bibliomancy for venus - uranus

'groom'

The Lover comes, the Lover comes!
Open the way for him!
He’s looking for a heart,
Let’s show him one.
I scream
“What you come to hunt is me!”
He says laughingly,
“I’m here not to hunt you but to save you.”

(Rumi)

bibliomancy for mars and venus together in libra

"...Tristan is called to sacrifice. He thinks he is asked to sacrifice both anima and woman; but he is not. He is called only to sacrifice a way of approaching anima and a way of approaching woman. He is called to give up his precious claim to the right to live his soul by projection. He is called to give up his demand that woman bear his unconscious for him. If he could make that sacrifice, and make it cleanly, he would discover that what he thinks he has lost will be returned to him: his soul will be returned to him..."

(Robert A. Johnson, The Psychology of Romantic Love)

for venus and mercury square pluto...

'art class' ds 'o6

"my workshop participants, too, were in touch with their intution - but they assumed that intuition meant clear direction rather than intuitive guidance. They hoped one good intuitive 'hit' would give them the power to reorder their lives in complete harmony and happiness. But intuitive guidance does not mean following a voice to the Promised Land. It means having the self esteem to recognise that the discomfort or confusion that person feels is actually directing him to take charge of his life and make choices that will break him out of stagnation or misery."

(Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit)

bibliomancy for venus with saturn

"...earlier we considered the demonic feminine who must be appeased, as in the appearance of the rabid dog in the 'Font of the Knight of Treviso." Here, in this part of the alchemical text, we see her other face, the redemption bringer. Redemption comes experientially, when human and divine essences of being open to one another, and the cosmic heart of being penetrates between the mortal and divine spheres, and peace arrives..."

(Monica Wikman, Pregnant Darkness, Alchemy and the Rebirth of Consciousness, p 143)

and not forgetting a generation of pluto in virgo....

'unfinished business' ds '08

"...since modern roses of sin and sorrow tend to go beyond those of the past in extremities of anguish, the number and force of our roses maintaining affirmative roots become significant as a measure of our still surviving hope. It is surely a healthy sign that even in the troubled present the rose has continued to be far more often linked with attempts to resolve man's problems than with the deceptiveness of such attempts..."

(Barbara Seward, The Symbolic Rose)

This morning, while trying to figure out where this (almost) petrifying fearsome feeling I have is coming from, two things occured to me. First, that with planets moving through Virgo, including new entrant Venus, that these are touching an area of my own chart that's particularly potent; and second, that there's a whole generation of us with Pluto (and Uranus) in Virgo who are likely to be feeling it, to varying degrees, too.

Mars goes by this region of the cosmos regularly - about every two years; likewise Venus transits Virgo every year, so a lot of what we're experiencing now is familiar. However (and wherever) Virgo energy manifests itself in our lives, we're getting a fresh wave of Mars and Venus vibes and more opportunities to do as we Will, love as we can and continue soul-making as we do. Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, will have us come-what-may. Mars as the archetype which carries forth our desires, plus Venus's wont toward beauty and transformation - well, these are the easier energies to work with when it comes to Pluto's compulsion toward destruction-regeneration and digging through our depths for hidden treasure. The process can bring out parts of ourselves we didn't know we had and polish them up so that they're a pleasure to notice.

Born with Pluto in Virgo, Saturn's (once in 28 years) transit feels at once like a double dose of fear, death and pain. The darkest depths of Soul stretching to the outer limit of Ego. Mythical outcast Titan, King, Terrible Father (eater of offspring) - Lord of time, Dweller of the Threshold - the Grim Reaper - meets The Guy in Charge of Hell (where all things squalid and sordid dwell), in the constellation that represents service and honourable servitude and all things wholesome. It calls to us to a new awareness of how much our unconscious - both personal and collective - (Pluto) controls our lives and how our ideas about need (Saturn) do likewise.

I'm looking to Virgo's ruling planet, Mercury (who in this guise I like to think of as a girl, as the glyph for the constellation suggests) who has a part to play here - as psychopomp or guide of souls. In this capacity Mercury keeps our minds on our work, on the journey - vigilant against hungry ghosts that may pull us into a downward spiral towards despair - and points us toward the signs and the way out if we get carried away during this time.

Stay well, stay the path - and see you on the other side!

bibliomancy for venus in leo

'paradise chick' d sinclair '08

"We possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order...Let the soul fall in with the Ugly and at once it shrinks within itself, denies the thing, turns away from it, out of tune, resenting it." (Plotinus: V.8.13)

bibliomancy for venus opposite pluto...

'talk is cheap' d sinclair '08

Honey Sweet Words
Beware of words sweet as honey that betray your love and care.
You once treated a thief like your own son.
You would be humiliated and endangered if you fall into that trap again.

(if you can free yourself from this web of sweet poisoned words, this can be a very fertile time)

(from the Kuan Yin Oracle, Karcher;
41)

and for a Neptunian weekend...

"confirmation is always available, if you're looking for it" (Paracelcus)

For some reason I feel as though I should be diarising like a voyager on a doomed mission - a kind of 'ship's log'; day 31, we're running out of food. The work of keeping the engine running is keeping me from going insane but I'm so tired, even in my dreams I lie down and sleep. I don't know how much longer I can go on. If anyone finds this please tell my children I love them, that I tried....

Yeah OK, I'm overdramatising things a bit. Everything's alright. I look around me now and can see plenty to feel happy about. The house is gorgeous and scrubbed clean; a minimalist paradise (all the clutter is boxed up in the garage, which looks anything but minimalist). With the exertions - scrubbing, shifting around and boxing-up - I've toned up somewhat, so I'm feeling simplified physically too. Not to mention the 'make over' cost not a cent, so my financial fitness is increasing, as well as having avoided that 'decorated all in one day' look that so many professionally styled homes have. I've lived my axiom 'I have everything I need' to the highest this week, and proved my own resourcefulness. Yep, its pretty good.

So what if the house is officially 'on the market'? In the meantime we live in it, we're here.

Psyche, of course, has something to say about it all. In contrast to my dreams last weekend, which wanted me to wake up, snap out of it, check out of denial; last night's nocturnal images had me lying down under a table where I'd been preparing a meal with the Rigger, unable to stay awake any longer. 'Morning sickness'; I'm pregnant and need to rest. It occurs to me, in daylight, that its more like mourning sickness that points me to the floor, toward less emphasis on being on top of things. Maybe take a time out... I guess I'll dwell on it a while - things aren't always what they seem.

James Hillman writes that the soul makes intelligent statements to our conscious selves all the time. We only have to pay attention to what's being shown and then resist the urge to substitute images for their literal counterparts. What I've found, apart from that the resistance he suggests is easier said than done, is that if I allow it, the message of a dream, image or event really will be understood.

I've written about this before, anyway, so this is revision.

I don't think I can rest yet - there's a lot to be done. There are things that've been calling me - finishing up my series of articles on parenting with soul, for one. I have more to say about soul mates, about dreams and cledons and divination in general, and I've a book to write. Birds land on my back fence, asking to be part of it all - to be drawn into the scene.

The cosmic climate is strange and brilliant and more than ordinarily tricky, just the way I like it. Expect the unexpected...and dream on...

venus, the sun and mercury: a tipping point?

I don't usually like to write about astrology in any kind of direct way - not just because I'm not an astrologer (although as part of alchemy studies astrology is covered pretty thoroughly) but also for the reason that I don't like to offer interpretations. Rather, I prefer to point people towards their own ideas of what's going on, symbolically, metaphorically, allegorically.

One of the axioms of alchemy goes something like (forgive me for not quoting the original Latin) 'the macrocosm and the microcosm are the same' or as some would have it 'as above, so below' (you could say 'on earth as it is in heaven'). Basically the cosmos, the planets, the archetypes, the whole universe; all the largest things are the same as the smallest things. Not simply reflections of each other, not copies. The same thing.

I'm not going to go into a complicated discussion of quantum mechanics here but will say that this ancient assertion of the alchemists is something that modern science supports.

OK, I could go way off course here - what I'm trying to get to is that astrology works at a very personal level, at the level of the microcosmic self - that the planets are moving in you and I too.

But looking outward into the sky, recognising that we are part of a living ball of matter and energy moving in an orderly fashion through space that there are other living, moving, balls of energy and matter existing in relation to us - this can give us some perspective on how we live our little lives.

During the most challenging times in life a refreshed perspective can really help. Its as though a part of us that we don't ordinarily tap into recognises the greater scheme of things - and seeing things differently changes things powerfully.

This morning one of my favourite astrologers sent out his weekly newsletter and reminded his readers of an pair of astrological events that rarely happen - the transits of Venus to the Sun. Venus tracks her way through the solar system in a very specific pattern in eight year cycles which form a greater cycle in relation to our Sun.

To the average follower of astrology most of all of this is going on in a way that is partly hypothetical (in that the actual position of the planets and the way western astrology presents their positions don't concur); mostly invisible (conjunctions aren't really about planets 'meeting' - they are occupying the same 'degrees' on a one-dimensional scale but are separated in space by everything else that is real) and possibly confusing. Its the often poetics of astrology, in the absence of understanding the physical energies of the planets, that give it its power.

Still, right now it transpires that not only are Venus and the Sun metaphorically conjoined, we're midway between the two greater and far more potent events - the first of which occurred on June 4, 2004 that some of you may recall. Venus was visible from here on Earth against the backdrop of the sun. The twin of this 'occultation' of the sun by Venus is expected in June 2012 and won't happen again for another one hundred and thirteen years or so.

I don't know what it means, and wouldn't dare speak for what other's may believe about this. But it does say something for itself and the perfection of the Universe, the synchronicity and beauty of life. It seems to demonstrate that even the unseen or unknowable will at some point be revealed - returned. There are some that say that this moment in time is a tipping point. Many stories are circulating about the archetype of transformation, the divine feminine, about women and the way we love. I don't know.

What I do know is that this is all happening in Gemini - the sign of the twins, ruled by Mercury (who is, of course, right there in the midst of it) and bringing to the whole picture the realm of ideas, the mind, thought and choice.

I think its worth looking outwards right now - with a renewed perspective, and with an open mind and heart. Something very special may be revealed to each of us.

We may see something that may not come around again for a while.

bibliomancy for venus-neptune

'ducks spoon' d sinclair '08 all rights reserved

"...Love is a kind of madness, Plato said, a divine madness. Today we talk about love as though it were primarily an aspect of relationship and also, to a great degree, as if it were something within our control. We're concerned about how to do it right, how to make it successful, how to overcome its problems and how to survive its failures.."

(Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul)

and for a jupiter-mars-venus tangle

'will those birds just shut up?!' d sinclair all rights reserved '08

"King Mark's refusal to marry is an ominous symbol. In myth or dream the king's failure to take a queen and produce an heir symbolises a refusal of wholeness, a refusal to grow, a refusal of the destiny that comes in the form of a new child."

(Robert A Johnson on the myth of Tristan and Iseult, The Psychology of Romantic Love)

bibliomancy for venus in aries

'twin souls' all rights reserved d sinclair 2008

"...it is worth going to a little trouble to make a dinner a ritual by attending to the symbolic suggestiveness of the food and the way it is presented and eaten. Without this added dimension, which requires some thought, it may seem that life goes on smoothly, but slowly soul is weakened and can make its presence known only in symptoms."

- Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul


I have to admit I'm impatient. Not just 'won't suffer fools' huffy impatient, but the 'really in a big hurry so move it will you' bratty kind. I'm told this is partly due to being born while Venus was in Aries.

So I'm the type that pursues. Especially in love, yeah - but I'll lose interest if the man of the moment gives too much too soon.

I also can't abide sappiness, I like my men with balls and attitude. 'Just leave the poetry to me' is what I have to say to a guy who talks about 'feelings'.

In fact I'd rather not talk at all.

Lets take a ride on a motor bike, race me in your car. Thrill me if you can. Make me blush with rude jokes and never ask permission to kiss me. Just do it.

Aries is the domain of Mars , the celestial action man. It rules the head but not the mind (which is under Mercury), its symbol is the Ram - so my kind of Venus is drawn to strong faces, thick woolly hair, and, er - horns. Or maybe that's swords? You get what I mean.

I'm sure its Venus in Aries that causes me to swoon over men with tools - the more powerful the better. Don't get me started on the particular effects of a uniform.

As my dear friend Simone once said about how my preferences look, 'big, dumb and beautiful'.

Well, maybe not dumb. After all, the battle is no fun if one's opponent is mismatched. If a man can't raise a laugh then he has no chance of disarming me, and humour takes brain. Having said that, I don't do well under siege.

Venus in Aries may prefer martial and gutsy, but she's still a woman and she wants what she needs. Fiercely passionate and determined as a woman can be - remember this - Aries is the infant of the zodiac, the first sign. Those needs are primal instincts; give me, care for me, protect me.

OK. Venus has gotta eat too but in Aries a girl has no time for a leisurely meal. Just grab it and let's go - inhale it, attack each mouthful, finish victorious and get on with the next task. Food has its purpose, and slow pleasures be damned.

Not exactly the stuff of romance, eh?

For me, having a family has taught the value of becoming still, laying a table and sharing a meal with others. As the children grow it becomes a necessity to draw out any opportunity to talk and listen. Every word they say is a gift, even if they need a gentle reminder to finish their mouthful first.

With as many kids as I have its a logistical challenge to get it together - and far easier to lapse into kitchen eating and snacking at desks. Our dinners are events we work together to achieve, and so we appreciate them all the more.

At the end of a day the little things matter to us - care and attention to details - colour, texture, smell, sound. A thrown together and thrown down meal does happen every now and then, but its never really good for us as a family, or as people.

Food becomes part of our bodies, its value is not just counted in recommended daily units of vitamins and minerals. We all know it by now. 'You Are What You Eat' may be about not 'junking' our bodies -but on another level its about not trashing our lives.

And so, how much of our relationships with each other and the world can be healed - recovered from the trash - through ritual activities like meals?

Now that Venus has moved into Aries, perhaps its time to examine how beauty and pleasure take shape in our daily routines - in all the small ways they can.

Maybe there's room for more courage; some daring new colour or taste or smell that expresses something of - and energises - the soul?

Where there's been impatience there can be a move toward enthusiasm; taking notice of our responses to the efforts of others to please us. Appreciating what is given in love, prepared and made with care.

I for one welcome the idea of putting down weapons and lighting a candle for real intimacy.

As long as I still get that motorbike ride.

bibliomancy for venus in aquarius

"The Cloudless Sky.

The sun is shining on you,
bright and clear
in a cloudless sky.
Everything is going as you wish."

(100 Poems of the Goddess, The Kuan Yin Oracle)

Well, this is more optimistic than I thought possible. I almost overlooked this transit on account of all the Saturn activity - teeth and bone and joint issues abound in my family and among friends, not to mention a general heaviness in myself.

Alright then, Saturn rules Aquarius, so it fits.

I've been contemplating what it means to 'build community' (one of Aquarius' rulerships) and the wider world. There's a strong pull towards whatever is 'out there' as opposed to hiding away here at home behind my computer screen.

As mentioned casually to a friend - and not for the first time lately - 'I've been living under a rock for far too long'.

Its a big rock and quite a burden, not to mention the kind of insect-life one attracts from under here. And having dropped my sense of humour somewhere in the dirty darkness I seem incapable of 'lightening up'.

Darn. I've heard of the 'wrong side of the tracks' but it looks like I'm on the wrong side of the rock.

I want to be on top.

So I ask you, what does it take? You're all 'out there' - am I missing anything? Is this idea of 'community' one of those ideas, like marriage and formal education that are theoretically sound but in general practice rather, er unsound? Is it a fantasy?

Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that marriage and education are fantasies, only that our stories around them can be detrimental to our mental health. (ok, MY mental health, I'm sure yours is fine)

So is 'community' another monotheistic model for lived experience that will bring me to grief - or am I looking for reasons to keep hauling like Atlas indefinitely?

There is an argument, quite a scientific one if you view Quantum Mechanics as science - that separation is an illusion. So we aren't individuals, however much our egos tell us we bloodywellare, and creating groups of individuals seems to me like creating kind of a communal ego. More separation, more fear and more trouble.

As a child it bothered me somewhat that there are such things as countries and nations and borders. We all live here on this one world together - part of it - we're all the same aren't we? I'd think to myself (yes I knew better than to say it outloud) that there was a Big Mistake.

My mother should have put me to bed instead of in the bouncy chair in front of the telly that day they walked on the moon - the day they showed us we're a living ball hanging in space.

Hm. Where was I going with this?

I'm really getting to the point of no return - separation is an illusion, as is the darn rock I keep referring to (but not the one we live on and are in fact a part of). There isn't anything 'out there' that isn't going on 'in here'.

All at once, actually, inside and out, in the large and little things that happen each day, each moment.

Time and space as we know them are changing - our linear model won't fit with our expanding world view and concurrent shrinking technology. We're learning to see beyond what we think is happening to what the other possibilites are.

Its too easy as people locked into our daily routines to fall deep into the Saturnine trap of 'not enough', that is, disconnection and immobilisation by the fear of scarcity, of inadequacy and failure. Turning away from another true state of things.

Sure, such a thing as scarcity does exist - limits exist, boundaries, form, borders and egos exist for real reasons - but the other truth is that we are limitless, we are all made of the same stuff and that the biggest thing and the smallest thing are exactly the same.

Its not one or the other, its both.

So there's no need for me to go anywhere to commune - if you are somewhere dancing, so am I. If you are somewhere making love, so are we all. I can sit right here at my desk, and lifetimes of experience and understanding are delivered to me instantly.

Of course, should I venture past my front door, unlock the gate, take myself out and actually have some fun I can only be doing the world some good - right?

That's no light-weight idea.

bibliomancy for venus-jupiter

"...there are tales within tales that do not further the plot, showing that psychic history goes on in many places at once - meanwhile, back at the farm, in another part of the forest - and in many figures at once... other personages of the story are as interesting as the main character, just as the other figures within our our dreams and fantasies often bear more upon our fates than does our ego.." (Hillman)

"those in literature see the psychology in fiction.. its our turn to see the fiction in pyschology..." (HILLMAN)

Jupiter and Venus together are supposed to bring about love-bliss; tomorrow's conjunction is apparently great for lovers, would-be lovers and all things beautiful, in big ways.

Here in South Australia the weather is set to be hot during the day, promising one of those lovely balmy summer's evenings that are perfect for walking hand in hand on the beach, for dining al fresco and general blissful canoodling.

Hm. How lovely for those with someone whose hands will be held and those canoodling lovers. I for one say yes to those, absolutely, but for this transit, I need another paradigm for expressing the energies of such magnificent love.

So, there are lovers strolling the beach, eyes locked in restaurants and cuddling up in cinemas; there are couples everywhere - but meanwhile, here in a house in the suburbs, is a woman who is learning for the first time what it is to love, and there isn't a man in the frame.

What does it mean? How will it happen? Is this story told from her own point of view or is there an omniscient narrator?

How many ways can the fiction of love be told?

I guess we shall have to wait and see.

bibliomancy for a Venus - Pluto Conjunction

"Eros always leads to Psyche..." (Moore)

"how to analogise the dream I've had for the past year? -

I ask myself - what is he like??

He's like Pan;
dirty, dark, smelly and sexy

He's like Jesus;
only he won't die
and he won't be coming back

He's like me;
but with balls and a job and social life

He's too-hot water; a take-away dinner I didn't order and have to pay for; a dress that doesn't fit (something like I would have made for myself when I was learning to sew); he's a stranger grabbing at my belly and asking me if I've got another baby coming; he's a dog, fox, wolf, dingo - other wild things I cannot love that scare me except in symbolic form, in idea, in imagination... he's like Mephistopheles too... asking too much for only bad things in return...

He doesn't exist; he forces me to see how much I create in my mind. He's never the same person twice;he forces me to see how much I change.

He isn't the man I think he is (and I'm not either)

...but for some reason it hurts me so much not to love him and imagine him as every bit as wonderful as I want him to be. It hurts me in my chest; deep ache, burn, stab.

I don't know what to do about it, what am I supposed to do about it? How can I move this out of my body, out of my mind? How can I make space for anyone else while every bit of me is consumed by this weirdness? Its in my blood stream, pumping through all of me. "

(August 18, 2007; paper journal entry)