Venus ingress Pisces: There’s a Kind of Hush

My local radio station has been running a Carpenters retrospective. How Venus in Pisces (conjunct Neptune) is that?!

From Planet Waves:

Venus is exalted in Pisces, combining the personal affection of Venus with the divine compassion of Neptune, modern ruler of Pisces (which will join Venus Feb 3). Because of this combination – love and compassion – Isabel Hickey notes the willingness of this placement to sacrifice for love, to be wounded by love – because only in knowing love can the freedom of the spirit be known.

Breathing between thoughts

Or at least speaking them out loud.

Mars in Virgo is squaring my Gemini stellium at the moment, and will do so three times in the next few months. Mercurial thoughts are racing fast and furious — only I forget that thinking aloud doesn’t always communicate what I’m feeling to others. And thinking my frustrations aloud just makes things worse.

As Mars prepares to retrograde in a few weeks for nearly four months, my note to self is to take a breath between each thought, if not literally, then metaphorically. And stay the quip, the tongue lash, the Martian urge to insist that what I think must ‘count’.

Image: Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (1485) (Wikimedia Commons)

Cancer Moon, oh Cancer Moon

I’ve had two fights — let’s call them ‘mutual displays of inner fragilities and fear’ — already. And it’s not even lunchtime.

Mystic Medusa’s advice on what not to do this full moon weekend is not inaccurate. I wish it could’ve been avoided. Happy Full Moon! I’m going to bake a cake or something and recuperate.

Image: Red Crabs (Wikimedia Commons).

2011 — stepping across the line

I’ve had so little time for this blog this year, I’m still amazed (and grateful) that people seem to still be subscribing to it…! Thank you!

2011 — what a year for everyone! In all, I would say that I’ve had a good one in spite of the chaos and anxiety swirling everywhere. I’ve tried to stay centred, to not get caught up with other people’s crises, and by and large I’ve succeeded.

Looking back, 2011 has been a year where I’ve tried to put the lessons of the past few years into practice — not simply to discard, or run from, what I didn’t want, but to articulate what I did. To step across the line and be counted, even if only within myself. What was I willing to put up with, what could I change, what are my politics, my values, who did I want to be? Who do I want to be with?

The Uranus-Pluto square in the coming year promises more upheaval, but after the last two eclipses in Sagittarius and Gemini, I have no fear of coming through the other side.

My resolution for 2012 is that it is okay not to have a resolution. Just be yourselves. Happy new year, all.

Do what you’re doing when you’re doing it

Large scale natural (and man-made) disasters, like the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, often drive people to come up with ‘explanations’ for why these events happen. Like the response to the tsunami disaster that struck the countries in the Indian Ocean in 2004, I’ve come across a few claims that the ’cause’ of the suffering in Japan today is the ‘result’ of a collective national karma for its past. Depending on which you read, accounts range from their misdeeds during WWII, to their failure to take care of the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki! All of which I personally find pretty outrageous, and the reason why I’m not linking to them — in the age of the Internet, they’re easy enough to find if you’re inclined to look.

I don’t claim to know whether or not it is a collective karma at work. It may well be so, I can’t say. What I’m more intrigued by is the audacity of any one person to claim to know such a thing. I don’t feel particularly well versed in any of the theologies that support the concept of karma, but from my own fledgling and intermittent Buddhist studies, I’ve picked up a sense that the notion of karma, at least in the Buddhist tradition, is far more complex, layered and ineffable to be so crudely applied.

Death and Facebook

I experienced my first Facebook bereavement today. A friend of mine whom I didn’t realise had cancer had passed on, and I only found out when his brother (whom I didn’t know) sent me a Facebook message and broke the news.

I try and cultivate the responsible use of Facebook, carefully managing my privacy settings and posting only news of genuine amusement or interest (as opposed to flooding others’ newsfeed with Farmville updates). I know Facebook has its critics but it appeals to my Gemini Sun and my Aquarian 3rd house, and I use it to support existing relationships.

Still, nothing prepared me for the news of a relationship prematurely terminated in this manner. And yet, I am grateful for it, for I might never have found out otherwise.

I write, therefore it is

I decided to buy an astrological datebook this year, after years of relying on electronic calendars. By chance, I picked up a copy of We’Moon 2011, and I really like it.*

Apart from noting lunar cycles, it also gives you daily aspects made by the transit of the moon. Geared towards ‘womyn‘, it aims for a holistic celebration of our common humanity. Its pages also take us beyond the ordinary datebook: they are full of amazing pictures and inspirational writings, poetry, as well as a wealth of astrological information and even an ephemeris. It’s brilliant! Makes me happy to write stuff in it.

I use it to record daily tarot card draws, dreams and other metaphysical phenomena. In the notes pages at the back, I listed my new year’s intentions on the day before the Capricorn solar eclipse, and felt something powerful as the words emerged on the page. As a triple Gemini, I’m as wedded to my computer as anyone else — I used to make these lists on Word, and notes on iCal — but I am slowly recuperating the pleasures of taking pen to paper and savouring their materiality.

* I don’t work for We’Moon! Just sharing my experience of it.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 17 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 237 posts. There were 5 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 67kb.

The busiest day of the year was March 10th with 281 views. The most popular post that day was Happiness is ….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were astrodispatch.com, libraseekingbalance.com, cafeastrology.com, juliedemboski.wordpress.com, and realastrologers.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for vesta, theodore gericault, delacroix, sex and zen, and elvira mistress of the dark.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Happiness is … March 2010
4 comments

2

Controlled chaos, or thoughts on the Saturn-Uranus opposition September 2008

3

Sex and Zen I: Vesta March 2008
2 comments

4

The mad woman leaves the attic October 2009
6 comments

2010 — self-alignment

The cardinal cross of 2010 has been good to me on many levels, though it hasn’t been by any means easy. Occurring in the angular houses of my chart, it has become evident as I look back on the year that 2010 has been for me a series of lessons on aligning my inner self with my outer world. It has been about learning to be comfortable in my own skin, but also about creating environments — physical, social, emotional — that resonate well with my instincts.

The hardest word

Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970)

In this classic film, Ryan O’Neal’s character utters the memorable lines: ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’

But what if love has nothing to do with it?

Are people noticing that ‘sorry’ is becoming an increasingly rare word? In the world of work and business, at least. No one seems willing to taking responsibility for mistakes anymore — the Wikileaks saga encapsulates this on a macro scale.

Out of complexity, brutality

In this article, sociologist Saskia Sassen analyses the collective hardship produced by the recent meltdown of financial institutions as the result of a cynical process by which systems of extreme complexity are created for the sake of profit, and which results in also delivering a base brutality.

I can’t think of a better way of describing what going on right now. What’s disheartening is I’m starting to see this equation everywhere now. Recently came across the term ‘knowledge harvesting’ (Google it if you must, I refuse to link to these organisations), which in effect refers to a systematic retrieval of ‘knowledge’ from people before you sack them. If words can be said to have an aura, ‘knowledge harvesting’ brings up the sense of cold, hard steel, every science fiction nightmare come to pass.

Learning to receive

I was reading something today about ‘learning to receive’ and was thinking how underrated receiving is. We’re all taught that giving is a good thing and taking is generally frowned upon, but how many of us are socialised into receiving with grace?

I’m bad at asking for help but quite good at volunteering to do things. Hence, my plate is almost always too full. But when someone offers to help, it is only very recently that I’ve learned to simply say ‘Thanks’, instead of ‘Thanks, it’s ok.’ Because it isn’t usually ok, if I’m honest with myself. And I’ve learned to appreciate the offer, not just of help, but of human connection.