I share this in the hour of Venus, on Venus’ Day.  Pieces of a prayer offered in ceremony on January 17th, one stretching from evening through dawn, the second of that seminal weekend.  Words following the cadence of a few cups of medicine, nestled between rituals and the ensuing song, grinding, gratitude, healing, atonement.

“Retching on the footsteps of heaven

Staring grace in the feet

Voices raised up, tremble

A chorus of orgasmic grief

Retching on the footsteps of heaven

Staring grace in the feet

I am beckoned ever back towards

These sweet sounds of relief

Water, ‘round the temple of the mountains

And carrying through valley bends

Placating, amniotic creatrix

Falling crystalline on grounds to attend

Water, ‘round the temple of the mountains

Until one part chooses again to descend

Wrapped up in soulful movement

Tied from endless finite end to end”

In the first face of Aquarius now concluding — the sign’s initial 10°, or roughly ten days — we find the rulership of Venus, in the Chaldean order of decanic rule.  Venus does not join the mounting Aquarius spread until February 1st, but reached its conjunction with Pluto in the third decan of Capricorn yesterday.  This aspect can be explosive, but in a face of Capricorn decidedly oriented around composed dominance and foothold, one might find the venusian instincts of art and relation tempered by a cauldron cooler and less volcanic.

Reaching through even the scattering aquarian winds, we find the power of this Venus-Pluto conjunction.  Desire, connection, stripping away of that which is less authentic… getting to the heart of one’s deepest needs; for love, for recognition, for the most authentic of unions.  Strengthening bonds in community, amidst the tumult.

This dance of Venus’ copper-mirrored instincts with Pluto’s underworldly stripping of facades, it surfaces everywhere… from relationships to stock markets.  Pluto is not just the stark yet seductive terror of being seen, being penetrated… Pluto is Hades — riches.  The dark notes, too — obsession, fear of loss, manipulation!  Where might we be taking this relationship, this fulcrum of self and other?  Where might we be taking the power dynamics endured, when financial institutions are free to profit from working class suffering, yet the moment people flip the script, cries of ‘collusion!’ clamor about.

Through the weight and distance born by the Sun conjunct Saturn in the first days of Aquarius this year, things were heavy there for a few.  The alienated mind in pain grasps for hold.  And so the Sun moved past Saturn and into a more supportive conjunction with Jupiter, enduring through this moment, lightening some of the Saturn-ruled burdens.  Opposite Leo’s home of the Sun, radiating from the inside out, is Aquarius indeed — Saturn-ruled, looking from the outside in.  To see God in our antiheroes and in devolution, to see the iconoclast, the outcast, the pariah, and say, ‘hey, that’s okay, I see you’ and reel them in — these acts are found in divinity of Aquarius.

​Amidst a gathering of friends in magickal community a couple weekends back, the lovely Carolyn Elliott spoke of Aquarius and the communal connection to bathhouses, water-bearing, and the bringing of wholeness to all one’s coven and kin. And not least of all, the top drawer gossip belonging to such spiritual dwelling places! I’m reminded of Miyazaki’s depictions, and great spirits being cleansed… this particular weekend was not so different. ~;)

This Leo Full Moon was ruled, of course, by the Sun, having passed Saturn and whose proximity to Jupiter is thus extra emphasized. The veins and tributaries of community, cities of otherworldly irrigation… airy, novel construction bringing waters from that part of sky called The Sea, bath tokens in our quests for relational wholeness.

[artwork commissioned from Hayden Fisher]