The summer-to-autumn transition is a pronounced shift for humans and human affairs. The body’s ease from late spring to summer gives way to harvest and preparation for the days of winter. You are braced to return to the rigors of school. Your body needs the additional comfort of just one more layer to fight off the cooler mornings and night. Winter is coming.
The world itself is a body. Affairs of the world and its people — from the personal to the economic — are also transitioning, caused by and connected to the web, trade and foreign relations. We are a smaller, more interconnected world community now more than ever.
Venus retrograded from a brief stay in Virgo back into Leo late last month into this month, and the affairs of the body have taken the stage. Stable relationships during this retrograde period face sudden shift.
Nothing more sharply exemplifies this aspect of the Venus retrograde on the world stage than the hack and subsequent data dump of the email addresses of 33 million users of the Ashley-Madison site: the website for married people seeking affairs. With technological advancement comes the price that nothing is private. Not even your surreptitious love life.
The data dump of Ashley-Madison’s user emails by the Impact Team — a move made with the intent to shut down Ashley Madison permanently — has had repercussions. The leaks have spawned spin-off crimes, such as having your Ashley Madison profile “scrubbed” at a cost (a form of digital-age extortion), blackmail, and two leak-related suicides, thus far.
And then there’s China — the world’s largest country and economy — which is having a terrible summer. The month saw explosions at the Tianjin chemical plant on August 12, which Eric covered last week, and another explosion this last Saturday at the chemical plant in Zibo.
Adding to the misery, the explosions come on the heels of the Yuan taking a precipitous fall and Chinese stocks plummeting. Because so much of the world’s money is invested in China’s economy, the world’s markets, ours included, are volatile, fearing instability similar to the Lehman collapse of 2007-2008.
Responding to the Yuan crisis and other factors, including the lack of a decision by the Fed to increase US interest rates — something it promised it would do this year — the Stock Market rallied to stabilize itself from a precipitous 1,000-point drop by shifting away from computer-generated auto-trades. As of this writing the market closed at 15,875. In other words, we experienced market “correction.”
As Planet Waves team member Lizanne Webb says: “The 1000 decrease when the market opened was almost ALL computer-generated trades … with humans allowing it to happen. This was a market day during which people should have paused and observed. Human intuition was missing. The human mind can calculate so many more factors, simultaneously, than a trading program. We can apply common sense, and although we may not be able to execute a trade as fast, those choices are far less reactionary and potentially more stable than auto-trades.”
Today’s story is about the intriguing drama of the little Virgo details that make up the bigger picture: how an online business making a profit on your most intimate and maybe damning secrets can have more repercussions than an extramarital fling; how not minding the store when computers nearly run the stock market into the ground could have led to stock meltdown.
This story is about how much we need to be aware of on this earthly plane, from our values to our purchases — and gambling them for business or pleasure. The mechanisms we use now are not infallible, and neither are our relationships. Adultery and the stock market are similar in that both are high stake games of risk. As shifts happen this season — and they will — we mind the Virgo Sun as it slaps us back into paying attention.
I guess the operative words this week are “Shift happens. Stay alert.”
It’s amazing the chances people take isn’t it Fe? Not that I’ve not done dangerously stupid stuff in my life. Some of us learn from those mistakes and others keep on keepin’ on. These 2 examples, the married people sneaking in a little fling and the stock market going bonkers might be easily explained by the August 14th Leo New Moon in which Venus at 23+ Leo retrograde was trine Eris at 23+ Aries retrograde. A couple of goddesses having a little fun at humanity’s expense. “Stupid, stupid people” I imagine they must be saying about us.
But I really think it’s only symptomatic of what you call a sudden shift. Nerves are on edge for many of us earthlings and it’s fueled by irrational feelings. I’ve noted on other threads at PW about the 3 super (full) moons in a row, the first one this coming Saturday, and we are already within the window of time where powerful storms, earthquakes, tidal waves can take place. That’s how the Earth responds to that kind of energy. People, on the other hand, go berserk. We’re not talking your routine Emergency Room full moons either.
This super full moon features Vesta (investing) at 12+ Aries retrograde, trine Pallas (strategizing), only 1 degree past the U.S Sibly chart’s ascendant, at 13+ Sagittarius, trine both Mars in Leo at 13 degrees and his companion Venus at 15+ degrees and retrograding. Their exact conjunction will be on the 31st (or Sept. 1st). What can I say? Vesta is stoking the fires, Pallas is planning and Mars and Venus are doing what Mars and Venus like to do. It’s like a chain reaction in this Full Moon where Luna conjuncts Neptune and we all risk going a little nuts.
In the U.S. this is a real challenge because transiting Pluto opposes the U.S. Sibly Sun. The Sun is in the emotional sign of Cancer ruled by the U.S. Moon in Aquarius who is being squared by transiting Saturn in Scorpio. Saturn is in Pluto’s sign and Pluto is in Saturn’s sign and they are intently focused on the U.S. relationship between Sun and Moon (called a sesquiquadrate, and a bit of a square).
To what purpose we may wonder. Well, maybe it’s a “correction”. The code word seems to be Partnership if we are looking for clues in the Ashley-Madison debacle. And who should be conjunct the U.S. Neptune in Virgo at this Super full Moon? Little Juno, ever faithful, always ready to catch her spouse in some nefarious act of infidelity. Oh, he of little faith(fullness). But, come on, Neptune? Is this real or is it Memorex?
For that matter is this stock market scare just an illusion? The sign Virgo suggests something pure and healthy to me. Not the first sign that comes to mind regarding sloppy emotions over unfaithful spouses or reckless investments in anything. Virgo is about cleaning up our act, right? I think you’re right Fe, Virgo is pointing out the details of sloppy emotional investment gone bad, and just what to correct and how to correct it.
Come the Virgo Solar Eclipse on September 12-13, transiting Chiron in Pisces will be opposite it and the U.S natal Chiron in Aries will be quincunx (correction) it, along with transiting Uranus (think stock market trades and websites encouraging infidelity). It will be Mars’ turn to trine the goddess of Discord, Eris too. It could be painful for some of us.
On top of that the U.S Sibly Uranus at 8+ Gemini will form a T-square to trans. Jupiter at 7+ Virgo opposite trans. Neptune at 8+ Pisces at that Virgo Solar Eclipse. I tell you it is a real testing time for the emotional senses, probably for the rest of the year, but the North Node will be sliding into Virgo soon to lead us out of the wilderness.
be
B:
Gambling is the perfect metaphor here, and very high stakes games with relationships and money — Holy Venus, Jupiter-Neptune, Batman!!
For that matter is this stock market scare just an illusion? The sign Virgo suggests something pure and healthy to me. Not the first sign that comes to mind regarding sloppy emotions over unfaithful spouses or reckless investments in anything. Virgo is about cleaning up our act, right? I think you’re right Fe, Virgo is pointing out the details of sloppy emotional investment gone bad, and just what to correct and how to correct it.
I’ve been putting together this piece in my head since mid-August, when the news of the first blast at the chemical plant took place. I’ve heard inklings of rumors citing the blast was connected to the Yuan devaluation, but couldn’t exactly put that piece together. I now realize, with the fall of the Chinese Stock Market and the initial news early Monday morning (thank you, Amy Elliot), and CNN on China’s Yuan fall, that we needed to calm the shores of home first before speculating on wild economic news.
Come the Virgo Solar Eclipse on September 12-13, transiting Chiron in Pisces will be opposite it and the U.S natal Chiron in Aries will be quincunx (correction) it, along with transiting Uranus (think stock market trades and websites encouraging infidelity). It will be Mars’ turn to trine the goddess of Discord, Eris too. It could be painful for some of us.
You’re so right. And the key words are risks and correction. Money, love and marriage are partnerships. What shape the relationships will be weeks and months after the Ashley-Madison data dump is anybody’s guess. Taking a look a whose emails got dumped: JP Morgan, United nations, Boeing, Yale, Harvard, IBM, B of A, the German government and the Vatican — we may be seeing a lot more strange news items with the tag “Ashley Madison” on the web. Some people will be paying heavy prices for risking all.
I feel it too…everybody’s all up in some crazy full moon shift for sure. Thanks for the heads up. Here’s to the sanctity of marriage and stock market…both illusions.