The Art Of Letting Go
Venus and Mars just transited over the degree of Neptune’s fall, while Jupiter is retrograde and slowly returning through Pisces, to enter Aquarius again. Matters of the past stirred up in all of us, raising numerous questions. Regardless of the quality of life you’ve already created, this faces us all with ideals lost and what we once wanted that is still “bigger” than what we have today. What we are really faced with is all those things that don’t fulfill our needs regardless of our attempt to change them and make them “work” when they clearly don’t.
Colors of Love
Our emotional world is primarily made of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter on a visible plane, while Neptune takes over on a higher scale and within the realm of invisible. While all other celestial entities also play their part in the way we feel, we should set them aside for a while to see the message brought on by these main characters in the way we allow, process, and release emotions from our world. The easiest way to understand the process is through proximity of these entities.
The Moon is the closest to our planet and the most visible in the night sky. It represents our mother and the primal emotional contact in our lives, as well as the primal impact of the emotional contact we have with any individual. This is where we are triggered the most, first, and where our ideals hide in the core of the inner child we try to nurture. It is the place of our primal needs, not only emotional, but needs for life sustenance itself. This means that the Moon represents our emotional impulse, that response to outer situations that we often don’t decipher straight away but we know it is there as a flicker, warmth, or pain. Depending on the position of our natal Moon, we will be open for interaction and warmhearted, or easily close up and remain detached even in safe environments, due to presence or absence of safety and trust in our first, neediest, contact with our moms.
Venus is the next in line, one of the two planets that stand next to Earth, with the reflection that has been calling on sailors and everyone looking for direction for ages. It stands for emotional processing of what we have encountered with our Moon. Venus learns about gratitude, love and beauty throughout any individual’s lifetime and is meant to lead to our physical needs being met on a clear emotional foundation, regardless of shortcomings in that initial moment defined by our Moon. This planet is our first “step” towards the Sun, our inner source of creativity and life, a shining beacon that allows us to be authentic and exactly who we are. That is why Venus falls into traps of comparisons, guilt, envy, and stumbles upon deep emotional connections with others that take away our dignity or push us over the edge of who we truly are.
Emotional processing is the step leading us to self-awareness, where Mercury and Sun are found, as entities of aware self-expression and self-respect that is pure when we are thankful. Our authenticity becomes free to shine when we have mastered our ability adapt and metabolize (Venus) experiences out of our control, coming through other people and outer circumstances.
The third piece of the magnificent emotional trio is Jupiter, the first gas giant and the big protector. It stands for our beliefs and while it seems to connect mostly to a mental realm, Jupiter exalts in Cancer, the sign of the Moon and emotion itself, and is not really your most rational entity in a chart. It works with Venus in silent cooperation, adding fuel to negative interpretations or expanding positive ones, depending on its position and quality. Its purity of belief in goodness of humankind and everyone’s potential, including our own, along with its ability to see the wounded inner child in each and every person, is exactly what allows us to keep our hearts open for interaction. Jupiter opens the door for us to process information we receive through relaxed and spontaneous movement, so that Venus can lead towards ideas and materialization of what we truly need. This is the core of our convictions, good or bad, and the entity that relaxes us when emotions seem too dark and difficult to bear, giving us knowledge that all of them, even the darkest ones, have a purpose in creating our path.
The Ideal
It is clear that all of the above finds its expression in art and all forms of creative work. As emotional processes round up, our reactions are calmed by the knowledge that it is no one’s intention to harm our authentic core. When things are not taken personally but instead with love and understanding (with our heart cleansed of our own sadness and pain), we become aware that all those who ever hurt us have been hurt just the same and know no better than to initiate what their beliefs color with the faulty image of love. Out of love, we will do wrong, and all of us will do so out of best intentions (Jupiter) while not seeing the bruises we carry along and not recognizing what we cause as someone’s response.
The point where the ideal and true art are found is seen in Neptune – the master of the unseen. With all these emotional realities rounded up, Neptune comes to give its final word through ideal manifestation of what we desire, through art, talents, spiritual awakening, or through betrayal, addiction, dishonesty, and ties to the past that are still unprocessed and unresolved.
The Cure
Any cure we seek is portrayed by Neptune and the sign of Pisces, where Venus is exalted, and Jupiter is at home. It stands for all medicine, western, eastern, alternative, as well as all medication, antibiotics, drugs, alcohol, and any opiate imaginable. There is no wider sign than that of Pisces when you observe its numerous realities and manifestations, and it seems almost impossible to say what it will bring in one’s chart out of all its possibilities. In its purest form, Neptune stands for the absolution of emotions cleansed – Divine Love. It is the fourth sign and the fourth house from the sign of Sagittarius (God, Allah, the Universe) speaking directly of intimacy with our “Creator” in its purest emotional form. It is a home of our deity, meant to blow wind into our sails and push our action in Aries as our intentions cleanse.
Since Mercury falls in Pisces, it is important to understand that true emotional learning rarely comes from words and affirmations, although they help those who have a strong connection of Mercury with this sign. We are taught by the sensation, feeling, excitement of what we understand. What this distant flow requires is silence, often a lot of solitude, and openness for all kinds of emotions, good and bad, constructive or destructive, so we can accept who we are to the core instead of running away and hiding from what is painful and seemingly wrong about us. Neptune directly taints the image of Self as it falls in Leo, and this is the exact spot that was touched just a while ago, triggering us in many ways.
Love Stories and Letting Go
While we may try to give ourselves that touch of Love Divine in many ways, the most important thing that Neptune needs us to learn is to let go. Idealization of a partner or a loved one is a projection that stretches far into the future but leaves consequences only if we look back on it, instead of learning and moving on. In other words, yes, it is a problem to not see the person in front of you clearly as we all deal with numerous projections, but this won’t stop us from living the dream to some point for as long as paths with that person intertwine in emotionally constructive ways. It is a much bigger problem to hold on to the image you created at the start, once it already got broken.
In order to live the ideal, untainted, we must always be ready for the next step. It cannot be achieved if we only hold on to images that are no longer with us. While we might have been wrong in the beginning, that did not stop us from believing and living in this image for a while. Many of us know exactly when the ideal got shattered but still stay in our expectation that the past will return, when really this was never an option to begin with. The past never returns even though people might. Holding on to the image from history only taints all future relationships in our lives.
It seems to be our bigger challenge to accept disappointment and learn from it, than it is to idealize in the first place, for distorted images may only teach us about things we did not see, but refusal of disappointment is what keeps us tied to people, situations, and circumstances we have already outgrown. This is where energy is really blocked and lost to our lack of faith, as we come to terms with the fact that there is no ideal “in this world” and we find settling easier than accepting that we have been disappointed. If we choose self-respect instead of loyalty, we may come to find that it is time to move on and seek our fulfillment where it CAN be found, even if only for a little while.
Now when a person backs out, stops believing in the ideal or stops believing in their partner, all one can do is process disappointment and find creativity through artistic expression and the relationship with Self. Let go. It is never the right answer to give up on the ideal for the sake of the image we hold on to. But when two people meet with the same readiness to take each next step bravely, dealing with every single disappointment while believing in the ideal AND in one another, that is your true magic, one that creates the energy of life.