While the Moon waxes through her bright second quarter, Venus and Mercury both enter Leo. Venus enters the feline sign on Monday, and Mercury follows on Wednesday. The two make a conjunction on Saturday just as they become visible again in the sunset sky. The movement of Mercury and Venus into Leo tilts the elemental balance of the heavens towards fire.
While Mercury and Venus go about their bright business, the Sun in Cancer moves toward a trine with Mars in Scorpio, which will re-establish harmony between their respective spheres for the first time in months. Uranus, however, is in position to challenge this process, and may well complicate or disrupt things considerably. This configuration is complete on Saturday, the same day as Mercury and Venus finish their conjunction.
The Moon’s arc this week takes her from Libra into early Capricorn, which means she will make a potentially difficult conjunction with Mars in Scorpio on Thursday afternoon and a perhaps-trying conjunction with Saturn on Friday night.
Mercury and Venus are very busy this week. Entering new signs, conjoining and heliacally rising will make for a variety of dramatic announcements and unveilings. Their movements are favorable for marketing, promotion and other works of appearance.
While most of the planets form a wide variety of angles to one another, Mercury and Venus have only 2 possible aspects- the conjunction (0) and the sextile (60). This week sees the conjunction between the two. Here the liquid mercury of Hermes is alloyed with Venus’ luxurious flow of copper.
Confined together in the Sun-chamber, Mercury and Venus must work out their differences. This means finding the right words for the subtleties and nuances of feeling and relation which Venus presides over. Psychologically, this conjunction speaks to the integration and close alignment of the heart and the intellect. Mythologically, the product of this alchemical union is the Hermaphrodite, whose name is a combination of Hermes and Aphrodite.
This conjunction also speaks to the integration of aesthetics (Venus) and technical skill (Mercury), an essential union in most arts. Artists may find this intertwined flow easier to access while the conjunction is active. The connection between the artist and the mythic hermaphrodite is apparent in the tendency of artists to commonly embody more transgressive combinations of gendered attributes than the residents of most other fields.
Yet we are all divine artists, sculpting, painting and singing our lives into being. In essence, this Mercury-Venus conjunction speaks to the transgressive union of opposites which is always present within the authentic self. In Leo and freshly risen, their pairing is perhaps a prompt to let the world see more of who you really are, and for you to acknowledge the delightful contradictions within.
The Sun in Cancer spends the week applying to a trine with a direct-but-slow Mars in Scorpio, which occurs this Saturday. This is the Sun’s first harmonious or soft aspect with the planet since before Mars’ retrograde began. The Sun’s trine to Mars speaks to the process of reintegration in play between Mars’ action and the Sun’s centralized intelligence, as the two have not been able to agree since their last trine, on March 25th.
As I wrote in my July 2016 overview, this point can be seen as the renegotiation of the relationship between the sovereign and the general, the crown and the sword. It is an aspect of marching orders and formations, and after this point, Mars’ speed will begin to increase dramatically.
Yet the conference between the Sun and Mars has a third member- Uranus in Aries. Because Uranus and Mars are both at 24 degrees of their respective signs, the Sun sees and speaks with both of them simultaneously. While the relationship between the Sun and Mars is a negotiable trine, the aspect between Uranus and the Sun is a conflicted square. Here Uranus in Aries presents a case for radical departures from existing plans and total rebellions against extent order. It has the potential to disrupt or complicate agreements between the Sun and Mars.
Yet the Sun must hear Uranus out, as a good sovereign should listen to each and every one of their subjects. Uranus speaks on behalf of the radicals, revolutionaries and idealists. In hearing Uranus, the Sun can recognize that merely maintaining the order of the world-as-it-is may not be sufficient. Sometimes it is not enough to repair structures- they must be torn down and begun again. Yet radical initiatives often fail, and replace the problems they were meant to solve with worse ones. As sovereign of your own kingdom, the matter falls to your own royal judgment.
Yet before you render judgment, it may be worth taking the opinion of the Divine Artist into account, as Mercury and Venus complete their conjunction just as the Sun, Mars and Uranus hold council. There’s little that cannot be improved with a little more honesty and artistry.
