Saturn aspects Venus, Mar. 30
Venus is beauty and comfort. When Venus goes to work, as seen in its masculine sign Libra, you find a shopkeeper or a salesperson in the busy downtown scene of a city. These people deal in abstract values, such as fashion, art, cosmetics, or music. Do you think that Venus likes to get its hands dirty and spend all day in the hot sun mining for coal to earn a paycheck? No! That’s Saturn’s job. Saturn rules the working-class laborer.
Venus has been advancing through Pisces, the strongest sign for moksha or spiritual liberation, which contains the portion of Venus’s exaltation, the spot in the sky where Venus functions best. However, the Sun is also moving through Pisces, and is only 1 degree away from Venus, causing combustion. This means that all of Venus’ worldly effects and desires are burnt to a crisp, and the energies left are a more purified essence. What remains of Venus are the sattvic, or harmonious and balanced qualities such as devotion, bhakti, white tantra, and unconditional love. Typically, Venus loves to be in relationships, but those exist in the area of life called kama, or desire/pleasure, which is burnt away in combustion, redirecting our love inwardly toward a divine spiritual point.
Now, with all that spiritual purification and removal of our worldly lust and desire, what do you think the response is when Saturn hands Venus a broom and tells it to start sweeping the mess in the kitchen? This normally makes Venus very uncomfortable, but in the context of being combust and no longer having room to pursue its own desires, this is where we find karma-yoga, or performing seemingly menial tasks in service of spirit. Can you find love in cleaning your dishes? In picking up litter that doesn’t belong to you while you’re out enjoying your morning run? Venus is being tested, but is well placed in Pisces to handle the transformation of combustion and the laborious demands of Saturn.
Zen Buddhism offers some key parallels to the essence of this aspect. You can travel to the highest reaches of the Japanese mountains, and find the teacher you’ve read books and books from, and you are so excited to finally get to learn from this teacher. Yet you knock on his dingy wooden door, and come to find him modestly counting grains of rice all day in a small shack. This act of devoting to what seems to be a futile task is how we put in the practical and uncomfortable groundwork which needs to be done if we truly want to embody our lofty ideals and passionate desires for ourselves. Hold space for the tasks which seem to be taking you off your goal-oriented course for a while. See if you can feel no difference in your center between receiving a phone call with a record label offering you a multi million dollar deal, and the feeling of cleaning up the crumbs that rest underneath your kitchen table.
Tich Naht Hanh says, “drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.”
Moon in Mūla, Sagittarius, April 2
Aum̐ nirṛtaye namaḥ
“Nirṛti is the deity ruling this nakshatra, and is the wife of Adharma (not dharma, sin). She has three sons named Bhaya (fear), Mahābhaya (great danger), and Antaka (causing death),"(Cole).
She is a powerful, vigorous, and disheveled deity who breaks things apart, or pulls them out of place. Natives of this star have the ability to remove things they don’t like, which is very beneficial when working with medicine to remove disease. It also benefits work that requires demolition, remodeling, or gardening which requires removing unwanted plants. This destructive energy is meant to purify in order to begin moving toward a more spiritually aware plane of conscious, through removing excess materialism. Natives of Nirṛti are very capable and diligent in expelling negative energy and constantly tending to the vibes of their surroundings.
Natives of this star can either have the attributes of Nirṛti, or the power to keep her away. Nirṛti rules the south-western direction, which is where you place your office, or seat of power, in Vāstu, (Vedic feng-shui).
References:
Science of Light, Freedom Cole
The Nakshatras, Dennis M. Harness, Ph.D.
Image Credit: www.lotusvinejourneys.com