VENUSIAN VENTURES
Venus in Cancer Opposite Pluto in Capricorn at 27*
Last December Venus connected to Pluto in conjunction, a conjunction through which became painfully, soberingly extended due to Venus stationing retrograde upon that same degree… this degree was 26* Capricorn.
Now, today, Venus connects to Pluto—in opposition, through the twenty-seventh degree.
This degree has been given the headliner of ‘A Violent Storm in a Residential Canyon Filled with Valuable Homes’.
This degree associates itself with what astrologer Dane Rudhyar referred to as ‘catharsis’, regarding specifically ‘a confrontation with a social upheaval demanding the reconsideration of static values…’ Rudhyar explains his transcriptions as “rising to the occasion… and perhaps to undergo an inner metamorphosis as a result of the crisis (in being able to accept it all as a personal challenge)…”
Rudhyar, here, is being somewhat hopeful—however dramatically.
Another perspective of this degree regards a deeper situation than one may have originally imagined or understood… and now “you are caged by the walls around you.”
Further, “there is probably no immediate escape from the turbulence that is happening—you may have had some forewarning that this storm was coming; with pressure piling up, threatening to explode at any moment…”
Further still, “you may have had no intention or made no particular movements to invoke this storm, however, it’s out of hand in your environment nonetheless…”
However, this perspective’s advice is entirely different from Rudhyar’s, advising instead, that “the best thing to do is wait it out and protect yourself, and those around you—although this may have been building for days, or years, many are often taken by surprise at the sudden turn of events or the intensity of what’s being unleashed.”
One must remember, too, when considering Rudhyar’s advising and transcriptions, overall, that Rudhyar was absolutely operating from a place of higher consciousness, and thereby ‘rising to the occasion’ of such a metaphorical storm is, indeed, an elevated concept. One cannot ‘rise to the occasion’ when reacting from a pace of ego emotion… but perhaps, should one allow oneself to shift instinctually-motivated gears and try alternative routes of response… this—this is rising to the occasion within this particular astrological opportunity.
Allow me to remind you, as well, dear friends and readers—that we are now living within, and operating through, the Age of Air… no longer are we within the Age of Earth, those days are No Longer—the Age of Air does not play by the same rules. Absolutely everything has changed, if you haven’t noticed… and nothing—not even the most familiar or traditional of things—works, or behaves, or feels, or seems quite the same anymore. Nothing has been left unaffected.
In the Age of Air, as we will all soon learn, if we aren’t already—that there is no controlling anything anymore, and I write that as ‘controlling’… just as one cannot control air. Politicians and lawmakers, mankind and its agendas—these will all attempt to control, just as always, with pitifully painful results. May we learn, rather, how to shift, redirect, or alternate routes of things…
This Venus/Pluto opposition, for instance.
A typical Venus/Pluto aspect coupling, naturally, regards an intensity of emotionality—an emotionality that typically needs to be controlled to some effect; tempered, guided, protected, monitored… in this Age of Air, then, we cannot control such intensities of emotionality in the same ways as before—they weren’t working anyway. Now—now we have the opportunity to alternate such intensities; through this particular degree, with its metaphorical storm—there is no controlling a storm, metaphorical or otherwise—one must only hope to withstand it, keep protected from it… survive it. One must know how to navigate such a storm as to redirect one’s own path, by moving oneself from its direct path.
Flexibility, folks… much like air. The winds simply shift in direction.
Perhaps this, then, is the current opportunity in ‘rising to the occasion’?
Any arguments or emotionally-driven confrontations or psychic energies gone wild storming at you—try changing your status quo; try an alternative response to whatever instinctive reaction you might typically, and defensively, have thrown out in the past… see if this helps navigate the storm in a different direction—bringing it back to Rudhyar’s higher consciousness: be mightier than the storm.
Remember, too—there’s too many things to remember in this post!—that while Venus moves through Cancer our vulnerabilities and weaknesses feel exponentially heightened… whether they actually are, in reality, or not is entirely quite irrelevant—because they feel… what is felt is what Venus in Cancer exemplifies—however erroneously irrational these feelings may be. In fact, something that might actually help in redirecting an actively confrontational metaphorical storm is expressed through the courageous voicing of your vulnerabilities… ending your claim with something that sounds like, “that’s just how I feel…” but only if you’ve actually courageously opened yourself.
Back in December, when Venus was conjunct Pluto, we were being confronted, in one way or another, in ways most varied by as many of us there are… ultimately, with the confrontation of ourselves with ourselves—our own vulnerabilities and psychologically-motivated impulses…
So could this opposition between Venus and Pluto be derived from whatever you experienced or navigated back in December? Perhaps. I suppose so, very much…
But it could also be something quite new, or as old as the hills within your lifetime, or before…
Either way, most essentially, it’s a metaphorical storm to take seriously, though flexibly—it is important, too (again!) to remember that the sun is currently moving through Leo (whereas the sun was moving through Capricorn through the conjunction), and thereby radiates upon more courageous motivations—and so it is also an opportunity to willfully and genuinely take the higher road, to be mightier than the storm itself, and to embody your better self, through the occasion of your higher consciousness…
Courageously claiming your feelings, in spite of whatever metaphorical storm you’re experiencing, is perhaps your opportunity to ‘rise to the occasion’ now… despite whatever fears, chaos, upheaval, or potential destruction—because in Cancer, Venus blesses your feelings, if they be true—though only those that are actually working for you, in your honor, toward your higher self, will thrive through whatever plutonian problem is provoking an otherwise on-the-surface peaceful landscape.
Allow your responses to be flexible, and your feelings to evolve beyond an egoic origin—because even though they’re yours, it doesn’t mean they’re working for you….
Hence, the metaphorical storm.
You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
—Barbara de Andelis
Goldsmith, M. ‘The Zodiac by Degrees.’ Weiser Books; 2004.
Hill, L. ‘360 Degrees of Wisdom.’ A Plume Book; 2004.
Rudhyar, D. ‘An Astrological Mandala.’ Vintage Books; 1973.