9 months earlier, the day after the Stono Rebellion started.  

The slaves heading for asylum in Catholic Florida had already killed 1 or 2 people in the South Carolina Low Country and I imagine the slave owner posse was close on their heals.  You gotta read the article, here's the link again.  Stono Rebellion.  There's  a beautiful detail in the 1st paragraph under Events of the Revolt - ^] The Africans marched down the roadway with a banner that read "Liberty!", and chanted the same word in unison.  

Well, that's it.  Like I always say, there's so much in those charts.  When I perused the first one for Empress Dowager Cixi finally taking steps 'forward' to westernize China, and by extension Mongolia; and saw that hope mongering Jupiter coming to it's meeting with Neptune, it was like looking at a mathematical painting of industrial visions taking physical form and moving onto the Mongol Steppes with modern technology.  While many Chinese reformers were hailing the imperial proclamation that signaled a move toward modernization, positively inebriated with hope for a kinder more democratic government; nomadic herders in Mongolia were eyeing the arrival of thousands of Chinese technocrats and agricultural enterprises with grave worries about their own future.

Earth looks like such a jewel in the pictures from space.

Trump Chart and Facing the Truth

 I'm going to try to keep this one quick.  I have a great book from interlibrary loan about the history of Mongolia which will require a lot of my time.

$      $      $      $      $   

I often think about Trump's progressed chart having Venus in Libra.  In fact I believe his progressed Venus may have been rising around the time he declared his first campaign for pres.  It's been a while since I checked his chart though, so my memory could be playing tricks on me.

Above is Trump's chart progressed for Jan 6, 2021.  Maybe I checked his chart today, after so many years, because I watched the movie Uncle Tom a couple nights ago.  I found it to be a very polished presentation of right wing propaganda.  Venus rules in Libra and it is exalted, though accidentally, in the 12th house.  That's just the tip of what I think more people need to understand about this current set of circumstances.

Here is a link to a Youtuber's reaction to Uncle Tom.  I stumbled on the full movie for free, but can't find it now.  

I've been having a rocky transit of Saturn in Pisces on my natal Mars.  My 9 year old cat was really sick and  I wrestled with calling my wonderful vet as I watched her 3 month decline in quiet horror.  By the time I contacted the team of animal angels to euthanize her she was in shamefully awful shape.  I knew the doctor would be very diplomatic and not judge me, but I judged myself and found myself miles below the level of kindness this team of medical women apply to their work. 

As I was digging the hole for Mimi's corpse in my back yard I got in a visit with my Mexican neighbors.  We talked about animal care and our various experiences with vets; their encounters have been very judgemental, "How can you feed your dog that horrible food?!"  They pushed my neighbor to buy Science Diet.

Then the conversation moved to the recent gunshots.  I hear them at night and wonder.  Turns out our neighbor around the corner has had 2 bullets come through her front bedroom windows.  We all know the back story.  She is from the same pueblo as my next door neighbor.  We are all friends attending each others' bday parties etc.

I get irritated with liberal activists demonizing cops and tell people I have a secret inner Trump.  But after this episode with having my cat euthanized by a very kind and understanding vet, and only realizing after talking to other people about my shame in not spending more money to intervene in my cat's disease, that other people struggle with the same shame;  I'm coming to understand I'm not alone in this failure to reach such a high level of care for my pets.  

There's a difference between reaching for a goal because we're inspired by a stellar example and doing something to avoid being shunned.  I feel confident my vet wants the best for my pets, but understands my limitations.  

I'm surrounded by people who speak little or no English and struggle mightily to improve their lives.  Their hope, like the kindness of my vet, is a constant source of inspiration to me.  

My cat's body was in my freezer for a few days.  I had to interrupt digging the hole and save energy for cleaning houses.  Every time I opened the door her peaceful face was there.  I had wrapped her in a blanket but could not bear to cover her face.  It was a bit spookey.  I thought about the words for breath in Greek and Hebrew; psyche and ruach, and how they are related to the concept of soul.  That spookey feeling, like seeing her body was seeing her, as though she could wake up and return to life, made me think, "this is where ghost stories originate."

For me, every new experience with death is a chance to understand the popularity of ghost stories.

Saturday, while I was cleaning a house, I received a txt photo of flowers delivered to my front door.  Sure enough they were from the vet team.  I put them out on the spot where Mimi is tucked in the earth.  I keep driftimg to the back door and looking out at the beautiful bouquet.  I feel so forgiven for my limitations, so accepted as I am, so grateful for what I learned from both Mimi and the vet angels.

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I think people could learn a lot about both astrology and Trump by studying this chart, by contemplating the meaning of his progressed Venus in Libra and his progressed Saturn eggsactly on the midheaven the week of Jan 6, 2021.  Only an understanding of the mathematical likelihood of such an alignment can reveal the wisdom, or as the Greeks said, Sophia, tucked in the charts.

Whatever will be will be.  Like my vet, I believe that the vast majority of us are trying our best.  We're trying to take care of our pets, to be good citizens, to make it through life as creatures of impulse reaching for an understanding of our various stews of desires.

Seeing polished right wing propaganda made me feel better about my irritation with left wing propaganda.  I just don't like the smell of mendacity period.  But the whiff of truth, from any direction, is truly the breath of life.  Most of the time I find truth mixed in with tall tales.  I'm learning to live with that.