A Thoughtful Time for Reassessment

The Last Quarter Moon that comes along early on Monday, June 11th, is a potent one, and brings several strands of meaning together as we contemplate our current state of personal evolution. Any Quarter Moon is characterized by an increase in tension, and now it is the tension implicit in sudden new realizations. Traditionally this phase is a time of reevaluation as we look back over the preceding three weeks of the cycle. We are a bit older and a bit wiser, and we might begin to see things differently, having gone through the challenges and changes of this lunation cycle, that featured Pluto as a strong component of the original end-of-May New Moon eclipse configuration. This tendency to look back in the light of recent understanding is heightened in this instance by the retrograde of Venus during this same period, planet of values and art as well as of relationship, all up for reassessment. This has indeed been a time when we both value our interpersonal connections more highly and also take a good long look under the covers of all our motivations, including the way that we conduct ourselves in relationships.

Venus is at an interesting point now in her cycle with the Sun, about to make her Helical Rise. On Tuesday, June 12th, she re-appears as the Morning Star after spending ten to twelve days "in the underworld" between visible earthly assignments. This moment begins a new 584-day Synodic Cycle with the Sun, which culminates a little over a year and a half from now, in a different sign. Venus is coming off of a Scorpio phase and entering into a Gemini phase, the sign of her first rise ahead of the Sun on Tuesday. A few days later she can be seen before sunrise accompanied by the waning crescent Moon, which the Mayans felt was her vehicle. In Gemini she brings consciousness, curiosity and intellection to our ongoing study of ourselves as relating souls. The poet William Blake remarked on how fundamental was the act of connection between humans when he stated: "The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship."

Since Venus is also inconjunct Pluto as she begins her new cycle, we have a touch of the Scorpio period still remaining and with it a touch of the power complex emerging or perhaps the issue of sexuality raising its head. And this potential for difficult realizations is another theme that finds it way into the mix of energies surrounding us now, as we enter the final stages of this first exact hit of the Uranus-Pluto square that may be considered the hallmark of our troubled decade. There will be a total of seven more hits still to come, over the next several years, with an aftermath that will last into 2020, but in many ways this first cut is the deepest. After this year we might almost get used to the idea of radical transformation as a fundamental part of our lives. And during this fragile and powerful time of dark beauty we win when we reconnect with ourselves at deep levels and give our little selves the benefit of the doubt. Self-acceptance goes a long way toward compassion for friends and partners, which in turn goes a huge distance toward the ultimate healing that we collectively seek.