Venus Quintile Varuna

I trust you are enjoying Neptune's stationary position in the sky this week. Hopefully this station is giving you a clear perspective on where you are on your spiritual journey. The planet of dreams and visions will turn retrograde on the weekend, so your developing spiritual consciousness has reached a plateau, where you need to adjust your approach from forging ahead to consolidation.

Today the Sun in Cancer is also semi-sextile Varuna, our new planet of personal sovereignty, at almost 9 degrees of Leo. So this is a good day to claim your sovereignty in some area. Remember sovereignty is a dance between your intention and the collective psyche. You have to claim it and, at the same time, others have to agree to give it to you. 

Varuna is also semi-sextile Mars in Virgo, which means you can take practical action to enable this sovereignty. Meanwhile, Venus in late Taurus is quintile Varuna. So your values and relationships can enable your sovereignty at a very deep level, if you make the effort and do the work that your clients and friends are asking you to do.

We often overlook the quintiles, because we need to engage with them before they manifest in our lives. But when we do, we can make connections at a very deep level which facilitate evolutionary level growth.

So, let's have a look at a case study to help us understand this quintile. Renowned Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh, had Varuna in the sixth house conjunct his Moon. Now a legend for his brilliant art, he lived his brief life in poverty and was described as intense and difficult.

Yet he said of himself: Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. 

Not many people know that prior to his work with art, Van Gogh worked as a lay preacher. And on October 29, 1876, as Varuna transited closely quintile his natal Venus, and Venus transited square his natal Varuna, he preached his first Sunday sermon and started teaching Sunday school at the Congregational church in Turnham Green in the UK.

He wrote to his brother at the time: “Theo, your brother has preached for the first time last Sunday in God's dwelling.. ..it is a delightful thought that in the future wherever I shall come I shall preach the gospel; to do that well, one must have the gospel in one's heart, may the Lord give it to me.” 

So with the current Venus quintile Varuna, you can bravely claim your spiritual sovereignty and find your congregation, if you have the gospel in your heart. 

Van Gogh went on to work as a lay preacher and missionary among coal miners in Belgium, but he was dismissed from this position by church authorities after a couple of years, because of his extreme devotion and unconventional behaviour, like giving away all his possessions and living in poverty.

He had a tight conjunction of Venus, Mars & Sedna in his tenth house of profession, and he had to get rejected from his spiritual calling (Sedna) before he could focus on the creative Mars and Venus work that has made him famous.

Varuna frequently indicates a notability that comes from our devotion, or from the mastery in our lives. Yet for Van Gough the fame and sovereignty in his art was slow to come. At the time of his death, he was considered a failure and a misfit who had sold only two paintings in his lifetime.

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. 

Two years after his death, a Dutch museum gave him a retrospective of his paintings that were assembled by his brother. And in 1987, a collector paid close to $54 million for his "Irises," now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. These days a visit to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam is a must for millions of tourists and the wonderful collection of his work there speaks across the years to each of them.

So you have to take the long view with Varuna and approach your sovereignty as a devotion that you practise simply because it brings light into your life. But, with the current Venus quintile Varuna, you do have an opportunity to bravely claim this sovereignty in some way and start to find your congregation. 

Varuna - Stationary Neptune Special

As always, a great way to start this process is to join the like-hearted community on our Varuna course, which is running in the next course bracket, after the coming Mercury retrograde. To encourage more students to join the 7am GMT Zoom, I have a Stationary Neptune Special this week offering you this course for an incredibly cheap NZ$50 (about US$30, EU26, GBP22). 

And because the 7am GMT Zoom time doesn't work for our US students (unless you are a night owl and live on the West coast), and it doesn't seem fair to just offer the Special on the one Zoom time, we're also offering the Special on the 9pm GMT Zoom as well. So, whichever Zoom time you prefer, grab this opportunity to take a course at the Uni at a rock bottom price.

Varuna 101 - Stationary Neptune Special

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And remember this course has our new 'Tutor support program', which provides support Zooms to help those students who need assistance to complete the assignments. These support sessions are proving very popular. So, wherever you are with your understanding of astrology, our tutors can help you participate.

Join us if you can on Varuna and thanks for your work embracing these new aspects of consciousness. 

Love and laughter

Alan

“I have been sensing a reciprocity in my study of the dwarf planets. As I shift focus and embrace each of their unique energies, I am in turn rewarded by a richer understanding of myself and the world in which we live.”  Alison Glennie, Ireland