We’re not talking about females, necessarily, but about the characteristics of the anima side of the energy equation: receptivity, the importance of and effectiveness of the Beingness (as opposed to the Doing urge), the concept of sensitivity and the ability to read the atmosphere (as opposed to trying to actively make an impact on it), and the idea of healthy nurture, which is really a sharing of energy that benefits both parties. These are strong threads running through current events; to respond to them, to expose them, to weave them into something meaningful, is to bring them to awareness and so make their energies accessible and, in accessing them, beneficial in the larger scheme of things.

One of these is Venus retrograde moving toward conjoining Juno, both in Capricorn, perfecting January 6th. During this same period, this pairing will be sextiled by Neptune and quincunxed by the Black Moon Lilith point. This suggests that our ongoing review of matters of the House in the natal chart where Venus is moving backward will be measured through either our assessment of our own empowerment (especially through the status or material accomplishment shown by Capricorn) or through the empowerment status others reflect back to us–and it’s important we use our own dreams and ideals to guide us in judging our abilities–if we don’t, we’ll be susceptible to being misled or deceived, or may be caught off guard by things we’ve ignored or denied that won’t stay buried. It’s a matter of claiming and so harnessing our own creative energies; if we deny those energies expression, it leaves a vulnerable spot, ready to be filled by enterprising, and sometimes ill-intended, others.

The other prominent combination is the late Taurus duo of Ceres and Sedna. The two have been hanging out together for a while–and focusing our attention on expression of personal authority, situations of nurture, negotiations, diet, and Nature, and in particular showing us the way we already ‘know but don’t know’ consciously what we should do, what the answer to our material issues truly is. Pluto is still within trine and Vesta quincunxes, forcing us to acknowledge our instincts and our suppressed knowledge via destructive forces, home matters, commitments, and violations of what we consider sacred. We must respond, and the best way to address this energy is to admit what we’ve been reluctant to see, change what needs to be changed, and align what we honor in real-world terms with what we say we care about.

There’s also a conflict inherent in the square between the animus-oriented Warrior Mars and the anima-oriented Warrior Pallas, he in Sagittarius and she in Pisces. This may appear as an aggressive ‘pushing’ of ‘the facts’ that finds resistance in the form of a kind of practical idealism. Both sides are right, in this case; those with the facts need to be listened to, and they need to frame goals that offer hope, while those focused on ideals need to see that only by dealing with the facts will they make any progress in making things better. If these two would just stop insisting on themselves, they’d find that they actually want the same thing.

And finally, we have the opposition between Eris in Aries and Zeus in Libra. Remember, Eris is a catalyst, and in this scenario, may show as individual Willfulness that just doesn’t want to cooperate in making others’ ambitions and goals attainable. With this we must ask ourselves, ‘Am I going my own way because it’s the right thing to do, or am I simply angry at the idea that I’m not the only one who’ll benefit from cooperative effort?’ That may sound selfish, until we consider that, if we aren’t successfully realizing our own ambitions, the last thing we may want to do with our precious energy is share it; we may see it as a ‘me or them’ kind of thing. Here Eris is acting up only in proportion to how we may feel that others are asking for our support but offering little or nothing in return. It’s a call to re-balance relationships–and to acknowledge that we don’t live or act in a vacuum.