venus tales continued

the june 2004 forecast

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venus, neptune, and pluto are retrograde.

venus opposes pluto (2nd of 3)	21°08' gemini/sagittarius	june 2
full moon	12°56 gemini/sagittarius	june 2
mercury enters gemini	0°00' gemini	june 5
transit of venus across the face of the sun	17°54' gemini	june 8
mercury squares uranus	6°47' gem ini/pisces	june 8
uranus enters its retrograde period (stationery retrograde)	6°47' pisces	june 10
mercury squares jupiter	10°53' gemini/virgo	june 10
sun opposes pluto	20°54' gemini/sagittarius	june 11
venus trines neptune	15°13' gemini/aquarius	june 12
mercury conjoins venus	15°06' gemini	june 12
mercury trines neptune	15°13' gemini/aquarius	june 12
mercury opposes pluto	20°48' gemini/sagittarius	june 15
mars opposes chiron	24°57' cancer/capricorn	june 15
new moon	26°57' gemini	june 17
venus squares jupiter	11°51' gemini/virgo	june 19
mercury enters cancer	0°00' cancer	june 19
sun enters cancer (mabon/summer solstice)	0°00' cancer	june 20
mars enters leo	0°00' leo	june 23
mercury conjoins saturn	15°19' cancer	june 26
sun trines uranus	6°41' cancer/pisces	june 27

all dates are based on pacific time.

all the planetary dominoes are in place now, and it remains to be seen how they will fall. venus is the primary trigger setting off events in june because of her interactions with other planets. these interactions are explored in detail in may’s forecast and summarized below. as this forecast is being written, ronald reagan has died, and two apparently unrelated and unexpected resignations in the us intelligence community have occurred, those of cia head george tenet and deputy director of operations james pavitt. it was also revealed that iraqi expatriate and former bush darling ahmed chalabi spilled the beans to the iranians that the us intelligence community had broken their spy communication code. and then there’s the tortures at abu ghraib prison and the incredible praise lavished on secretary of defense donald rumsfeld, in spite of the fact that he’d sanctioned the events and ignored reports about them months earlier.

just as these events are rocking the bush administration, analogous events are shaking our own lives, appropriate to our own circumstances. the two resignations (reflecting venus’s transit through gemini, sign of the twins) happened in the aftermath of venus’s second contact with pluto, which promised to be the most momentous, at the same time as the full moon. when reagan died, venus and the sun in gemini were high on the midheaven of the chart of the day. he died of pneumonia, a lung affliction, which organ is ruled by gemini.

on a happier note, iraq’s interim cabinet was sworn in on the 1^st and took up its powers immediately, after a surprise decision by the governing council formed last july. this came hard on the heels of the equally surprising agreement on an interim president, ghazi yawer and prime minister iyad allawi, decisions over which the us and un envoy lakhdar brahimi had little say. these events are even more significant than the resignations and coincides nominally with a more peaceful atmosphere in iraq.

however, by the end of the month, we will pick up another pattern that has been lying dormant for several months. this pattern has to do with the planets in cancer and capricorn — mars, saturn, chiron, and starting june 19 the sun and mercury.

venus’s stories

in may’s forecast, i speculated about the types of events which might occur related to venus’s descent into the sun. her cycle promised to reveal hidden truths and set the story straight, with her contact to transformative pluto in truthful sagittarius. these effects are amplified by her contact with magnifier jupiter in service-oriented virgo. the peak date for this contact is june 2, but this is only the beginning, for venus is only igniting the contact that jupiter and pluto will make later this summer, on august 6^th. in fact, the impact of their interaction (a square) has been felt from april 14^th, and it will build until its exact contact. since venus touches off both jupiter (april 14, june 19, and july 20) and pluto (may 1, june 2, and july 25) three times, we get ample opportunity to express jupiter-pluto in our lives.

jupiter and pluto contact each other every three years in a twelve-year cycle. the current cycle started nine years ago, on december 2, 1994, at 28° scorpio. at that time, israel and jordan had just signed a peace treaty ending 46 years of conflict, and the us congress held a republican majority for the first time in 40 years on the strength of newt gingrich’s “contract on america”. clinton was pushing hard for deficit reduction and a balanced budget in the us government, an effort in which he would ultimately succeed. this was the cusp of pluto’s ingress into sagittarius, which has signaled starker contrasts and greater polarization between opposing groups. ideological fervor, a sagittarian pitfall, has been on the rise since that time.

as jupiter makes this earthy contact with pluto, we can expect real-world repercussions of the changes that began at the end of 1994. we will see/are seeing the benefits and problems born out of these initiatives as jupiter and pluto come together.

since jupiter has to do with ideology as well as magnification of what is present, we can trace the evolution of the ideological divides that have become more prominent around the world over the past nine years. principle among these is the one which has crystallized between the us and nearly all of the rest of the world. while, blessedly, most people outside the us are sophisticated enough to recognized that it is not all us citizens but rather the bush administration that is at fault for the most recent difficulties, it is also the case that everyone in the us bears some of the onus for that image. the combination of jupiter and pluto can create the “pride that goeth before a fall”, or (to my mind) the boundlessly presumptuous arrogance of the current administration. the evidence of recent events suggests that this self-image is being torn apart as the jupiter-pluto contact takes shape.

we can also see the extremism that has fed the “religious right”, whose non-christian intolerance and disdain for the sanctity of life represent a twisting of traditional american christianity in a very regrettable direction. (see “reaching to the choir [the christians who think bush isn’t]”, in american prospect). other polarizations have occurred as well, between sunnis and shi’ites, political parties — in fact, in any arena where differences have come to light, we are likely to note that those involved are taking an extreme stance.

the jupiter-pluto interaction will see these extreme positions crystallized in their most adamantine form. this tendency will be exacerbated by the saturn-chiron contact which occurs this summer as well. (more on this next month.)

the celebrated transit of venus

the transit of venus across the orb of the sun on the 8^th may seem to unleash the furies, but it is not venus and the sun “at fault”, but rather their contact with uranus, jupiter and pluto that create the furor. the energies and events will be intense around that time, a second peak in early june.

cancer-capricorn and the shape of things to come

when mercury and the sun enter cancer on the 19^th and 20^th, a shift in focus will begin to take place, but we may not notice it right away. it will go from the tensions and disagreements mentioned above (as well as their resolution) to the failures of those in leadership positions. we are already hearing some speak out about a “failed presidency”, about the iraq war being one of the worst debacles in history. from his imperialistic foreign policy to his dismemberment of our constitutional system, to his pro-torture and anti-geneva convention wartime treatment of prisoners, bush’s image is showing signs of wear and tear, just as that of our nation is. this correlates with the transit of saturn through cancer and over his sun, as well as the sun of the us (july 4^th) chart. such an event, which happens 2–3 times in a typical lifetime, is usually a low point, where we discover our weaknesses and errors. when such “growth opportunities” have been ignored in the past, as they have been in bush’s case, each time the transit occurs, the events get a little (or a lot) more intense. that is certainly the case right now. as the election approaches, bush will also go through his second saturn return (an event we can all look forward to — or recall — at age 58), another typically low point when we are reminded of our mortality and given the prescription for overcoming our weaknesses yet again.

result: new lows in bush’s approval rating are sure to be reached. new lows in international opinion of the us are likely to be reached. the exact contact of saturn to the us sun does not occur until the middle of this month. the contact with bush’s sun comes at the end of june and early july. when mercury conjoins saturn on the 26^th, more “bad news” is likely to come out. the sun is close behind, making its contact on july 8^th.

uranus adds fuel to the fire

on the 10^th, uranus stands still in the heavens and turns on its heels to pace backward through the zodiac for 5 months. tied to the venus retrograde, as well as to jupiter and pluto, it is sure to stir up some flames around that date. this may be literal, as new terrorist attacks, now focused in saudi arabia, may create the impression that oil reserves there are imperiled, sending oil prices even higher on the commodities exchanges. (they hit a record high on june 1–2.) this will tie into events on or around february 21, august 27, and november 11.

what it means for you

in our personal lives, we can expect to be challenged by polarizing factions. people may try to provoke us into playing a “king of the hill” game, try to draw us into an argument. if we respectfully refuse to play, we can avoid such conflicts. this is how we can respond healthfully to triggers in the mutable signs — gemini, virgo, sagittarius, and pisces. these signs resonate with the integrating force and flow around obstacles rather than confront them directly. when others are trying to get us to confront directly, we can flow around the situation by deciding whether or not we want to play the game and if so by what rules. only we can tell when flowing around an obstacle becomes unhealthy avoidance of an issue, which will not help it to resolve itself. especially during this venus transit, resist all efforts by others to draw you into a struggle. discussion is okay if you refuse to take a position. this leaves you fluid and able to change your stance without issues of pride and losing face. negotiation is fine if you don’t abandon yourself in the process, for then you will lose your self-respect. similarly, it helps to be aware that once others have taken a position, they will find it hard to relinquish it without feeling as though they have lost face. you can assist them in doing so if you can find a way to help them save face.

we may also find that the challenges we encounter have to do with our values or come from those who are experiencing a crisis in self-love. seeing to the heart of the matter — what’s really going on — always helps us uproot the problem. challenges to engage in conflict always come because someone else is jealous of our inner independence and self-reference (ability to be happy and self-loving without reference to how others feel about us).

the month ends on a hopeful note, as the sun trines uranus, and venus returns to direct motion. perhaps oil prices will begin to drop. however, we should not go back to our national complacency, trusting that we will be taken care of by our all-powerful national leaders who can protect us from all things. saturn over our national sun is teaching us that we must give up our childish hopes that the woes of the world cannot touch us. we cannot be protected from the power that we give away to others by relying on their oil reserves, nor can we be inured from our own weaknesses, particularly our collective drive for creature comforts at all costs.