End of Year Review is Too 'You'

12.20.04


End of year review is too 'you', and I'm me…

…SO, with that rationale motivating my impetus to write, I regret to inform you that the comprehensive year-end summary of important astrological features and events originally scheduled for this space has been preempted by a heartwarming personal essay about my unfortunate inability to provide said summary at the appropriate time, sprinkled with astrology and topped with me sauce. A review, me-style. That's just the kind of guy I am. I hope my programming decision has not rubbed you the wrong way, but such is the nature of the beast when I run the show and you are left to live with the consequences.

The truth is—or so I've told myself—I wouldn't really have been able to adequately map out an astrological review of 2004 because, let me tell you, it's hard to decide what should qualify for inclusion. A whole year is too large a chunk to bite off, chew up and swallow. And besides, the quality of what I might present to you is totally dependent on an act of trust in my skills as an historical curator, and I've never had a single class in museum studies.

I'm not even sure I trust myself right now to attain an escape sufficiently far from self-absorption to capture the necessary detached perspective for such a task. These past days, I've been largely unable to get 'outside myself' enough to determine, say, what part of any given tense interaction is my doing and what's someone else's. I could just as well assume it was all my fault or none of it was, with just as little clarity to back up either version. Thus I couldn't possibly subject you to any attempts at inclusivity while operating under such a filter of undifferentiated confusion, so I won't.

My first instinct, of course, is to blame Mercury retrograde for this problem of mine, and I know I wouldn't be completely off base. As I mentioned last week, this particular round of Merc-retro—through the sign of Sagittarius, and in multiple conjunction to Pluto—has made us all especially prone to quick-draw utterances that expose more of our psychic guts than we might intend. We see their innards and they see ours, but we are blind to our own in the glare of our us-ness. Perplexed? Of course. Your fault? No, mine. Remember: It's all about me, your reaction to me, and how I read your reaction to me in reference to me. If only I knew as much about me as I knew about you, I'd have just as little patience for myself as I have for you…

…but I digress, and Mercury has since turned from retrograde to direct, so I've gotten all the mileage I can get from blaming my behaviors on that.

I also point us back to the recent union of Venus and Mars in Scorpio, a culmination of yin/yang energies in the sign of psychological intensity, which could also be used to defend myself against (hypothetical?) charges of being angry, aggressive or on the hunt for conflict. This Scorpio conjunction of personal planets reinforces the same themes raised by Mercury's back-and-forth across Pluto—the uncovering of the unattractive urges within us, in unique blends of seething venom, envy, lust, sadism, fury and despair. To know ourselves truly, to mourn through to healing, we must dwell here in the underworld for a time. How can I help but frustrate, provoke and hijack the hostility in those I come in contact with, when these hideous parts of myself have ascended to the ground floor and are begging for expression?

Have yours risen too, or am I just projecting mine onto you? In this semi-unconscious revelation from the depths, the space of interpersonal discomfort hovers out there, belonging to no one. I simply have the audacity to claim it as mine.

There's further momentum to push from 'down-and-in-it' to 'up-and-out', now that both Venus and Mars are moving into Sagittarius to join the now-normal Mercury in drawing conclusions from this mess. But though the Sagittarian briskness is no longer afflicted by a retrogradation, it still mustn't force us too hastily through the interpersonal complexities at the expense of a slow heal. After all, the power of the Venus-Mars conjunction has colored this entire period as one of archeological excavation, intended for unearthing psychological artifacts and piecing together new historical understandings. And as of the winter solstice (summer below the equator) on Dec 21, Mars will still be in Scorpio and trining watery Saturn in Cancer. As eager as we may be to 'move on' to the next, the current season is still asking us to feel through the past, into the present but not passed it, no speck left behind. Don't wash your hands yet.

I want to believe this gives me liberty to continue to piss you off in the name of former hurts and future freedoms. But remember that momentous transit of Venus across the face of the Sun for the first time since 1882, back in June? Wasn't it supposed to usher in an 8-year lovefest countdown to the end of history as we know it, per the marvelous Mayans? And isn't Jupiter's yearlong voyage through Libra, a sign ruled by peace-lovin' Venus and reemphasized by Oct 13's solar eclipse, supposed to yield expansions in cooperation, conciliation and compromise? Why am I experiencing the opposing urge, to assert my will and demand my place without too much concern for the responses I get?

Think back to last year at this time, an especially active dawning of 2004, with the entry of emboldening Mars into Aries coupled with the settling-in of Uranus into Pisces. For the first few months of '04, the name of the game was decisive change-making action. Shit got stirred, as exemplified by the election-year 'culture war' that was being fought by March. It wasn't until Venus turned retrograde in Gemini in May that we got held up by too much excitement, too many options and not enough clear-cut answers. It was during that retrograde when Venus danced across the Sun for all to see, spawning this so-called period of peace in the midst of helter-skelter multiplicity. We are still sorting out the emotional ramif