It's that time of year again!

Venus in Jupiter’s Domain

It’s somewhat ironic that this heading popped into my head considering that I just spent the last sixteen years as Venus in Jupiter’s domain — but those are just the facts when Venus is in either Pisces (like she is right now) or Sagittarius.

When Venus traverses Sagittarius or is located there in your natal chart, it’s as if the most femme of people — whose sole desire in life is to be wrapped up in cashmere and silk, fed the most wholesome and artfully prepared of foods, takes pride in being the most pleasurable (and aesthetically pleasing) of companions, and who knows how to part you with your pants and physical inhibitions — was forced to take a vacation in either a frat house or a seminary school.

Imagine Venus’ horror at having to subject a gorgeously crafted pair of Tamara Mellon pumps to floors sticky from beer pong and sloppy keg stands and ask her to sit — let alone sleep — on a bed whose sheets have been changed in no one knows how long (fyi, supposedly the average single male changes his sheets only 4 times per year) — not to mention subjecting her to take away pizza, decor by Wayne and Garth, and conversation by Bevis and Butthead doubling down on dubious interpretations of Jacques Derrida lifted off of an essay they paid some Dean’s List nerd to write for them for a less suspicious “C”.

The seminary school option is no less appealing: The dress code makes George Lucas’ requirement that Carrie Fisher tape down her boobs sound liberal. Conversation consists of endless speculation about life after death, sin, and morality — which is fun until Venus realizes these kooks aren’t engaging in thought experiments and is getting the distinct impression that its their soul that they’re trying to save. Meal time makes a juice cleanse look indulgent while the bed looks about as comfy as a yoga mat that’s tolerable for the length of sivasana.

Fine. Maybe it’s a bit of hyperbolic over simplification, but long story short Venus in Sagittarius is pushed to be chaotic af because it finds itself in an environment that’s completely antithetical to Venus’ optimal operation. Venus gets up on the pool table to twerk and drive the natives into frenzied lust and adulation — knowing full well that Venus doesn’t at all mean to consummate anything on those disgusting sheets — but Venus needs the containment of that desire. It’s either that or Venus will debate the seminarians into a corner, relishing every moment of using their own statements against them and challenging them to refute themselves.

But, oh how things change in Pisces.

Brazenness encapsulates what I’ve got in the pantry about the realm of Pisces and what Jup does when at home there. The most salient addition for our purposes here is that Jupiter also exalts Venus when it visits.

Heavy Is the Head that Wears the Crown

Exaltation describes the dignity of a planet when it occupies (as in a natal, horary, election, or composite chart) or transits a sign in which it is provided all the resources it needs to succeed in fructifying its significations. It sounds great, right? And, for the most part, it can be. Here the planet gets to be the ultimate diva whose every rider request is granted — the skittles separated by colors in different bowls, fresh white roses every day, gorgeous groupies lounging on silken divans, bathtubs filled with heated Evian — no request is too indulgent or out there.

HOWEVER. (Yes, there are several points that constitute a huge “however end stop”.)

What makes a diva a diva (or a divus)? Diva comes from the Latin for goddess or “divine one”. It was a term originally used for opera singers in the late 19th Century because their voices were channels of the divine and ecstatic into the mundane lives of their audiences — especially in those days when bourgeois emotional repression and denial of sexual expression was the norm. That is what is required of a diva even now — whether they are an opera singer, pop star, star athlete, or a mogul: to be a completely available channel from the divine into a world full of people muddling along in their flesh suits.

The level of expectation of the diva would crush most mortals — along with the ever present threat of the precipitous and hellishly ignominious fall from grace. We project so much onto them — our desire for authenticity, our need for transcendence, our yearning for pure and unfettered connection…and they MUST provide and allow themselves to be devoured. If not, they must step down and become ordinary; but most are built in such a way that they would have no clue how to exist in the every day world that everyone else lives in — and so ruination and often some kind of death.

Their meagre exchange they receive consist of all those externals everyone wishes for but that no one in their right mind would willingly give everything to have.

This is the predicament of planets in exaltation. Each planet in their exultation sign is subject to this covenant, and — except for the Sun (in Aries), Mercury (in Virgo), and Saturn (in Libra) whose exaltation lords are friends or, in Mercury’s case, itself — their exaltation lords are in either a frenemy or antithetical relationship with them.

Perhaps, I’m biased as a Venusian, but Venus in Pisces is perhaps in the trickiest scenario of them all.

The Moment that Is Eternity

In the Jyotish system, Venus and Jupiter are frenemies. Venus is the Guru of the Asuras — the demons. Besides having the primary agenda of getting everyone knocked up, Venus provides what is needed to transcend the gross obsession with survival so that we might focus on realizing that our precious human life and the body it comes with provides an opportunity to be and behold the Universe. Jupiter, otoh, is the Guru of the Devas — the gods. Jupiter seeks to elevate our consciousness beyond its embodiment and the duality and the illusion of its existence set within a discrete context.

It’s basically the same mission but executed in very different ways.

So, what happens when Venus is in Pisces? Even though Jupiter exalts Venus here — grants its every whim and desire — that means Venus owes Jupiter on Jupiter’s terms.

What then can Venus do without betraying itself? How can Venus, the planet that exalts boundary enforcing, materially manifesting Saturn and, like every great artist lives by the credo that the fictional, imaginative construct of art often tells the truth much better than facts, dissolve individuated perception into universal consciousness?

Venus has to Venus, because despite being in Pisces on the elliptic, it’s in its home sign of Libra by antiscion — and is still on some level its own master.

So what does it do? Venus brings us eternity in a carefully crafted moment. Venus makes reality a dream and dreams reality.

The easiest example of this is through art. I probably said it better when I was riffing on a recent live on IG, but here it is:

Venus in Pisces is like standing in front of a Renaissance master painting and being moved to feel something that is of you and your own emotional makeup but is also akin to the same feeling experienced by those who are in the room also looking at the painting as well as for every person who has looked at that painting for the last 500 years. Or, when you go see a movie, play, dance, concert, or musical live, and you feel something welling up from inside of you and then, when you look around, everyone else is feeling something similar — as have everyone else who has seen the work. Hell, it’s even true for meals! That bite of a recipe that has been passed on or carefully formulated. It connects you to the person who wrote the recipe and their need to nourish to the farmers who produced the ingredients to the grocer to the person who cared enough to prepare it for you. The complete sensory experience of the meal makes right now forever.

Where Venus in Pisces delivers most viscerally is in tantric sex — and, no, it isn’t just some mind blowing orgasm (which it can also be) but that channel into intimacy that makes you aware of yourself, your partner, and — not to be hokey but there’s no other way to put it — the divine. Through the imperfect flesh via a curated, practiced, controlled means (yes, tantra requires practice, initiation and control, and can’t be reduced to simply the physical reproduction of the giggle inducing positions depicted in the Kama Sutra), a connection opens up to the infinite. It is the ultimate expression of Venus’ presence in Pisces on the elliptic and in Libra by antiscion.

Venus in Pisces, like every great diva, requires the dialogue of art and audience united in a particular experience that dissolves them into something greater than the sum of their parts. Venus in Pisces is a poem. To become a poem requires a listener. Otherwise, all you have are simply words on a page.

Making Dreams a Reality + Making Reality a Dream

So, what does this mean for us mere mortals until February 20th (after which Venus joins Jupiter in Aries and both of them suffer Mars’ lash)?

Whichever house Pisces rules in your chart is where, whilst Venus is in her Exaltation, becomes the area of life through which the dreams and realities of the houses ruled by Taurus and Libra are playing out during this time period.

Here’s a handy dandy chart for you:

How to use this chart:

1. Locate your Ascendant/Rising Sign and see which houses Pisces, Taurus, and Libra cover and what areas of life those houses rule.

2. Make a list! (You knew there would be a homework portion.) What are the dreams you want to make reality and the realities you want to make more dreamlike/transcendant/up your game in in the Taurus and Libra areas of your life? Understand that these dreams and desires are something the Universe is manifesting through you. You are not their author.

3. Look at the Pisces house. How does dealing with these issues enable you to channel into reality the items you listed in Step 3? What do you have to sacrifice in this area of your life in order to get what you want? How does achieving a flow state in these areas of life and/or yielding yourself up in service to something much bigger than yourself enable you channel into reality what the Divine is attempting to manifest in your Taurus and Libra ares of life?

FOR EXAMPLE:

For Libra risings, Libra is your First House of You, Your Body, Health, the Unconscious Bias you are seeking to confirm/Conscious focus and Taurus is your Eighth House of Trust — how you earn it and how you expect it to be earned, Partner’s Wealth, Client’s Money, the Occult, Research, Secrets, Taxes, Debts.

Let’s say you want to get healthier, restore the beauty and magic back into your life and not focus so much on everything being about the grind and money (or lack thereof — South Node transiting the Second House of Wealth has been draining after all). You being healthier allows you to be more present and able to do what you do best — hold space for other people, create safe environments for others to experience their vulnerability and transmute the perception of it from weakness to strength. Restoring your aesthetic lens on the world enables you to be more creative and a better creative partner.

You also want to take out a line of credit to provide you that capex cushion that frees you from only focusing on the bottom line and taking jobs for the money. Doing so would enable you to engage in projects that challenge you to find new, visionary means of expression with clients who are values aligned and with whom building trust creates stability and enduring shared wealth.

Okay. SO: Pisces is your 6th house, in which you deal with Dis-ease (aka how you may be mismanaging your resources so that dysfunctional states arise especially your body), Service, Repaying your debts, Karma you cannot outrun, Your Employees, Enemies. How’s Venus gonna help you here?

Firstly, identify any dis-ease states that can be obstacles to any health initiatives you want to undertake. Maybe you’re tired all the time because of your diet or maybe that sweet tooth is leading to liver issues (Venus is sweets and Jupiter is overindulgence and the liver). What do you have to sacrifice to get what you want out of your health? Who could you employ who could help get you accountable with your health goals?

Want to get the beauty and magic back into your life and not worry so much about how lack of funds is depriving you of control of your life? Make time for beauty, bitch! What times sucks do you have to give up so that you can go to museums, galleries, etc? How can you make your immediate environment more beautiful? (Hello! Maybe get rid of that clutter that’s become an eye sore — you think divas can just sing like that? It takes a shit ton of training, practice, and hard work and showing up EVERY DAY.)

And, as for that line of credit? Figure out a solid plan of how to deal with any current debts that are impacting your credit score, find out if there are other shared resources you can access that will either make you more attractive to lenders or investors OR that you can use instead of taking on more debt.

Claro? Though, if you’d like help walking through it, maybe book a 30-minute Coffee Klatsch with me and we can get you sorted!

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

2023 at The Practical Astrologer

So, for those of you who might’ve missed it, I released the Jupiter’s Last Stand in my last newsletter. This is my offering for those who are in financial need (no questions asked! it’s the honor system) but would like to be able to access my services throughout 2023 on a sliding scale. There are still seventeen spots left. If you have any questions about how it works, please drop me a line.

There are 4 new service offerings that I’m extremely excited to roll out!

For NEW CLIENTS:

The Deep Dive.

This is a re-imagining of my original “The Whole Package”. It consists of 3 sessions: the Natal Analysis (using both Western and Jyotish techniques); the Big Picture (that looks at your dasha cycles in order to understand more fully the current context in which you are operating); and an Annual Reading (based on your Solar Return and progressed charts as well as your yearly profections).

FOR EVERYONE:

Natal Analysis Using Jyotish Techniques.

These rolled out backwards. Lol. But this is the partner (and reading that should come first if you decide to do them as a series) to my Forecast + Timing Using Jyotish Techniques. Since both of these are still being refined as my proficiency with jyotish strengthens, they are still being offered on a by donation basis.

FOR EXISTING CLIENTS:

A Year of You!

After rolling out retainer offerings last year and fine tuning the way I worked with retainer clients, it was back to the drawing board to craft a new program that will work best for those who either find the quarterly readings to be too overwhelming and/or would like to be able to go one month at a time and/or who would also like to access astrological tools beyond prediction or want to take a deep dive in studying your own chart and become more proficient in delineating transits yourself. Because this is a much more intense and hands on way of working with each other, please schedule a free Discovery Call or text me to discuss.

[DRUM ROLL PLEASE]

My first “in conjunction with” reading!

Relationship Analysis with Mo Olufemi of Austral Taur.

As many of you know, Mo is my partner in crime in evangelizing the use of the Davison composite chart in relationship analysis. (Also, yes, the Davison 2 Workshop has finally been recorded! Unfortunately, recording it while Mercury was retrograde has created residual issues with the post production, and it ballooned out to 2.5 hours from the original 90 minutes planned. It’s on the way…and I apologize in advance for the delay.) Using the method we’ve developed, we are partnering up to offer this reading on a very limited availability. You get two astrologers during the course of the session! And, no, this is NOT limited to romantic relationships. Our only stipulation is that BOTH partners be in attendance.

Books are Open!

February books are open!

Lots of light,
Anak.