full moon in aquarius, mercury cazimi, saturn against EVERYONE and a week long square between mars and venus? this one's for the rebel hearts.

astrology for the week of 8/19/24 - 8/25/24

“seeing is believing—believing in what you see—and this instantly confers belief to whoever, whatever receives your sight. the gift of sight surpasses the gifts of insight. for such sight blesses; it does transformative work. you are a displayed phenomenon. “to be” is first of all to be visible. passively allowing yourself to be seen opens the possibility of blessing. so we seek lovers and mentors and friends that we may be seen, and blessed.”

The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, James Hillman 

the stars above us:

artist: Sarah Jarret

while this week is less relentless than the week we’ve just finished, the skies are not finished with us yet. there are two big energies dominating the week; monday’s cazimi full supermoon (a mouthful) in aquarius being squared by uranus + the mutable tsquare between the malefics and the debilitated benefics with the final square from mars to venus unwinding throughout the week. 

this full moon is a glaring + urgent spotlight on issues of self vs society and anytime you have the malefics making harsh contacts to venus you know the gender wars + the state of love™️ (bleak) are going to be flaring in the collective consciousness.  

this is one of the places where i love astrology’s ability to depersonalize the collective themes the world is working thru. to an astrologer this is an age old battle between venus + mars and the principles they manifest in the world.  we all know their myth; aphrodite + ares, the goddess of love and the god of war, forever hopelessly entangled in their obsessive (and usually toxic) love for each other.

but while venus represents women in many forms and mars represents men in many ways; venus is not just a lover girl and mars is not just a man of war.  they exist beyond sex, they are inherent drives + needs we are all born with, that we will all be called to express at some point. so in true aquarian fashion let’s get impersonal to address one of the most important questions any of us will ever face. why is love such hell and what are we going to do about it? 

there’s something about venus…

artist: Elisa Reimer

“you must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand for all that is life.”

-J Krishnamurti

jupiter + venus are our benefics, the life giving planets, with venus being the lesser of the two.  while jupiter is concerned with producing abundance to provide for the many, venus is personal.  venus is what gives us life, what we value, what stirs the heart to fight thru the horrors in pursuit of beauty and truth.

venus brings the peace of shared love & union with the Beloved, human or divine. venus is beauty, satisfaction, pleasure and charm.  i once heard venus referred to as a necromancer because she’s the one that has the ability to bring someone back from death or it’s earthly form, depression. real love can do that (sometimes). love can lift us out of the deepest pits of despair, charging and revitalizing a weary spirit. no wonder we all want an open + unconditional supply. 

the problem here is love (the real + transformative stuff) can’t be forced.  it can be persuaded, and coaxed and revealed but venus does not respond well to pressure. it’s too easy to smother & extinguish the spark of desire, far harder to patiently tend it into a steady flame where it transcends the reactive push/pull of mars and venus. it’s easy to take venus for granted when she’s present + generous with her charms but we sure do notice when she’s gone and love’s left the building. 

but from an aquarian lens (lest we forget the full moon exposing all this all so completely), it’s impossible to ignore all the ways men and women have always been incurably alike in this regard; fighting the same battles and tending the same wounds, cleverly disguised to look like the work of an enemy combatant. to aquarius, genus overrides gender. we are humans working our way thru the human experience before we are men and women and everything in between. everyone has a heart that can be broken and everyone has the capacity to do tremendous harm in the wake of that pain.  no one escapes saturn’s suffering here so why do we pretend otherwise? 

saturn and the sun: a (sort of) love story

artist: Elisa Reimer

although modern lore has the sign of aquarius as an eccentric humanitarian, The People’s Weirdo, traditional delineations of this sign were much less…generous. fixed air saturn is very much interested in social order, but in a far more orthodox way. what one size fits all solution solves this? what single standard of behavior can be imposed on everyone for the betterment of all? humans are human after all. we are all horrible in our own little ways and we all need similar things so surely there is a way for everyone to get what they need and then chill tf out and stop torturing each other. right? 

leo would say “not quite” and i would have to agree. after seeing hundreds of birth charts at this point i have zero doubts that everyone is sent here with their own mission. creations they owe the world soul that will never be given life thru anyone else. pieces of heaven only you will ever be able to bring down to earth. the heart’s sidequests if you will, aka, the point of everything. 

the relationships we pour into, the families we raise, the art we create and the audiences who witness + appreciate it. jobs we take pride in and the work we do out of brotherly love, not just duty; all of these are in the domain of leo. leo is the pride we take in our individual contributions to the whole thing; the drive to self actualize and do more, shine brighter and witness more deeply.  but leo can’t always see the big picture thru its blinding rays.  it’s saturn, keeper of time, the outermost planet who sees all. 

they need each other just like venus + mars do, they are meant to be in union. a healthy self (leo) is needed to serve a strong collective (aquarius) and the most antisocial thing anyone can be in possession of these days is an inferiority complex. you deal with people differently and perhaps more fairly when you know deep down you are dealing with an equal (neither above you nor below you). you have your gifts and burdens and i have mine and they may not look the same but if we look a little deeper, we can clearly see that they are. 

this is not to say life is fair, at least not in the sense that we’ve been taught to demand. we come here with unbalanced scales and uncertain fates, that is nature’s way. circumstances may differ wildly but the human spirit? that endures. that is unchanging. if we want to balance the scales of circumstance for ourselves and the world around us (and we absolutely should because anything else is madness) we have to choose to do that work. that’s an act of love, and like i said before, it can’t be forced.

future lore:

artist: Sarah Jarrett

“dying is part of living. you cannot love without dying, dying to everything which is not love, dying to all ideals which are the projection of your own demands, dying to all the past, to the experience, so that you know what love means and therefore what living means. so living, loving and dying are the same thing, which consists in living wholly, completely, now.”

―J. Krishnamurti

this week starts with a saturn ruled full moon, with saturn averse, squaring mars and and being opposed by venus. we know how saturn moves, if this full moon has hit any sensitive points in your chart you may be dealing with separations or sobering realizations of what is truly required to support the growth of whatever venus symbolizes in your life. if that’s you, my heart is with you, taking a chance on love and union in the current connection crisis is possibly one of the bravest things any of us can do.

there’s lots of idealization floating around about how to safeguard our relationships so no one is ever left and no one is ever hurt, everyone gets the same amount of attention and care and it is never interrupted BUT truly we all know it will never work (or at least the people actually attempting this thing called Relationship know it). no one really wants a forced, obligatory connection and venus will only rebel anyways. this is why it’s a horrible, terrible, no good idea to deify our lovers into Divine Beings that can either save or extinguish us. it’s a pedestal too high and a crown too heavy to force on anyone else. we come in and out of each other’s lives for many reasons: as muses, as catalysts, friends, antagonists, and yes sometimes life long partners-but we are people still.

this is why, imo, the people we are in relationship with, where reciprocity + mutual care are established deserve more dedication and presence than ever before. but if the stars have crossed and they cannot be untangled, this week brings the opportunity for humane severances. this is not just some act of detached aquarian altruism, it’s a crucial act of leo’s self love. it frees you from an unnecessary burden of regret and the quicksand of revenge seeking (mars square venus). it’s very unlikely that you’ve met all the people you will love in this lifetime which is why it’s so important to lay the past to rest, mourn what you must and leave the hungry ghosts of “what if” far behind you.

anyways, this was a novel, but you know how we feel about Lover’s Rights around here and there was much to say. thank you for being here in all your human splendor. life would be far less beautiful without you in it. just thought you should know.

until next week,

emilie