The hours of your day cycle in synchrony with the rotation of the Earth on its axis. The years of your life are most often gauged by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Yet, time as traditionally measured sometimes feels a bit off, especially at this time of year.

Occasionally there is an entire year that feels either incredibly short or especially long, as measured by the events of your life. If 2015 has been like that for you, you may have made an important discovery about your connection with the universe.

It could be that your own sense of time is influenced by the motions and meetings of Venus and Mars. This year has been distinguished in significant part by three Venus-Mars conjunctions. While it is not exactly rare for Venus and Mars to come together in the same degree of the same sign three times in one calendar year, it is at the very least unusual.

That’s how Eric saw fit to include this year’s triumvirate of Venus-Mars mergers in his listing of the top five astrological events of 2015, which he compiled nearly one year ago. The way things turned out, Eric’s anticipation was highly cogent (as evinced by Amanda Painter and reader responses to her) when she resonantly wrote earlier this week to close the circle after this year’s final meeting of Venus in Mars in Virgo.     

The more common pattern for Venus-Mars conjunctions is roughly every other year. Witness the two immediately previous (on May 23, 2011, and April 7, 2013), as well as the next one to follow, which will again take place in Virgo (on Oct. 5, 2017).

If there is anything to astrology, a return to the usual patterns of time as measured by the aspects from Venus to Mars will begin to become palpable when Venus enters Libra on Sunday. That’s because Libra is one of the two signs (along with Taurus) where Venus is said to rule, distinguishing itself from other planets there most strongly.

The enhanced perspective that will implicitly correlate with Venus in Libra will, in turn, provide a chance to begin evaluating and understanding how 2015 has transpired for you.

If this year has felt especially long, you might be able to chalk it up to the fact that three conjunctions from Venus to Mars in one year symbolically correlates to six years of more usual experience. If it feels as though that has been the case for you, the ingress of Venus into Libra on Sunday can be used to begin consolidating what you have gained through personal evolution, growth and progress, particularly in areas of your life (such as relationships) that correspond with the nature of Venus and Mars in combination.

If, on the other hand, 2015 has felt like something significantly less than a year for you, that perspective will offer valuable information as well. For as proverb informs us, time does indeed seem to pass more quickly when you are having fun.

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The same can be said for any period when you are so involved in what you are doing as to become disconnected from any external means of measuring time’s passage.

If your own experience of 2015 was more along those lines, Venus moving on to Libra will represent a chance to begin coming up for some air, and re-engaging with time as experienced with (and by) others.

Even though Mars will follow Venus into Libra one week from today, a new die has been cast. Venus is accelerating to pull away from Mars, as well as from both the pace and patterns of an unusual year. This does not necessarily mean, however, a return to business and life as usual. Not unless you can manage to ignore or deny your own experience in 2015.

Rather, as this year draws to a close, Venus moving on will represent an example for you to consider following. Instead of going back to the way things were, consider honoring, validating and vindicating everything you have been through in 2015. Leave behind all that was previously usual, so as to better and more bravely go where you have never gone before.

After all, isn’t it about time?

Offered In Service          

Dear Madame Z,

I find myself in quite the pickle and was wondering if you could maybe give me a little advice. I’m a single woman (Libra) and while some might say my choice should be easy, I can’t say it is. I have two wonderful men in my life. Both of them treat me like I’m a princess. While this sounds great, here is where the problem lies.

The love of my life (Gemini) is a happily married man but he and I are best buddies. We have such a good time when we’re together. He gives me everything I could ever want in a relationship. We can talk about anything and just spend hours enjoying each other’s company. However, slowly but surely we have crossed the line from mere friends into Lovers.

This is only part of the problem, as there is this other guy (Scorpio) who loves me dearly. He gives me everything I could ever want, except time with him. While I love him and our life, he doesn’t fill my soul the way my friend does.

Here is my dilemma: Mr. Scorpio has proposed and I have no idea what I should do. Do I marry him and continue my affair or do I wait to see if Mr. Gemini gets a divorce?

What’s a Princess to Do?

Princess,

If you can keep two men around in this economy, you must be doing something right. However, it may appear you’ve now got a case of the Peter Principle on your dating hands. If you’re not familiar with this concept, the Peter Principle is where a person’s skill and talent encourages repeat promotions until they finally land in a job (or role) they are neither qualified nor capable of performing.

It is at this point really interesting things happen.

And it sounds as if really interesting things might be about to happen here, too. So I have a couple of questions for you.

First, a statement: No, Mr. Gemini is not going to get a divorce, so don’t wait up for him to darken on your doorstep with the legal papers. Not gonna happen. I hang out with an experienced gang of diviners, and if they had a nickel for every time a client asked us if “Johnny” was going to leave his wife, we could afford to hire a cruise ship and send all the Johnnys and Sallys on relational rehabilitation trips far, far from our sights. Strike that. We’d hire our own cruise ship with their nickel questions, and sail ourselves into a pink sunset of relief.

Bottom line, divorces rarely happen in these situations. And if you think you’re gonna be an exception, you don’t understand much about Gemini needs.

Gemini types need variety. Live for variety. And given what you’ve shared, what’s more delightful for voracious variety than at least two women to pick from? One would be so boring! Unless you’ve got multiple personalities. (Do you?)

Furthermore, the ongoing astro-climate of the coming year for Geminis features a perfect storm of juggling, role reassignments, and revelations. Plenty’s changing and nothing’s settled. That might create hope here, but consider this: the eye of this storm has Gemini right in its sights — with you possibly standing with him. Maybe that appeals. Are you fond of French farce?

As for Mr. Scorpio, I suspect he’s serious; and if he’s serious, you should be, too. You say you love your life together with him and everything he gives you, and in the same beat confess he gives you everything but time together. What, exactly does he give you? Is more time with him what you really desire? Seems you’re already booking the Gemini in your spare moments. Handy not to have Mr. Scorpio around. Hm.

Sounds like Ms. Princess could have used a few more Planet Waves horoscopes taped into her journal, don’t you think? Help your friends avoid getting into a real pickle: tell them about Planet Waves’ new reader-level membership, for access to all our articles without a click limit. Core Community membership gets you email delivery, plus more.

But as I said before, if Mr. Scorpio’s serious, you should take his offer at face value, and make it clear what you want and expect.

Scorpios have just done hard time with Sir Saturn for two years (you might remember him — 2009-2012ish?), and perhaps this offer of marriage may be an impulsive gambit to invite some Venusian softness into his life. Whatever Mr. Scorp’s motivation, your side order of Gemini wasn’t on his menu.

Princess dear, upon reflection it seems to me you’ve fallen into a classic Libran-styled logical pitfall of false equivalences. This is not an either/or question, or even an either/and question. The dilemma isn’t about your charming men; the dilemma is about you.

Is monogamy, marriage, or even serious commitment your desire? You seem particularly committed to the role of pampered princess with few obligations and even fewer assurances of stability. I see no problem with petted and pampered princesses, as long as everyone knows their parts in this drama.

Ambition should match intention and ability: don’t reach for the crown of the Queen and expect to remain a princess. Don’t take on a role you are neither qualified nor capable of performing. Interesting things might happen, you see.

Your most kind and honest servant,

Madame Z

“Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on Aug. 28, 1963

Life is fragile. Yet life persists against all odds. More than that, life consistently prevails no matter how harsh the conditions. It’s not because living things are hard as diamonds. Counter-intuitive though it may seem, life is so resilient precisely because it is so vulnerable.

As a rule, the more complex the life form, the more vulnerable it is. Even so, survivability is enhanced in proportion to complexity. It is a paradox of which you are an example. 

You have no warm coat of fur to protect you from the elements. Neither can you hibernate when conditions are harsh and food is scarce.

Even so, people have proven adept at finding food, clothing and shelter in nearly all of Earth’s environments. Part of that proficiency is a direct result of how our physical and mental complexity confers an enhanced capacity for cooperation.

Beyond forming and extending on community, however, is an even greater and even more human talent. It is a skill natural to our kind. It’s a faculty that originates and evinces in the individual. It is a common aptitude that is more fragile than even your body. It’s the ability to spontaneously generate, nurture and share the unique form of aspiration often called a dream.

This is an even harder world for dreams and dreamers than it is for life and living things. That which is without substance has little value for those concerned only with subsistence. Furthermore, it is difficult for dreamers to find community when (as is often the case) they are mocked as childish, or disparaged as delusional.

It is much easier to rail against what is than to entertain what is not. So it is that many dreams die. It’s easier that way, even if it is very painful. Yet it is not always necessary for dreams to perish.

You can often choose the dream and persist. There are even times when you can prevail because of, rather than in spite of, such a choice. If there is anything to astrology, you are now entering just such a sustained period. It has to do with where Jupiter and Chiron are and what they are doing.

Jupiter, which among other things represents optimism, is in grounded Virgo until next September. It is a placement that implies a period when it is implicitly more practical to be optimistic than is usually the case, provided you choose to sustain belief rather than buy into disillusionment.

Chiron, for its part, is on the other side of the zodiac from Virgo, in dreamy Pisces. That placement by itself indicates an era when vulnerability can be advantageous, provided you can sustain faith through pain.

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Today, shortly before 5 pm EST (21:56:57 UTC), the separation from Jupiter to Chiron reaches precisely 180 degrees, forming an aspect called an opposition. That aspect will repeat two more times next year.

In between and following those three oppositions, Jupiter and Chiron will remain close enough to 180 degrees of separation for the aspect to be considered functional and continuous through at least next August.

Among other things, what oppositions represent for astrologers is a potential (or dream, if you will) for synthesis into a whole. Two things about this specific opposition from Jupiter to Chiron appear to enhance the probability of that potential being filled and dreams coming true.

First is the relationship between the respective objects and the signs they occupy. Jupiter is the classical ruler of Pisces. Chiron’s place in astrology, as Eric has often pointed out, has a lot in common with the intrinsic nature of Virgo as a sign that represents service and wholeness (among other things). Hence, this particular opposition of Jupiter to Chiron portrays an informal yet plausible case of what astrologers call mutual reception. It’s a phenomenon that brings the two objects to resemble each other in practice, enhancing the possibility of synthesis.

The other thing about this opposition is how it evokes an era when dreams were conferred with an unprecedented degree of legitimacy, largely as result of a famous speech by the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

In that speech, Dr. King articulated a fragile yet powerful dream. It was a dream that the principles upon which his nation was founded could finally be made real. But it was also a dream that had not yet come to pass, because of oppositions that had yet to be resolved.

As an indispensable part of the effort to realize the principles of equality and justice, Dr. King advocated non-violence. He persisted with that advocacy even through suffering violence because he had faith that those who sustained the dream could be vindicated and at long last redeemed. Because he chose that dream even over the survival of his vulnerable body, his legacy survives to this day, and you are among his many beneficiaries.

That famous speech was delivered during Chiron’s immediately previous tenure in Pisces more than half a century ago. Now Chiron has returned, and Jupiter is entering a long opposition from Virgo to emphasize the possibility that your dreams today and the legacy of dreams long deferred — but still sustained — might yet become one and come true through you.

But that can only happen if you choose the dream over the easier alternatives Dr. King counseled us to eschew. By doing so you will be acting to sustain even more than community and cooperation. You will also serve as one with what is perhaps the most important of all human legacies: the ability to dream and the will to make dreams real. 

Offered In Service