Tran­script of Radio Show — Venus Ret­ro­grade & Dhar­ma in Gemini

Let us turn our atten­tion to the top­ic of today, which is actu­al­ly two, in that I would like to talk first about Venus and then talk about the nodes of the Moon.

Ret­ro­grade
When­ev­er Venus turns ret­ro­grade, and like all the plan­ets, except for the Sun and Moon which are not plan­ets, all plan­ets have this qual­i­ty of going ret­ro­grade. Which means for our pur­pos­es here on Earth, though all the plan­ets go around the Sun in the same direc­tion, they have the appear­ance for us on our plan­et to move back­wards against the back­drop of the stars for var­i­ous peri­ods of time.

Mer­cury and Venus, being inside the orbit of the Earth to the Sun, they “catch up” with us on the “inside track” and appear to loop around in space for that peri­od of ret­ro­grade, and then con­tin­ue on their mer­ry way.

Then for the Out­er Plan­ets, of Mars on out to Plu­to, we will pass them on the “inside track”, so that for a num­ber of months or many months, they will also ret­ro­grade. In fact, com­ing up this week we have Sat­urn turn­ing ret­ro­grade tomor­row (May 11), we have Venus turn­ing ret­ro­grade on Wednes­day the 13^th, and Jupiter turn­ing ret­ro­grade on the 14^th. So, this is a week with a lot of plan­ets turn­ing ret­ro­grade. I would just like to point out in terms of the out­er plan­ets like Sat­urn and Jupiter, it is because they are so close togeth­er now (in the sign of Capri­corn), that they are going ret­ro­grade at the same time.

Of course, we are prob­a­bly more famil­iar with Mer­cury going ret­ro­grade since we talk about it more fre­quent­ly because it hap­pens more often, at least three times a year. Mars goes ret­ro­grade about every two years, but all the out­er plan­ets will ret­ro­grade for sev­er­al months each year.

Venus Ret­ro­grade
For our pur­pos­es here, when­ev­er Venus turns ret­ro­grade, (and it does this about every 19 months, last­ing for about 40 days, which is an inter­est­ing num­ber because that num­ber is found in many spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions), we are giv­en a very spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty, I would say, to also turn around, look with­in and re-exam­ine our val­ues which are inte­gral to our inner sen­si­bil­i­ties and for­ma­tive of our out­er qual­i­ties of being. Those val­ues held by the Avatar of Venus form our tastes and sen­si­bil­i­ties rang­ing from our phys­i­cal plea­sures, aes­thet­ic or artis­tic appre­ci­a­tions to our per­son­al love and social sen­si­bil­i­ties. Venus holds our likes (and dis­likes) with the things of this world, and with our affec­tions or antag­o­nisms with one another.

Tru­ly Venus, as the instru­ment of our order­ing or hier­ar­chy of val­ue, holds us to what we need, what we have and what we want in our life, rang­ing from the most basic or phys­i­cal of our appetites on up to the most sub­lime of affec­tions and expe­ri­ences we have and share with one anoth­er. I like to say, that the heart or bond of all rela­tion­ships is our shared val­ues, and that if we have enough com­mon val­ue we will hold togeth­er in good times but espe­cial­ly in try­ing ones as we have now, as true friends, as sin­cere col­leagues and trea­sured loved ones.

Dur­ing the peri­od of Venus ret­ro­grade, much like dur­ing the more famil­iar Mer­cury ret­ro­grade, its nor­mal­ly out­ward­ly direct­ed ener­gy-forms are turned inward, which means they move from a more or less pure­ly sub­jec­tive per­spec­tive or point of view to a more objec­tive place. This gift of Venus ret­ro­grade enables you to become more objec­tive or inward­ly focused upon the expe­ri­ences of val­ue in your life. As with Mer­cury ret­ro­grade, but now focused upon the ques­tion of val­ue not on how you think, you are able to shift your con­scious­ness and con­tem­plate your hier­ar­chy of val­ue more objec­tive­ly, less per­son­al­ly so that it is more removed from the cul­tur­al and social assump­tions that you may be unknow­ing­ly shaped and guid­ed by.

Many of your wants and needs, which arise from your val­ues, and ulti­mate­ly add up to form your val­ue of “you”, many of these have, cer­tain­ly at first, been uncon­scious­ly incor­po­rat­ed into you through your ear­li­est expe­ri­ences in your fam­i­ly and imme­di­ate neigh­bor­hood and cul­tur­al order. In child­hood and then beyond into your teens and even adult­hood, you may believe that you like or want or tru­ly need some­thing, because, well, because you always have, and those around you do too.

But as you con­sid­er these things or expe­ri­ences of val­ue you from a more dis­pas­sion­ate and objec­tive place, you may find that your likes and dis­likes are not so pre-deter­mined and fixed at all. You will prob­a­bly dis­cov­er that some or many things you feel or believe you must have, you will upon reflec­tion under­stand that you actu­al­ly do not need them at all.

You will let go or elim­i­nate some things in your life or some activ­i­ties or pas­times and that this will open a space with­in and around you. You will also real­ize that some things or expe­ri­ences you had not yet con­sid­ered mean­ing­ful or val­ued, that you now wish to enjoy and make these parts of your life.

It is quite prob­a­ble that the range of the val­ues you hold will move around, as the order that they are in may become rearranged, with some things or expe­ri­ences in your life mov­ing up or down in importance.

Flow­ing from this inner re-order­ing will be a new sen­si­bil­i­ty and rela­tion­ship to the world around you. Most espe­cial­ly, this refined/reformed under­stand­ing of the val­ue of you and of what you val­ue, will help you in your most impor­tant expe­ri­ence as human, your expe­ri­ence of val­ue that forms your rela­tion­ships with one another.

What we will see over the next six weeks, is that we will all ben­e­fit from a much need­ed reassess­ment of the nature of our val­ues, of what is tru­ly more mean­ing­ful and need­ed by each of us and for all of us. For it is our com­mon­ly shared val­ues, the glue of our part­ner­ships, com­mu­ni­ties, regions, nations and the world itself that will be illu­mi­nat­ed by this oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-con­nect to the most impor­tant val­ue from which all oth­ers are derived, the Love that made this world, and gives us all an undy­ing well of val­ue, the love we have in Spir­it, and the love we have for one another.

And, just as a point of infor­ma­tion the ret­ro­grade begins on May 13^th and runs until June 25^th, and the mid­point of its cycle is when Venus is pass­ing over the Sun, mak­ing the Venus/Sun Con­junc­tion will occur on June 3^rd around 1:45 pm here in New York City. It is said to be a moment where there is an align­ment between the Self and val­ue of the Self, and so that is when a seed or influ­ence might be felt by one and all, and that some­thing has changed and a new under­stand­ing is being released.

It will take some time to under­stand what that is, but it is like a New Moon for Venus with regards to us.

Lunar Nodes
Well then, let us take a look at this oth­er thing that is per­haps even more obscure for many peo­ple. Peo­ple may have found in their ses­sions with their Astrologer or read about these things, but what I have found in my prac­tice of Astrol­o­gy, and this is cer­tain­ly true for a num­ber of Astrologers, is that the insight pro­vid­ed by the posi­tion of the Moon’s nodes to be quite helpful.

The Nodes are not phys­i­cal objects. They are formed by the inter­sec­tion of two orbital paths, the orbit of the Moon around the Earth, and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. So, it is like two cir­cles or ellipses that inter­sect at two points. Unlike the plan­ets, the nodes move through the Zodi­ac in reverse order, from Aries to Pisces to Aquar­ius and so on, and take about 18.6 years to make a com­plete revolution.

When the Moon in pass­ing the North node, it is mov­ing over the eclip­tic (the path of the Earth around the Sun) and moves from a lat­i­tude that is South to North; and like­wise, when it reach­es the South Node, it cross­es the eclip­tic again mov­ing into South lat­i­tude. Since we are look­ing here at the orbits of the Earth to the Sun, and the Moon to the Earth, the nodal axis is said to sym­bol­ize or link the pri­ma­ry rela­tion­ship of the two lights in Astrol­o­gy, the Sun and the Moon.

The Moon in the North­ern phase of its month­ly cycle is the time for the “build­ing of ener­gy-forms” or Spir­it, and the south­ern pas­sage is the time for reap­ing and Mate­ri­al­iz­ing peri­od. Sow­ing and Reap­ing, Dhar­ma and Kar­ma is how I like to describe it.

Sim­i­lar­ly for our pur­pos­es today, as the Nodal posi­tion moves back­wards through the Astro­log­i­cal Signs for 18.6 years, (and as they do so they move through each of our charts, and through the hous­es of that chart with regards to indi­vid­ual inter­pre­ta­tions), we can obtain valu­able insight about the ongo­ing focus of what is or should be our under­stand­ing in that time of what is our col­lec­tive Dhar­ma and what is our col­lec­tive Karma.

North Node in Gemini
Start­ing on May the 5^th of 2020, and last­ing until Jan­u­ary 2022, we now have the North Node of the Moon in Gem­i­ni and so the South Node is in Sagit­tar­ius. What does this mean for us?

The North Node in Gem­i­ni calls upon us all to focus our spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment upon one of our more remark­able gifts, our fac­ul­ty of Intel­li­gence, and to use this “lamp of con­scious aware­ness” in prac­ti­cal terms to under­stand our­selves and our world. By doing so, we will be able to find bet­ter and more prac­ti­cal solu­tions to the issues and prob­lems that we face at this time.

Equal­ly, the South Node in Sagit­tar­ius reminds us that our exist­ing approach to under­stand­ing our real­i­ty will always be guid­ed by our pri­or expe­ri­ences, which have been assim­i­lat­ed and formed into our the­o­ries, sci­ence, and oth­er truths. These become our fram­ing or our lens­es that we look at the present real­i­ty with, because they cre­ate and form our present-day assump­tions and view­points. These uni­ver­sals have become crys­tal­lized into our par­a­digm of beliefs, truths and the abstract prin­ci­ples that guide us. They reveal and explain what we are encoun­ter­ing giv­en that frame­work, but it also means we can­not see or under­stand what does not fit with those assump­tions. We must remem­ber that our con­scious­ness is lim­it­ed, and we do not know what we can­not see or under­stand, espe­cial­ly if we do not even con­sid­er it possible.

We should resist the pull of the South Node, (but cer­tain­ly not dis­miss what we have learned to date either), because it would have us fall back upon or rest upon our too easy and ready answers, which have been formed by our ulti­mate­ly self-blind­ed and lim­it­ed rea­son­ing. Because even though this lev­el of Sci­ence or Belief or Truth does pro­vide a con­text of mean­ing for the phe­nom­e­na we encounter, they will also lim­it and blind us to what we may need to under­stand in the now. If we only look for what we expect to find and dis­miss what does not fit that pre­sumed view of real­i­ty, then we will miss what is “out there” or even “in us” because we have will­ful­ly cho­sen to ignore it.

The Gem­i­ni North Node is about remain­ing curi­ous and open. It is about the gift of open obser­va­tion and rely­ing more upon Induc­tive Rea­son­ing. It requires that we be flex­i­ble and agile and adept, by ques­tion­ing our assump­tions and remov­ing the ten­den­cy to dis­miss what does not fit with our pre­con­cep­tions. That way we can look at the phe­nom­e­na of what­ev­er we are encoun­ter­ing with a fresh per­spec­tive, with an open mind and heart.

The North Node in Gem­i­ni reminds us, as does the Sign of Gem­i­ni gen­er­al­ly, that as the ancient admo­ni­tion has it, we must approach the won­der of this uni­verse “with the eyes of a child and then you will see”. It is by approach­ing any mat­ter for con­sid­er­a­tion with won­der and open­ness, and with­out the pre­con­cep­tions and assump­tions that blind you to what is the greater real­i­ty that you face now, this is what is required now in our journey.

This win­dow of Gem­i­ni is about gath­er­ing many expe­ri­ences, many data points, and so you may begin to build a bet­ter or new­er set of cor­re­spon­dences and con­nec­tions between one thing and anoth­er. By build­ing inward­ly and out­ward­ly into an ever more encom­pass­ing web of inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty, you and we will even­tu­al­ly form a large enough body or col­lec­tion of infor­ma­tion that will reveal a new under­stand­ing of the order behind it.

Cer­tain­ly, much of what we already under­stand, which has been held and ulti­mate­ly formed into more or less ever­last­ing truths will remain; there are cer­tain­ly some truths that are tru­ly eter­nal. But some if not many of the, shall we say, less­er truths as well as less­er cat­e­gories of knowl­edge and mean­ing, these will be shaped, per­haps sharp­ened, or couched into a more nuanced order­ing of mean­ing which will lead to a greater com­pre­hen­sion, a more inclu­sive under­stand­ing, and help us stay upon the path that is made of equal parts of wis­dom and humil­i­ty. The great souls know this: “The more you know, the more you will bow down to that which is beyond your knowing”.

This Gem­i­ni North Node approach seems rather time­ly, as we are cer­tain­ly deal­ing with a world that is rapid­ly chang­ing. We find our­selves in a world where our old assump­tions, prac­tices and very our way of life is not only not work­ing but is the root of our prob­lem. Many souls around the world under­stand and accept that this way, our way, of liv­ing on this plan­et is the cause of this cri­sis, both with regards to the imme­di­ate prob­lem of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, but the real chal­lenge, of which the pan­dem­ic is but a symp­tom, and that is Cli­mate Change.

We are an intel­li­gent species; and many would agree that this is our “ring of pow­er”. It has been the means to the mate­r­i­al trans­for­ma­tions of our­selves and our world, but it has equal­ly, through­out our jour­ney, been an instru­ment of destruc­tion and pain too.

We are here, and we made what we face. The ques­tion is do we under­stand, and will we take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our cre­ation? Will we apply our rea­son and under­stand­ing in a man­ner that is guid­ed and informed by our com­pas­sion, humil­i­ty, and wis­dom? Will we under­stand that our first moth­er, Moth­er Earth, and all her crea­tures great and small, need us to remem­ber that we are all relat­ed on this Earth.

Yes, all humans are one fam­i­ly, and we all love our mothers.

But equal­ly all life on this plan­et is pre­cious to our Great Moth­er too.

Life is love; Love is Life.

Let us love one anoth­er, let us love all that lives.

And let us give thanks and love all moth­ers and the One Moth­er to us all.