Weekly Horoscope.net

This is quite long, but there is a lot happening now..

The Sun has entered Cancer in the Sidereal zodiac, bringing a strong tendency to nurture and emotionally protect our loved ones. When the Sun goes through Cancer the quality of divine motherhood is awakened in each of us — at least that is the potential. Suddenly there’s a renewed sensitivity to all of us as children. There is a great possibility for all to lay down their weapons and sympathize with their enemies for the next couple of weeks.

Cancer is the sign of sensitivity, compassion and motherhood. It is ruled by the moon, the planet of selfless love, nurturing and peace. This is different than the type of love we have in relationships which are transactional in nature. Relationship love is between two equals, two grown-ups. In relationship love, each person has to hold up their part of the bargain, whatever that “bargain” is. Every relationship has different boundaries that are negotiated and, however strange those boundaries may look to outsiders, as long as the two partnered agree with the terms, and honor them - there’s usually smooth sailing.

This is what makes the relationship house (seventh house) a secondary business / career house. We use the same negotiating skills at our job that we use in our romantic relationship - after all, people are people. The larger issue in relationships is our ability to compromise and satisfy our desires as well as accommodate another person’s. Those who are able to yield their desires with dignity do well in relationships. But this takes an authentic desire to please others combined with an equally authentic intuition which knows where to draw the line and can draw that line without anger or excessive ego.

However, the capacity to play fair and negotiate and uphold common boundaries, etc. will be very damaging in a parent / child relationship. Once a parent starts demanding the child treat them as an equal, at least when they’re young, there can be great harm done. Of course, once the child grows up into teenage years and beyond the relationship starts to develop and mature. But still, the parent must always put the needed the child ahead of their own. Fortunately, nature makes this easy — once the child begins to grow up and develop their own personality, many immature parents stop serving the child / selflessly loving the child - and start to a great deal of harm.

Negotiating proper relationship boundaries are related to Venus and powerfully expressed through the Cardinal sign she rules, Libra - the sign of relationships. And, as was said, the Moon rules selfless parental love that only knows how to give. The mother loves the child no matter what the child does. But this shows the inherent struggle between Venus and the moon - the inherent struggle between selfless love and conditional love.

It’s very easy to mix these two things up in our mind. When relationships become dominated by a selfless, parental type of love — is only a matter of time before it starts to feel like abuse for one and co-managing for the other. There has to be accountability first, only then can romantic love become selfless, devoted love. Similarly if the parent / child love is too transactional, with a parent constantly insisting upon the immature mind of the child to be accountable for their emotional mistakes, as we would expect from our partner, much trouble arises also. Without the paradigm of selfless love in the parent/child relationship, the parent will not be able to insist upon accountability without the child feeling attacked.

This is an important issue at this time with Venus about to go retrograde into the sign of Cancer. In Vedic astrology both the moon and the Sun are enemies of Venus. This enmity is expressed in different ways. The influence of the moon on Venus (including occupying the sign of Cancer) is to confuse the transactional nature and expectation of adult relationship boundaries with the utterly selfless, caretaking, maternal nature of the moon. The influence of the Sun on Venus (including occupying the sign of Leo) is to insist upon a passionate, fiery and romantically accountable nature.

These themes will play out in the upcoming Venus retrograde cycle discussed last week in this newsletter.

The upcoming Venus retrograde cycle will mirror the recent Saturn retrograde cycle and also foreshadow next year’s Mars/Ketu conjunction at 28° Cancer. There is another very important factor that must be kept in mind relative to this Saturn / Venus relationship.

In Vedic astrology, the three most outer planets of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn each cast a special aspect. The word aspect is actually not very accurate. Like many Western words that try to convey Eastern concepts, the actual word is “drishti” which means “look” or “glance”. For you see, in Vedic thinking, culture and cosmology — the planets are beings of intelligence that have been around since time immemorial. Their movements and energies are not just relevant as “archetypes” - they represent real forces, eternal forces of the universe that transcend our 80 to 100 year lifespan. They connect us to that eternal, cosmic nature that we forget here on the flat Earth in which we live in our day to day lives. Each of these planets are bodies of light that can “see” in different directions. Saturn sees 3 signs in front and 10 signs in front. That is his special look. This look conveys the essence of his nature.

With Saturn occupying Leo he will be “watching” the sign of Libra and the Sun of Taurus for the next two years, both ruled by Venus. If anyone has planets in Sidereal Libra or Taurus, Saturn will also be watching them. Regardless, wherever those houses fall in your Sidereal / Vedic chart will be under his watchful eye. Saturn aspects create trouble by shattering our illusions around the things he sees. Sometimes this results in losing the thing entirely, other times we may just worry about it or have to put forth immense effort in order to maintain it. This process of worry/effort/potential loss forces us to either deepen our commitment to it, or let it go. This is why we tend to lose things when Saturn starts moving. He tends to push things to a point of seriousness where they either break or we have to work to improve them.

There’s a great story about Saturn aspects, Saturn’s “looks”. Once, Lord Shiva and Parvati after having their first child Lord Ganesh, held a party and invited all of the gods, Demi Gods and Planets to participate. It was a beautiful celebration except one of the planets, Lord Saturn, seem to be kind of depressed and moping in the corner (go figure!) - in fact he would not even look at the beautiful Ganesh. Now, the planets are powerful — but they are not as powerful as the gods, especially the mighty Lord Shiva and Mother Shakti, Parvati.

So the great goddess upon seeing Lord Saturn unmoved by the festivities asked him why he was not participating. Saturn replied “Great Goddess, your child is beautiful and I do not want my looks to ruin that beauty - a glance from me is not always welcome”. “Nonsense!”, declared Parvati, “I insist you look at my child immediately!”. At which time Lord Saturn gaze gently at the beautiful Ganesh. No sooner did Saturn look at Ganesh, then did the beautiful boys head falloff!! One look from Saturn decapitated Ganesh. Lord Shiva went to find a suitable replacement head and was said to have found the head of one of Lord Indra’s elephants - and so Ganesh was given this elephant head.

And so it is said that the Saturn aspects can be more difficult than the Saturn conjunction.