Venus has stationed direct in Leo after a six-week retrograde. It’s done so in the midst of a conjunction to Mars, a story that’s been brewing since much earlier in the year, and will continue into November — the Venus-Mars triple conjunction, first in Aries, then in Leo, and finally in Virgo.

Christina from Book of Blue. Photo by Eric Francis.

Leo is the sign of what you might call ‘affairs of the heart’. So as for how the station-direct manifests, you might be looking at various change-of-heart scenarios, including cultivating acceptance of a situation, or some variant on that (such as refusing to accept something).

In my observation humans strive for finality in their relationships, but tend to be restless and often dissatisfied beings all along the way. We are a society that swears its avowed fidelity to the concept of monogamy, with 37 million records in the Ashley Madison database.

The Venus-Mars conjunction is still in motion. Remember there are three of them, with one more yet to happen, the last being in early November.

Whatever story has moved with you through the year has a point of equilibrium at the third conjunction, in Virgo, the sign of healing and service. This may not involve just one person; it may be a much more complex gestalt. However, sex and the desire for sexual healing are involved. The idea of sex as a form of service is involved.

Trust and the healing of trust are factors. We are talking about the fundamentals of relating, including the ongoing and ever present fact of change: that thing denied nearly all the time.

Permanence as we tend to think about it is always a hedge against the underlying reality of change; all relationships are transient, at least as arranged on this plane of reality. The seemingly endless political struggle in relationships, so far as I can tell, is really a covert struggle between the reality of transience and the seeming desire for permanence.

What we think of as being about a relationship is really about a relationship between self and existence; between self and self-awareness. This is what we extend into any encounter with the other. Most of what we call relationship is projection, that is, the ‘unconscious’ assignment of one’s own inner dynamics onto outer dynamics, including other people and our situations with them.

Eric and Heather Fae, Book of Blue. Photo by Beth.

Projection, in turn, is usually designed to mask over lack of self-esteem. Typically when someone is feeling unworthy, they project that outward, onto “unworthy of someone else’s love.” Whatever that person thinks or does, or that you might think they think or do, ends up in the projected scenario. This is why no other person can make you feel secure. You either cultivate that or you don’t; most people do not.

It also seems true that people seek completion of themselves in others. Those who try that are likely to be really, really nervous because, after all, that other person could take away their sense of self. Investment of self-esteem into relationships is, so far as I can tell, THE problem we really face.

It’s no wonder that relationships are so confusing. And it’s no wonder they rival Washington, D.C., politics when all people claim to want is to have some fun, some companionship, some mutuality. I think that if we addressed self-esteem and projection openly, we would get a long way in a short time.

Leo is one of the most important signs representing self-esteem, as the second sign in the Thema Mundi — the chart of the world. One message of Venus and Mars there is that we, each of us, need to make contact with both sexual polarities and take full ownership of each. This ownership is the essence of both self-possession and of calling in projections. Once we do that, we can give one another peace, love and understanding.