Venus rides into Aries and gets aggressive, not realizing she abandons her most powerful weapon, her attractive quality, when she takes the qualities of the sign in which she’s placed too far. ‘Penthesilea as one of the Nine Female Worthies’ c1465 Artist Unknown {{PD}}

We’re thinking materially, and we try to bring about physical circumstances that allow us to command our environment, and though we’ve got a clear picture of the current reality, we can’t seem to make it work. There are a few problems that are undermining our efforts: we keep thinking of empowerment in terms of how and what we gained in the past–we need to apply newly learned facts and think in more concrete terms than we usually do, in order to succeed; we need to be open to opportunities that will present in areas from which we would normally avert our gaze; and we have an unfortunate tendency to behave as if our only two choices in a matter are to follow instincts or to go with known wisdom–and I recommend we try a third method of thought, wherein we take a step back and look for the alternative that a moment before we pretended wasn’t there.

The biggest problem, though, may be that we find ourselves feeling a great deal of push to make things happen in our world, and we’re frustrated because, though it seems it’s a straight line from A to B, our efforts prove it to be anything but. I think this is what we need to become aware of: in this climate, charging forward makes us expend a lot of energy for very little result. Add to this that we are in the Dark of the Moon, and we are almost floating in an atmosphere where to exert the Self (exactly what Venus tries to do in Aries, until she gets used to it) is to work against effective accomplishment. We do best to let Venus work her magic in the sign of the Warrior by allowing her to attract the efforts, love, good will, and energy of others (their own need to act, or their chivalrous impulses, if you will), and as we respond to these, we find our energies channeled to exactly what and where they will make the greatest impact, or do the most good (Juno parallel SN, Pallas sq Sedna, Jup nov BML, Merc sesq Jupiter and enters Taurus, Sun trine Saturn)

Photo by Julie Demboski All Rights Reserved

Today’s word image is a handful of flower bulbs, bursting out before you can get them in the ground. A bulb is contained energy, and when the conditions are even close to right, it flowers. Our own energy, both tangible (stored in the body) and intangible (of mind, heart, and spirit), is the same way: we can store it for only so long before it has to spring forth–and if we fail to find proper conditions under which to release it, or we try to hold it indefinitely, always judging the present to be the ‘wrong’ time, then we risk the energy’s decay and exhaustion without any budding at all. Use the energy you have, do your best to make conditions favorable, and you’re likely to see some arrestingly beautiful things bloom.

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