Aphrodite steps from the Pis­cean Sea and into the fiery realm of Aries. For three weeks the heart has longed to tran­scend itself, to sac­ri­fice itself, and through com­pas­sion touch the sub­lime light of the Great Souls who have shown the way homeward.

Now it is time to come back to your­self, to your love of self, to the song of “I”. Such is the song-dance of spir­it, in and out, back and forth, so that every play­er may air their melody and dance their jig in the plan­e­tary pageant.

With Venus in Aries you need to feel beau­ty intense­ly now; you are drawn to the fresh and new in beau­ty and art. Love beck­ons like “spring fever”; it is urgent, quick­en­ing and intense. Love at first sight is com­mon, yet com­mon­ly misunderstood.

Enjoy the resur­gent feel­ing of new dis­cov­er­ies in the beau­ty that sur­rounds you. Thrill to the joy of new found love between you and your beloved. But be mind­ful and not so full of haste or you will miss the true source of beau­ty that is ever­last­ing and for the love which is eter­nal. Always remem­ber, that it is from Spir­it, the con­stant source that your enthu­si­asm springs forth, and it is this same source for that eter­nal love that you see in the eyes of your beloved.

Cel­e­brate your love of self; your delight in new beau­ties and love pro­claim the joy of life renewed. Dance your dance of spir­it, sing your song of songs; and so hon­or the Divine Seed of one and all, your Spir­it-Source in the Stars.

Stead­ied now, focused now, build­ing, building…Your soul’s jour­ney turns from the ques­tion, “Who am I?” Aries time is done. You’ve made your pres­ence known. Now from Fire you move into Earth. The sec­ond Door of Life is before you. You cross the thresh­old and so seek to answer the ques­tion, “What am I?”

With the Sun in Tau­rus you seek the expe­ri­ence of what you are made of; now is the time to man­i­fest your­self in a tan­gi­ble, tac­tile, valu­able way. Dreams, ideas, plans… they are nice, but you need to make it real, you need to be pro­duc­tive, you need to under­stand Value.

The Les­son of Tau­rus is about val­ue. Where does it come from, how do you cre­ate it, hold it, pre­serve it, change it and.…let it go? This is the sec­ond step in your life jour­ney. What do you have with­in and around you to make man­i­fest your dreams, ideas and your plans?

The key to your under­stand­ing of val­ue is the under­stand­ing you pos­sess of your self-worth; that is the val­ue you have of your­self. By pos­sess­ing your­self, your moral and aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ties, your skills, tal­ents and abil­i­ties, by hav­ing this knowl­edge of your own val­ue you can then, and only then, have the right rela­tion­ship with the oth­er beings (and things) of your world.

So cel­e­brate the jour­ney of life-con­scious­ness-spir­it; move now from being to doing, from dream to man­i­fes­ta­tion. Step through the door­way; becom­ing you are the Creator.

And remem­ber, as it has always been, is now, and will always be, the Key to Life is:

Know Thy­self!

Your mind is on Fire and you want to act on your idea NOW. So… you need to be extra care­ful today. You might speak too eager­ly, too hasti­ly or out of turn, or you might act on an idea too quick­ly. You’ll either end up hurt­ing a rela­tion­ship or injure yourself.

Remem­ber, the Aesop fable…it’s the tor­toise who wins the race. So, use your intel­li­gence to “step down” the ener­gy; then lis­ten, pon­der, reflect… think again… then, maybe you can act. You should always seek to act with finesse and grace, after delib­er­a­tion, and nev­er in haste. Work with the ener­gies around you to improve your performance.

Mer­cury is still mov­ing ret­ro­grade, but it is slow­ing down and about to go for­ward again on Sat­ur­day April 23 (Yeah!). Here it is mak­ing the sec­ond of three pass­es over Mars, (just as it is mak­ing three over Jupiter in this “do-si-do” dance of the plan­ets). You are get­ting a triple dose of help in work­ing with the ener­gies of the mind aligned with desire.

So take this oppor­tu­ni­ty that the uni­verse has brought you; bring new thought forms to the under­stand­ing of your desires and actions. Right think­ing, Right Action… Shine On! 

This is the same align­ment that I men­tioned in the overview for 2011. And, it is the same aspect that is hap­pen­ing in Oba­ma’s chart too. It very much con­cerns the debate we are hav­ing as a Nation and peo­ple as to the ques­tion of what val­ues we stand for. This is what I wrote on Jan­u­ary 23, 2011:

Uranus Squares Venus (Apr. 18, Oct. 7, Feb. 28, 2012)
Well this is a whole New Year indeed! Excite­ment and stim­u­la­tion is acti­vat­ing the plan­et of val­ue this year. It is frothy, dare we say bub­bly, and the last time Uranus made this pass, 1927–28, it was a heady time.…but we were head­ing for a fall that few could imag­ine then. Will his­to­ry repeat itself, no… Nev­er! But we have to watch out; we must look back to see what chal­lenges were encoun­tered and oppor­tu­ni­ties missed, and real­ize we will face new chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that are appro­pri­ate to our moment in time.

Last time
The late 20’s were a time of inven­tive­ness and social exper­i­men­ta­tion. Bound­aries were being bro­ken, records were being set. Our imag­i­na­tive bound­aries were blown out­ward by the courage dis­played, (and tech­nol­o­gy used), in “The Spir­it of St. Louis”, as Lind­bergh con­nect­ed the new and old worlds. There was an influ­ence that was ener­giz­ing new rela­tion­ships both between one anoth­er, and in our nation’s rela­tion­ships with oth­er nations. Amer­i­ca was seen as the most “pros­per­ous” of nations, we were the ris­ing star in the world and the way ahead looked glo­ri­ous. What we failed to see, what we failed to con­front, was that the very nature of what we con­sid­ered to be valu­able, how we made and mea­sured val­ue, was in des­per­ate need of trans­for­ma­tion. The oppor­tu­ni­ty was there and was missed and so we fell back…

2011 The US and Venus/Uranus, Our val­ue and  pur­pose.
In 2011 we face a sim­i­lar chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty. The chal­lenge with Venus and Uranus is met when we raise to a new lev­el our expe­ri­ence of val­ue in our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er, and with the world. The US has its Venus, (and Jupiter and Sun), in the 7th house, the house of rela­tion­ship. Our val­ues and self-worth (Venus), our prin­ci­ples, gen­eros­i­ty and good for­tune (Jupiter) and our very being and pur­pose (Sun), is revealed, real­ized and shared by the nature and qual­i­ty of our rela­tion­ships to one anoth­er and with the world.

A New Order
The found­ing fathers hint­ed at this, (and much more), when they put forth as the mot­to of our coun­try, and which is inscribed on the Great Seal of The Unit­ed States, “Novus Ordo Seclo­rum” which means “A New Order for the Cen­turies”. They under­stood that what they were cre­at­ing was some­thing new, some­thing hereto­fore unfa­mil­iar because it rep­re­sent­ed a break with the past. Here, in this nation, we would come togeth­er and freely deter­mine our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er. We would sur­ren­der all title and priv­i­leges, and stand as equals to one anoth­er and be sub­ject to no King, or Prince, or Clan or Class, but to what we had all agreed upon as our com­pact with one anoth­er. This sacred com­pact is sealed and pro­tect­ed by the one and only true ruler in Amer­i­ca, the Rule of Law, (which is why the US has Sat­urn (order), in Libra (scales of jus­tice) in our 10th house (author­i­ty). In the Unit­ed States, the law is King, no one is above the law.

Embod­ied in our “Law” are the val­ues that we have so far evolved to in our con­duct with one anoth­er. Those val­ues are made into rules which we have agreed upon, so that we know how we are expect­ed to con­duct our­selves with regard to one anoth­er. In oth­er words, we have estab­lished these laws as the crys­tal­lized form of val­ues with and between one another.

But unlike some, who believe that those orig­i­nal laws, our first rules, the Con­sti­tu­tion, to be a fin­ished piece and not to be altered, most of us find that the sto­ry of human ful­fill­ment is an unfold­ing one that is far from over. And, so, we must keep improv­ing upon and adding to our val­ues and our rules. The Found­ing Fathers knew this work was not fin­ished or done with them. They sought to go beyond what had been, yet they could not reach or agree beyond a cer­tain under­stand­ing. They strug­gled over issues and did not over­come some of their own chal­lenges, and so left it to oth­er gen­er­a­tions to face the glar­ing injus­tices embod­ied in our first set of “rules”. How could it be otherwise?

Our Chal­lenge, Our Oppor­tu­ni­ty
In 2011 the chal­lenge we face is to exam­ine to what extent we are ready, will­ing and able to ful­fill and incor­po­rate the mes­sage of Uranus into Venus. Uranus in Aries is shap­ing our Venus in Can­cer by chal­leng­ing us to con­duct our­selves at the next nec­es­sary lev­el of indi­vid­ual ful­fill­ment and social inte­gra­tion. There are always forces, (and dis­trac­tions), pulling us apart and draw­ing us together.

Venus in Can­cer speaks from the Truth that we must hon­or where we have come from; we must remain and find val­ue in our com­mon her­itage and so secure and bind our­selves one to anoth­er. Uranus in Aries is chal­leng­ing Venus as to exact­ly what con­sti­tutes “roots” or “her­itage” or “secu­ri­ty”.

There is a con­stant ten­sion between our nation’s desire to return to a sim­pler time, to our root val­ues (Venus), and the inces­sant force of spir­i­tu­al (and tech­ni­cal) advance­ment dri­ving us for­ward into new expres­sions of val­ue (Uranus). The answer is to be found in hon­or­ing the spir­i­tu­al essence of our roots, our com­mon her­itage and val­ue that binds us one to anoth­er, (but not being bound to the mere let­ter or the law or form of that val­ue), while at the same time inte­grat­ing into those val­ues a new under­stand­ing of the mes­sage of Uranus in Aries which hon­ors, affirms and asserts the essen­tial dig­ni­ty of the indi­vid­ual with­in the group order, (with­out going so far in assert­ing “indi­vid­u­al­ism” that we break our social con­tract with one another).

Of course, to many who have seen the abus­es of pow­er, and the manip­u­la­tion of the law to serve the pow­er­ful and not defend the weak­est of us, to many the hope that we can restore let alone move for­ward the dream of Amer­i­ca and its essen­tial val­ue or worth seems dis­tant at best. Just as in the late 1920’s, we too now find our­selves at a moment in his­to­ry where the great­est inequities exist in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the wealth in Amer­i­ca, a val­ue that we all have cre­at­ed with and through one another.

Nature, (and Spir­it), move what­ev­er ordered sys­tem from a state of imbal­ance to bal­ance. It seems most sys­tems have “mech­a­nisms” inte­gral to their nature that bring about a re-bal­anc­ing even­tu­al­ly. In our social order we must find our way back to “nor­mal” by being coura­geous enough to face what we have wrought and bring us back and for­ward to a bet­ter world, before the forces in and around us bring about a more painful, because “forced”, adjustment.

Time to Act
We have a choice.…but not for long. For there are more align­ments hap­pen­ing in the world gen­er­al­ly, (those Tran­sits to Tran­sits) and to our coun­try specif­i­cal­ly (Tran­sits to Natal), that are to meet us this year and in the next many years to come. We have a des­tiny, but we must under­stand, decide and act as those brave men (and women) act­ed in their hour of deci­sion in 1776.

First, we must face what is here before us now; there is more that we must under­stand about the forces bring­ing about the changes we will grow through in 2011. So let us turn our atten­tion to the great­est of these in the next post­ing, the align­ment of Plu­to with Jupiter. Then we will look at some oth­er less­er, though no less impor­tant, align­ments for 2011.

Part Five

Okay, this is a real­ly, real­ly tough one… So, be care­ful! An irre­sistible force (Mars/Desire) meets an immov­able object (Saturn/Reality). Some­thing is bound to hap­pen, and it will not be pret­ty unless you remain cen­tered, adapt and move into greater understanding.

When Mars and Sat­urn align like this you have reached a turn­ing point in action/manifestation. Remem­ber an oppo­si­tion is like a Full Moon, it is time of rev­e­la­tion. It appears as if you must choose between one action/thing or anoth­er; but real­ly this is a time to bridge your divide by ris­ing above appear­ances and so expe­ri­ence the high­er truth; that these two oppo­sites are part of one greater whole. You must find your way to right action and so take the high­er path of synthesis.

Mars is the force of Desire; it is the Spir­it you ride as you man­i­fest your poten­tial through dream­ing-think­ing-act­ing. Sat­urn is the prin­ci­ple of Real­i­ty; it is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of what you dreamed-thought-act­ed. Now it appears that the Author­i­ty-Real­i­ty you are encoun­ter­ing is chal­leng­ing or block­ing your Desire. You attempt to move for­ward, but the hard­er you try, the hard­er Real­i­ty push­es back.

NOW comes your test…If you push ahead even hard­er, well, you might make it, but it will prob­a­bly not turn out well for you or those around you. You will prob­a­bly cause dam­age to your­self or your sur­round­ings. And, if you pull back, and deny your desire, well that won’t be pret­ty either. It will churn around with­in you and come out again, but it will be not be in a very good form when it does.

You can­not go for­ward; you can­not go back. Okay uni­verse, what’s left? And your inner voice will answer, “The Third Way, the Way of Under­stand­ing”. Look at the two oppo­sites before you.

Per­haps the goal is still true, but the way you are attempt­ing to get there no longer works. Either you have changed, or the world has changed, (or both), and you must find a dif­fer­ent means to accom­plish your task. Your Desire/Mars is always evolving.

Then turn and look at what you desire, your goal, and ask “is that what I tru­ly want now?” You cre­at­ed a Real­i­ty to ful­fill your­self, but now it seems to stand in your way. Per­haps it is no longer appro­pri­ate or mean­ing­ful. Or maybe, if you just adjust your bear­ings a lit­tle, then a bet­ter, fin­er goal will present itself. Your Saturn/Reality is always re-forming.

And often­times, it is both. You can no longer act as you had because you have grown; nor can you pur­sue the same real­i­ty because it too is evolv­ing, both through your efforts and that of many others. 

First, you must step back from this cri­sis, from the con­fronta­tion that appears to be “out there”, for the true strug­gle of your life is to be found with­in. Remem­ber that you are only encoun­ter­ing what you have desired and what you have cre­at­ed. Take respon­si­bil­i­ty for what you want­ed and what you made… Now, re-imag­ine your­self and take the mid­dle path of under­stand­ing. You are the creator.

So be it.