"The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains."

— Josephine Baker

We reach the Winter Solstice this week in an extraordinarily potent and extremely challenging atmosphere. Venus turns retrograde in a powerful, extended conjunction with Pluto, challenging us to learn new ways of relating within an entirely new but still developing framework. The retrograde Venus is likely to dash our idealism and put our relationships in a rather cold, harsh light. Saturn and Uranus make the third and final exact square. This long arc aspect has been with us all year, setting out obstacles for us to overcome, demanding that we check and recheck our foundations for any weaknesses before [...]

"Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. "

— Saint Augustine

Venus reaches a potent, passionate, creative, and truly transformative conjunction with Pluto by the end of this week. The Venus-Pluto conjunction is intensified by the slowing of Venus, which will turn retrograde on December 19th. We are beginning to demonstrate the personal understanding that we have developed in our response to the powerful Saturn-Pluto conjunction that occurred in January of 2020 and the subsequent societal/cultural shifts. Our responses are personal and our unique individual perspectives are shown through our relationships and the nature of the interactions we have with those around us. But the societal/cultural guidelines within which we are functioning are also changing, affecting how we relate to others. This is truly an evolutionary transformation that is seen through [...]

"People change and forget to tell each other."

— Lillian Hellman

The arrival of the Sun in Sagittarius early in the week, does not really provide the immediate, expansive sense of optimism we might expect, since it meets up with the South Node which is near the Scorpio/Sagittarius cusp. By mid-week, Mercury arrives in Sagittarius and must also cross the South Node. Mercury in Sagittarius does help to open us up to sharing a more expansive and optimistic perspective. However, Mercury is a not comfortable without clear facts to support our optimism. The result is sensitive vulnerability. We are unsteady as we struggle to [...]