It happens so often we don’t even notice. The Cosmic Feminine is where she almost always is–at the pivot point of the cosmos’ transformative processes. It’s through the Cosmic Feminine energies–Venus and the Moon–that we’re able to take Life into ourselves. She rules what we love and value, how we nurture and relate. She presides over the flow of Love through our being.

This week, her fingerprints are all over our lives. Beginning with Monday’s star-powered, Venus-ruled New Moon, we’ve been saturated with the power of metamorphosis. She’s been at the potent center of the action ever since. All month, Venus is creating the opportunity for grounded depth with her ancient lover, Mercury. They won’t stop til early November.

At the same time, a hot conversation has been taking place between Venus and Jupiter all week. The Blessing Giver has been turning up the heat on the feminine consciousness. In what area, you ask? The most important of topics for every one of us in these turbulent times: How to evolve.

Jupiter’s Retrograde Vision Quest to Expand Or Minds

This heated exchange with Venus comes two weeks into Jupiter’s three-month retrograde vision quest. Until the end of January, he’ll be searching through the first half of Gemini for something we’ve lost, forgotten, or overlooked. It’s something we need in order to tap our good fortune and expand our lives. The degree from which the Blessing Giver set off on his quest sounded the tone for the adventure (which, basically, is the way Jupiter rolls, no matter what sign he’s journeying through at any given moment). What’s the energy carried by the degree of his departure?  Mental metamorphosis. Quite simply it’s the whole point of Jupiter’s 2012 retrograde vision quest.

Gemini is the territory of the skies that rules that powerful instrument of perception and communication–our mind. Along with Virgo, Gemini is one of two signs that Mercury rules. Both signs play a key role in life’s transformative processes. In Gemini, we shape-shift with our minds. In Virgo—where Venus is now—we bring our bodies and emotions to the altar. As the Buddha observed, “The mind that perceives the limitation is the limitation.” (For more on my take on this sign, see “Gemini: Shape-Shift Your Life.” )

Like everything else in the world of form, the mind is not just one thing. It’s two–the linear left brain and the intuitive, visionary, shamanic right brain. The right brain’s powers are those of synchronicity and shape-shifting—the ability to hear the Universe singing in every moment and allow its energy to transform the world of form. As we ride the enormous energetic waves of 2012-15, our ability to use our whole brains minds to expand will be increasingly important elements in re-shaping our lives and our world. Among other things, that means tapping our dreams, listening to our bodies, and honoring our intuition and our emotions.

The Feminine Side of the Cosmic Mind

Both Venus and the sign of Gemini have been catalysts in the two opening squares of Uranus the Awakener and Pluto the Transformer–the squares that are defining and shaping our future. Before the first, world-changing square unfolded, two days before the Summer Solstice, Venus was on a vision quest herself.  Among its highlights were a dramatic shamanic journey to the Underworld and a passage across the face of the Sun.

Just two weeks after the second square, two days before the Autumnal Equinox, Venus entered Virgo and received the dazzling energetic blessing of the ancient royal star Regulus. After 2,160 yeras in Leo, this most fortunate of stars entered Virgo, the ancient sign of the Goddess on November 28, 2011, after over 2,160 years in Leo. Shortly after Venus received her cosmic annointing, came her potent new moon of metamorphosis, itself aligned with two powerful stars Spica and Eta Cariane. It would be difficult indeed to miss the cosmic message here.  As astrologer Michael Luten put it in The Huffington Post (“Regulus Enters Virgo: The Pope Faints“) at the time, “The King is Dead! Long Live the Queen!”

It’s no big surprise, then, to find Jupiter is moving very, very slowly through Gemini. In nearly four months he’ll only cover 10 degrees.  Beginning with mental metamorphosis, his vision quest concludes with the energy of “primordial faith in the hidden sustaining power of life,” symbolized by  “a well with bucket and rope in the shade of majestic trees” is the Sabian symbol. The Universe has a funny way of repeating the important things, over and over. It’s generous. It’s not trying to trick us. It wants us to get the big picture, and so it spreads clues all around us, so we won’t miss the message. The big message of this era is clear and resounding:  Life and its powers, interweaving the cosmic and the earthly into one seamless fabric, is who we are and what sustains us.

Surrender & Transformation

Just days away before Jupiter moves into a degree carrying lots of feminine heat–symbolized by “a woman activist in an emotional speech dramatizing her cause”–Jupiter turned up the heat on Venus. She’s definitely feeling it. With a sharp, challenging square from the Blessing Giver while she carried the energy of “volcanic eruption,” the Cosmic Feminine’s back was right against the wall.

And there she was once again, at the apex of a potent, transformative interaction. Not “out there”–because if there’s one thing astrology shows us, it’s that the line between “out there” and “in here” doesn’t really exist.  “Out there” is “in here.”  We’re made of star stuff and we carry the cosmos inside us.

While Jupiter was pushing her against the wall, Mercury was focused as everything is when it’s  in Scorpio–on what he wants most of all.  And what the Great Communicator wants this month is to ground the energy of tranformation with Venus. For almost a month , these two have been within two degrees of an exact sextile. The sextile is a powerful connection between two planets who are in natural harmony.  It creates great opportunity–but only if we invest the sweat equity.

As Venus and Jupiter jousted, what Mercury brought to the table was ego surrender and the possibility of transcendence–the real-deal manifestation of Divine Will.  Venus had a choice–erupt or transcend? It’s not really an either/or question. Eruption can break the way clear for surrender and the possibility of transcendence, the real-deal manifestation of Divine Will.

When Venus is in Virgo, as she is this month, she can get critical, stressed, sick and out of balance when she’s feeling the heat.  When she surrenders the ego, she focuses the razor sharp mind, aligns the delicately balanced flow of chi through the energy meridians, balances her chakra, and surrenders with a groundedness that only Venus in Virgo can do. Because when she’s here, she’s  not just on a mission. She is a mission. And it’s all about serving the sacred order.

Two Ancient Lovers & the Dance of Transformation Within You

Venus and Mercury remain within two degreess of an exact exact sextile for two more weeks, so this dance isn’t over. From Scorpio’s deeps, Mercury is bringing Venus some extraordinary treasures of transfiguration, transcendental knowledge, and inner freedom. Her task, in Virgo, is to ground them by attuning herelf to the sacred order within the earth.  The next step, for the Cosmic Feminine within us all, is symbolized by a Ouija board–representing the ability and the willingness to contact deeper resources. How do we tap the power of the highest possibilities that are within us? There at her side, Mercury points–to the transformative path through the cosmic forest. It’s brilliant with multi-colored splendor.

These weeks when Venus and Mercury dance into being the depths of the territory they’re traveling, the world is suffused with the power of transformation.  As they dance within us, these two ancient lovers are giving each of us the chance to experience what Goethe wrote of centuries ago: “And so long as you haven’t experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.”