Goddess in a Business Suit (Venus in Capricorn)

Goddess in a Business Suit

     On December 10th Venus moved into Capricorn, and she'll be there until January 3rd. This transit happens once a year, but this year she will be joining up with Pluto right around the holidays. There are many things happening in the stars this month, and Venus, as an inner, faster moving planet plays a trigger role in the greater unfolding narratives. In this post, I will explain some of the archetypes associated, how you can expect this energy to play out, and give some advice on how to navigate the transit. 

Formal Venus

     Venus is the planet that embodies the astrological conception of the feminine. Venus is the receptive and magnetic part of human interaction. If you boil down the interplay between humans as push and pull, Venus is the pull to the push of Mars. Venus beautifies, enhances, sensitizes and attracts. Capricorn is the sign of the heights, of ambition, and material mastery. Capricorn pushes to organize things on a practical level so that they're efficient, effective, and enduring. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, so there's a certain amount of restriction inherent in the sign. There's the knowledge of what's socially acceptable, and what personal needs must be restricted in order for the whole to be better organized. When Venus puts on her business suit, (by moving into Capricorn) her work becomes more formalized, inhibited, and limited.

     Imagine Venus in Capricorn as the head of human resources in a large corporation. In this particular case, her workload involves managing the relationships within the company. With such a role, her own needs take a back seat to the needs of the company culture. There are expectations of growth in some areas, and places where there need to be cutbacks. These decisions of where to put resources and where to withdraw them is tough on Venus. She would love to simply give resources freely and set up everyone in the company with bonuses, but she has a budget. That budget is the time and emotional resources that are available. When Venus is in Capricorn, people have to make the decisions on who to invest time and energy into in their relationships.

     So the real work of this transit is to realistically assess our own relationships, our own emotional resources and figure out how to allocate them.

Boardroom Showdown!

     Venus transits can sometimes pass almost unnoticed, but this one in particular is very powerful because it is heavily involved with corporate crisis. Uranus and Pluto, two of the heavyweight slow moving outer planets are involved in a tug of war that's lasted the last four years. To stick with the metaphor, Pluto is the C.E.O. of the corporation, and is very uninterested in the lives of the employees, what their feelings are, or what their needs are. The C.E.O. is only interested in the profit and loss statement, and how healthy the company is fundamentally. Uranus is the head of research and development, and is at work on all the new products that could make or break the company. Many of these new products are challenging the culture of the company, and may even lead to a loss of control by the C.E.O. in the direction that the company is going. 

     So there is a lot of stress in the boardroom, and Venus is at the table trying to figure out how to manage the expectations of these two heavyweights at the table. She is trying to do something well above her pay grade that she's never been trained for. To put it in very human terms, Venus is working to balance the desire for unrestrained creativity in all departments, and loyalty to the C.E.O. that runs the company because she wants to keep her job. 

     The way this plays out in personal relationships is that relationships feel very uncertain and stressed and strained at this point. In many ways people are putting on social masks in their relationships to keep up the appearance of everything working effectively. But on the inner level, there's a drive for freedom in relationship, and a desire to cut out those people that limit or restrict that freedom. This drive for freedom often means a breakdown or transformation in relationships, and that means that many are on both sides of the equation. The drive for freedom triggers a need to control to keep the status quo. Security vs. freedom is an age-old question, and our personal relationships are going to be part of the battlefield between these two forces in the coming weeks. 

Tips of the Trade

     So, in the midst of all this pressure, what should be done? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the metaphor of a company can still help. One of the best ways to handle this transit is to really go through your relationships and make a profit and loss statement for each. What are you getting and what are you giving? What is the level of freedom in that relationship and what is the level of security? If you're in the red in a relationship, it's a good time to give that relationship a boost, or set that person free. If someone is in the red with you it's a very good idea to either let that relationship go or renegotiate the terms so that's it is productive.

Early Christmas Present: Saturn Gets a Move On.

Who is Saturn? 

     Saturn is like the strictest teacher that you've ever had. You are expected to learn all his material, turn in all your assignments on time, and get your work done, no excuses. In return, based on the quality of your work, you will be graded absolutely fairly, and when you pass, you know that you have passed. Saturn does not let you fail classes, as any lesson that Saturn teaches will be repeated in increasing severity until you learn it. Sounds rough, right? That's the price of being in Saturn's classroom, and that classroom is the material, the world limited by time and space. 

     So what happens when you pass one of Saturn's classes? You get the reward, and that reward is especially meaningful, because it has been earned. Saturn gives the hard won wisdom to his pupils. Mastery of the lessons of Saturn is the pearl of great price, and leads us inexorably towards the next step up the mountain of wisdom. Each step gives us new vistas to contemplate and process. Saturn rules age, and wisdom comes with age specifically because over time we learn more about the world around us as well as our inner world. Resisting the lessons that Saturn offers keeps us at the base of the mountain with no view and no real wisdom. 

     So, who is Saturn? Saturn is the teacher that wants you to succeed and grow in wisdom, but will not let you shirk your duty to do so. Saturn gets a bad rap because often the wisdom that Saturn teaches requires us to work hard, make sacrifices, and face uncomfortable truths. Saturn is the resistance that makes our muscles stronger, the obstacles that exist to be overcome and is in a very real sense the gatekeeper to greater understanding. 

Saturn's Classes

     Saturn teaches 12 subjects, and those subjects are the astrological signs. Encompassed within these signs are the archetypes of humanity. Astrology is a language of patterns and archetypes, and how those archetypes interact is the wisdom inherent within it. While I could dive deeper into each of the 12 signs, this time would be better spent focusing on what is passing and what is coming in. On December 23rd of 2014, Saturn will transition from Scorpio to Sagittarius. Saturn takes about 2 and 1/2 years to get through each sign, so when it transitions it is a big deal. 

     While Saturn has been in Scorpio, the tests that Saturn has given have been tests that relate to the archetypes of the sign of Scorpio. Scorpio rules sex, death, regeneration, shared resources, transitions, the subconscious, our deepest emotions, and the underworld both figuratively and literally. Saturn restricts and limits to teach, so let's just focus on how those two archetypes interpenetrate. Since focus is a keyword of Saturn let's just focus on one aspect of Scorpio that has been affected. 

     When Saturn is in Scorpio, it is difficult to regenerate. To define the term, regeneration is the process by which we get to root blockages and remove them, in order to get rid of those things that have been holding back our evolution and growth. During the transit through Scorpio, this power to regenerate has been severely limited, and the effect that has on people is a real difficulty to give emotional support and energy to others. There is work in the depths that is freeing up a veritable wellspring of energy, but it is not freely available. During this time, people have been feeling more drained than usual, less giving, and more needy. With lots of emotional needs being unmet, many close relationships have been tested deeply. The interesting and productive work that is happening is still under the surface. People are becoming more and more clear about what their emotional needs are and are starting to talk about them. 

     Those that have learned the lessons of this transit will be able to more freely express their deepest needs, and regenerate much easier. This lesson learned increases self-knowledge, removes some of deepest emotional blocks, and allows for people to acknowledge both their own repressed shadow aspects, and those of the greater culture they are a part of. Those that have passed this Saturn test will have tremendous capacity for healing. 

What's Next? 

     Saturn moves into Sagittarius right before Christmas this year. It's an early Christmas present to those of us that have been slogging through the emotional heavy lifting of Saturn in Scorpio. While Saturn is always a bit of a heavy, there are aspects of it moving though Sagittarius that are going to be very uplifting. Sagittarius rules education, philosophy, and truth. So to combine those two energies is to come to an awareness of hard truths. But the promise of this transit is the energy necessary to not only come to an understanding of these hard truths, but to step into an action phase. Sitting around is not favored under the tutelage of Saturn in Sagittarius. This transit calls for getting out and wrestling with these truths publicly. Even though it's still challenge, it's a welcome challenge to those that have been wrestling in the underworld for a couple of years now. 

    What are some of these hard truths? I'll list a few that are meaningful to me, but I welcome any reader of this blog to list their own. 

1. We are not in a post-racial world, and many of the systems and institutions are steeped in prejudice and racism. 
2. We are not being stewards of the planet and our collective actions are making real negative impacts on our collective future. 
3. We are moving towards a much more globalized world and there is real questions of who will hold the reins of this new global order. 
4. Many of our institutions, political systems, and economic policies are hopelessly corrupt, and there is little will within these systems for real change. 

     There are hundreds of truths, but these are to me some of the truths that are becoming more and more clear. Saturn will help us do the work to educate ourselves and take real and lasting action on our hard truths. 

    Merry Christmas, Yule, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Solstice, Festivus, or whatever you celebrate! Find your truth and fight.