Anonymous Flammarion woodcut (1888). (Source:Wikimedia Commons)

Anonymous Flammarion woodcut (1888). (Source:Wikimedia Commons)

Hello, everyone.

This week is the second of two relatively quiet weeks.  The Moon continues to wane, passing through a harmonious aspect with the Sun mid-week.  Emotional connections are a feature of the early part of the week – could be a good time to review Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence, “the sine qua non of leadership,” in Goleman’s words.  This part of the lunar cycle brings a harvesting of your efforts over the past three weeks and growing understanding about your current work situation.

Since there is little major planetary activity, this week affords us the chance to explore an aspect that is often overshadowed by more compelling configurations. On Thursday, there is a semisextile between Venus in Cancer and Mars in Gemini.

Venus and Mars are continually dancing around each other, working on and working out their issues, both within our psyches and externally.  They represent quite different parts of us:  remember the book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?  Venus symbolizes our desires for material security and harmonious relationships.  She’s into money, collaboration, and partnership.  Mars symbolizes our need for autonomy, freedom, and immediate gratification.  He’s into assertion, courage, and fighting for … well, anything he wants.

Of course, each of these energies is within each of us; we all want to relate and we all want independence.  There is a constant balancing going on between the two, and the scales are tipped slightly depending on which planet is strongest at any given time.

Every two years Venus and Mars meet and begin a new cycle of exploration.  Hopefully, each year we evolve in our ability to bring harmony and a working relationship between these two parts of ourselves.  This year they met in conjunction on May 23 and since then have travelled forward in the zodiac until this week they form their first aspect since the conjunction, the semi-sextile.  At the conjunction, I wrote:

This is an excellent day for coming to agreements, ones that will stand the test of time.  With Venus conjunct Mars in Taurus, there’s an ability to commit to a lasting bond and to put that commitment to practical use.  Each time two planets meet in the sky it brings energies together in a new way for a new cycle.  This week’s meeting forges a new bond between our creative juices and the ability to take the action necessary to reach tangible outcomes.  It can set up a cycle that will continue to produce results until the next time Venus and Mars come together, which is in April 2013.

How can you take advantage of today’s conjunction?  Put your creative team together with your operations people; you could be surprised how well they work together and the practical yet elegant solutions they come up with.  You don’t have to do it yourself today; the people around you can take the reins and set the new cycle in motion.

If you’re a one-or-two person shop like I am, grounded, steady work today will lead to great results.  It may be slow-going and tedious at times but just take up one concrete task after another.  At the end of the day you’ll have produced something valuable, something with legs that will set a firm foundation for the next couple of years.

Mars Disarmed by Venus, by Jacques Louis David, 1824. (Source:Wikipedia)

Thirty degrees apart now, Venus and Mars are over the honeymoon stage and into the real work of the relationship.  This is the point where we have to overcome our inertia and really commit to new growth in the new direction.  If we allow ourselves to settle into the past, the status quo, we could sabotage our opportunity for progress for the whole cycle.

What might this look like in our businesses?  If we feel more comfortable with either the Venus mode or the Mars mode, we could project the other onto someone in our environment.  A partner may want to capitulate with an employee when we want to stand our ground, or a manager may want to put his foot down with a customer while we want to find a compromise.  Your creative team may have thought they had reached agreement with operations, only to find out there was not clarity after all.  If you’re a one-person shop, you may feel impatient with your progress on a creative project and may want to scrap the whole thing.

All of these reactions are natural at this stage, but to truly evolve and find harmony you’ll have to stay in the ring.  Take these signals as growing pains and intimations of the work ahead.  Try to stay the course through the discomfort.  This is like an investment, and it’s one that won’t take much time to pay off.  The next exact aspect between Venus and Mars will be the sextile, a signal of harmony gained and concessions won.  So keep at it this week.

The painting at right shows Mars disarmed by Venus.  I’ve included it because it shows the two archetypes in their common poses and costumes (or lack thereof.)  There is perhaps more harmony in this painting’s setting than we will feel this week, but it does show the potential for balance between the energies.
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For an overview of the month, see Astro4Business Month Ahead – July 2011

To read more about the business descriptions of the planets mentioned today, see

Venus

Mars

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