Venus Station Direct: The Machine is Bleeding Out
"a woman" "in a long dress" "standing
featureless" "in a dark space" " 'Welcome,' she said," "& stepped into"
"the light" "She was dark-haired" "but very pale" "I stared hard at her,
realizing" "that her flesh was" "translucent," "& tremulous," "a
whitish gel" "She was protoplasmic-" "looking—" "But rather beautiful,"
"violet-eyed" " 'What is this place?' " "I asked her" " 'It would be
paradise,' she said," " 'but, as you see," "it's very dark," "& always
dark" "You will find that" "those who live here" "are changed"
– An excerpt from “The Descent of Alette” by Alice Notley
One image struck me in particular, as Venus finally stationed direct this past Friday — after her 40 days and 40 nights of roving the underworld (and the most secret catacombs of our hearts). A deer is seen wandering snowy grassland in Hokkaido Japan, the severed head of an ancient opponent locked in its antlers. The rival buck presumably carried the decaying body of its vanquished enemy for some time, until only the head remained — and its phantom gaze.
Something about this ghoulish intimacy — an almost sensual proximity — to the hungry ghosts of this Plutonic (and super metal) retrograde was captured for me in that image. I’ve been thinking as well of stories of freezing soldiers killing their horses, to shelter in the still warm guts of their steeds. Or the kind of hunger that had starving, gold-sick prospectors chewing the leather of their boots on the Chilkoot Pass. Or, the Goddess Inanna, rotting on a meat hook in the underworld (“my heart to your heart; my liver to your liver”). If Pluto has stripped our desires down to the bone, we may as well crack them and drink the marrow. Cheers!
As well, the Saturnian grind of these seemingly interminable plague times is finally eating into the reserves of my reserves. I’ve noted the malaise that has gripped my friends, and my loved ones (myself included). The only thing keeping me sane these days is a sturdy scaffold of rituals, and manic solo dance parties to Dawn FM. Everyday, a rhythmic looming of baths, dry brushing, reading, and icy walks that convince me I’m still a soul through which the medium of time flows.
Yes, the entire cosmos is clenching its ass cheeks, as the Sun, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, all answer to daddy Saturn. Even our Aquarius New Moon is sidled against its dim, brackish star. This too will pass – somehow.
Jupiter in Pisces is doing its own (vastly different) thing, and the bacchanal is likely going to be even more chaotic, and incoherent than predicted. Enter, the Great Honkening, a renaissance of mimetics, and our Prime Minister in exile. This pent up Jupiterian desire for human congregation, and group catharsis, will latch onto anything at this point — and I think that we ignore it at our peril.
Once the dam of the Saturnian death cult has burst, there’s probably little that will stop its flood. And yes, I have much to say about the trucker convoy, and the transits rocking Canada’s chart right now… but I’ll save that for its own Substack.
These continue to be thankless times, but there are reasons to hope as the days grow steadily longer. A lightening, in any case, with Venus’s station direct this past weekend — even if the road out of Hades is still paved in ice. Venus has emerged as a strident morning star, after her weeks of alchemical mutation. In the moth jelly, the first spandrels of wings have been budding, and the twigs of antennae. She won’t clear the shadow zone until early March, but we’re out of the worst of the weeds.
She will linger on 11 degrees of Capricorn for another few days, emerging from her metaphysical holding pattern ever so slowly, wrenchingly (kind of like a flotilla of idling trucks). Her new moth wings will tear if she tests them too early. Somehow, even more patience is required. The new laws of our hearts will have to be etched into stone, and Saturn will demand that we draft these blueprints wisely.
With an exalted Mars in scout mode, retracing Venus’s steps, we must choose our battles wisely too. Like our wandering buck, we may be horn-locked with these hungry ghosts for quite some time — forced to cast an unflinching eye on the most gruesome parts of our desiring natures.
In astrology, the morning star phase of Venus is called “luciferian.” This is part of her cycle when she’s her most resplendent — a jewel pinned to the predawn sky. The etymology of “lucifer” comes from the Latin: “light bringing”. As she gathers speed, we will understand the strident, martial, even hawkish side of Venus (as sabers rattle between the USA and Russia).
The Devil is a card associated with the sea goat, and is further conflated with Pan, the lascivious fertility god. If we’re unwilling to dwell with, and integrate, our more carnal natures — the bestial may start to unconsciously run the show.
Scape-goating is one the dangers of this delicate time (another darker facet of the devil card). If we bypass this initiation into the most disturbing corners of our psyche, and externalize that which feels uncomfortable… we will devour our souls. We may even lose our humanity.
Jupiter in Pisces has got spiritual bypassing on tap, and we should be especially wary now of movements that claim total moral purity. The Devil perches on its obsidian cube, the lovers chained by its culture wars. There’s a reason a certain investment firm goes by the name Black Rock, who just bought the musical catalog from a certain disgruntled folk singer… But I digress.
There’s also a curious signature this year whereby Venus and Mars will be edging each other for weeks — or at least forced to work together, a la The 39 Steps. Straight to horny jail for all of us… at least until PreRaphaelite Orgy spring (yes, I’m calling it now).
I have my eye on the day of their final conjunction on March 5th, when they will re-trigger that crucial first degree of Aquarius, where the Great Conjunction birthed its alien star, and ushered in a new 200 year astrological age in the air element. This new airy age feels like a rebirthing of humanity as the rhizome, and I could see their entanglement as a crucial fork in this road. Will Aquarius, Paris Hilton, host the first big bash in the Metaverse around this time?
If this feeling of “only going backwards” has peaked over the last few weeks, we can also blame Venus’s descent through the tract of Capricorn that hosted the Pluto-Saturn conjunction of January 2020. Yes, the Great Conjunction in Aquarius heralded a dazzling deus-ex-machina in the form of the covid vaccines — but the gong-like reverberation of Pluto-Saturn has played a longer game.
Saturn in Capricorn is the principle of natural law, operating in a receptive earth sign. Omicron’s emergence, as Venus descended into Hades, was the death knell of the beautiful lie that the vaccines would single-handedly save our souls. This isn’t to say they do not work to prevent severe disease, but they were never a silver bullet. And I think this is breaking people’s minds right now.
As breakthrough infections spread like wildfire, I couldn’t help but see a certain poetic justice in nature delivering what may prove to be the true end of the pandemic: a living vaccine that could deliver humanity to herd immunity (gods willing).
I have a feeling that the north node in Taurus, co-present with Uranus, will continue to mete out harsh cosmic justice when it comes to instances of Aquarian hubris. By the end of February, emergency authorization will permit children under the age of five to be jabbed by Pfizer. Babies, 6 months old and up, will also be eligible for the vaccine. If this isn’t Saturn devouring his children, I don’t know what is.
In any case, Godspeed You! Black Emperor is speaking to the death throes of these Saturnian times. May you find solace in art, in rituals, in stillness, and the fertile dark of this moment — its fruitful, alchemical lead.