June 2004 and June 2012

By Astrologer, Susan Heinz

This article was written in 2004, during the first of the pair of Venus transits in front of the Sun. Following this 2004 transit of Venus, humanity entered a purification time, a time of flushing to the surface the wounds of humanity, polarized consciousness, and the destructiveness of the old paradigm in which humanity has been embedded. As we approach the 2012 transit of Venus in front of the Sun, we have an opportunity to collectively honor and hear the call of the Cosmos, to take up our powers as Creators, and move into life sustaining systems. The Cosmos calls us back to our original sense of ourselves as living in a unified field of synergistic creative intelligence that saturates all life. At this time we are asked to hold and activate the New World, now being seeded. Please read the below as appropriate to this 2012 Venus transit also.

A rare, perfect alignment of the Sun, Earth and Venus has just been completed on June 8, 2004, (June 5, 2012) which heralds a powerful historical moment of the Sun’s healing energy beaming to our planet, amplified by Venus, the planet of Love and Beauty. The Venus alignment is similar to a lunar eclipse, as Venus moved directly between the Earth and the Sun and traveled (transited) across the face of the Sun for a period of over six hours. The transit was visible (to those wearing protective eye gear) as a small orb moving across the Sun in eastern U.S., Europe and Asia. For those in the western United States, the transit happened during the early morning, predawn hours. The impact planet-wide of this alignment with Venus, the ancient planet of beauty and love, has been known to bring in greater collaberation and communication within humanity, leading to a greater sense of oneness.

As a way to experience this alignment, on June 8 (June 5, 2012) and during the week after, gather in groups to feel the energy, attune to earth and sky, meditate and pray. Take the time to sit, feel and receive this pulsation of frequency as it comes to you. Pay particular attention to your dreams. You will perhaps feel more intuitive and energized. You will perhaps be able to open yourself to a direct experience of love inside this transforming alignment of our earth, the solar system and ourselves. You could notice feelings of stimulation, vibratory changes and new depths of truth and insight (both joyful and difficult) become available to you. As the alignment of Venus magnifies and focuses the healing rays of the Sun to the Earth, there is no doubt that we can receive more light and love into our lives, families and communities.

One important aspect of experiencing this rare alignment with Venus is to know that each of us is a receiver and a transmitter of energy in every moment of our lives. At this time in the evolution of the earth, humans have taken over what was once the job of the planet’s own ecosystem, deciding what species will exist or become extinct. Humans, by the choices we make, in a day to day way, have arrived at the moment in which we must deeply name that which is of value to us. Not only in political, social and environmental issues but also within our personal relationships through the values and quality we offer when interacting with each other. Venus represents the quality of all things, which is why it is known as beauty because the highest quality of being appears as beautiful.

Beauty requires that which is ugly be swept away and cleaned up. Beauty requires that which has been kept as dark secrets, that which has been polarized into evil, into extremes, be seen, acknowledged, and released. Thus the Venus alignment with the Sun helps us understand the many strands of ugliness that are currently coming to light in our world. At this time Venus will bring haunting images in journalism to accelerate the process. Glaring truths have been and will continue to come into view. People in positions of power will step down as part of this Venusian influence. It is as if, with the help of Venus, we are cleaning out our innermost closets and secret places in order to move into the next phase of the human condition. The ugly must be seen for what it is, changes made, atonements offered. And, as in any human life, the next phase will come. Therefore, our role is to show up and participate in receiving this energy and to assist in bringing in this higher consciousness through our willingness to deal with what needs to be seen, cleared up and released.

The Sun and Venus

Ancient wisdom from many traditions teaches that the foundation of our solar system exists on the vibration of light. This vibration is the quality of what we experience as love. When we align with this consciousness, we blend with something large and eternal that we feel around us. Greater knowledge becomes available and we are guided in unprecedented ways with answers to our questions.

As Venus aligns directly between the Sun and the Earth, it receives, amplifies and transmits the Sun’s energy of love through the Venus vibration of beauty, translating itself as the quest to know the truth. This Venus/Sun energy peels back veils of partial knowledge, and aligns each of us, and humanity, with a greater wholeness of who we are, connected to the great breath of the cosmos.

As one who studies the solar system, ancient astrology and the cosmos, it is clear to me as I witness with awe the cosmos around us, that beauty itself is the nature of the universe. The large, interpenetrating movement of spheres in which the Earth revolves is astonishing in its complexity and its adherence to a transcendent beauty. Look at the night sky on any clear evening. Look at the moon in its ever changing state. Look at the stars shifting, moving, dancing, yet all within a great organized dance. That is the true world in which we live and move. That is the nature of beauty.

This June, the Venus transit transmits to Earth the truth of this Beauty in a pure, astonishing form. If you wish to be part of a great wave of humanity helping this movement of light, clarity, openness, oneness and beauty into the world, the coming eight years offer us a vital moment to focus these energies – for, right now, the destiny of the dance of the Earth in the solar system offers us an unprecedented opening into a new age.

Venus Transit Recurring

Venus transits in exact alignment with the Sun occur every 130 years. But, vitally, these events take place in pairs – eight years apart. Thus the second Venus transit date is June, 2012. Many of you will recognize this as the Mayan date that initiates the closing of the Great Cycle that has lasted 5,125 years.

Carl Johan Calleman, along with Jose Arguelles, has done extensive study of the Mayan calendar, says that the end of the Mayan calendar initiates, like any ending, a new birth. The Venus energies transmitting directly to the Earth during June 2004 and again in eight years in 2012, suggest that a movement of humanity towards peace is coming, if we choose to take up the call. The Venus transit this June prepares us for the coming transformation of 2012 – when our current blockages to the beauty and love around us will be lifted. From my long study of the cosmos and the stars, charting the planet’s movement over time, I believe the destiny written in the coming dance says it truly will be possible for our planet to overcome this time of astonishing violence, illness and poverty, and to heal. The potential here is to understand that we are one humanity, not a humanity violently separated into factions because of religious fundamentalism or historical dilemmas but simply divided by different levels of consciousness which is the work of Venus, as the planet moves into alignment with the Earth and the Sun, to synthesis our sense of ourselves into one greater whole.

With this powerful transformation, the darkness of the collective mindset that has defined humanity through the last 5,000 years through separation, polarization, war and dominance – will be washed to the surface, exposed and allowed healing in a context of larger wholeness.

Therefore, we can experience the next eight years as a holy initiation into deeper levels of feeling and valuing the world in which we live. The ancient humans who first studied the stars and the cosmos knew that the planet Venus acted as a doorway. Venus is the threshold for humankind to move through to return to our origins as beings of not only Earth but ultimately of the interlocking dance that is the cosmos. This will be an awakening to our true selves, and to understanding the role of humanity as the self-reflecting mind of the living, intelligent earth in the living solar system.

The next eight years, until the second Venus alignment with the Sun, heralds the time for the return of the feminine and soul to humanity. It marks the beginning of an eight year initiation that will reverse the current masculine-feminine dynamic. This will be a true return to spirit, as we labor to climb out of our entrenchment in materialism and feelings of separation from each other and the planet. It offers an opening to be released from urges towards domination which have polarized our ways of being. This reversal means the feminine in each of us will become the primary ground from which the masculine in us takes direction.

Venus Moving in the Skies

During this Venus transit with the Sun, as viewed from the Earth, Venus seems to reverse its direction in the skies and move backwards. This movement, a planet moving retrograde, impacts the energies of Earth. In fact, the planet Venus will continue in its usual orbit around the Sun. As we pass by it we will have the closest passage in our orbits together. However, due to the stunning geometry of the solar system with many spheres circling at varying rates in a great dance around a strong center – over time the planets dance themselves into various alignments, and as we pass an orbiting planet it appears to move backwards.

When a planet moves retrograde, it creates a time to re-view the aspects in our selves, our lives and our world which are represented by that planet. On May 17, (May 15, 2012) Venus began to move retrograde and to sink below the western horizon. This has been a time, personally and globally, to gather into ourselves and review what is of value to us, the quality of our relationships and our daily lives. It has been a time to touch into our deepest selves. A time to witness what happens in personal relations and world-wide relations because during this time obstructions and inaccurate perceptions will be revealed, so higher level of consciousness can take place.

On June 2^nd (May 30, 2012) Venus disappeared from the night sky. She became absent from our view. On June 8^th, (June 5, 2012) she transited directly in front of and merged with the Sun. She will return, renewed as morning star, on June 15 (June 13, 2012). This is an ancient planetary dance which has informed human consciousness through millennia: a mythology of death, rising, rebirth, and sacred marriage.

This current Venus retrograde is a vital time, since, due to the rare alignment with the Sun, we will be able to directly experience a merging with the great heart of our solar system. Scientists, astrologers and others were able to actually view Venus as a black orb traversing across the face of the Sun. The last time this happened was in 1882. As Venus transited the face of the Sun it acted as a tuning resonance that amplified frequencies beaming to the earth. In fact, viewed from Earth, the Venus transit looked like a small dot in a round circle. Might the ancients have hinted at the importance of Venus/Sun transits in informing and teaching Earth by using the symbol for the Sun in astrology as a circle with a small black orb in the center?

Venus Transits Along the Same Axis

The ancient wisdom teaching is that Venus rules the zodiac sign, Gemini. In other words, the Venus energies of beauty and synthesis have their most powerful impact through the part of the sky known to astrologers as Gemini. Earth rules the sign Sagittarius. In the great circle of the skies, Gemini is directly opposite Sagittarius, and this forms an axis through the heavens which is ruled by Venus on one end and the Earth on the other. The June 8 Venus transit took place in Gemini within the line of force between Venus, the Sun and Earth. We would say Venus merged with the Sun in Gemini and the Earth watched from the portion of the sky known as Sagittarius.

As I was researching the coming Venus transits of 2004 and 2012, I was startled to discover that the Venus transit of the Sun which occurs every 130 years, has taken place on the same Gemini/ Sagittarius axis for the last 2000 years. The beauty of this is stunning in its grand design: for the power of Venus and its energies to influence Earth are at maximum intensity when it transits the Sun on this axis of energy of Gemini/Sagittarius between Sun and Earth.

Venus is the planetary power that harmonizes the dualities of Gemini, which in ancient astrology is the constellation of The Twins. Of the many different stories of twins, these are two that are vitally meaningful to our times. One is of course the story of the good twin, evil twin – the epitome of projection of the shadow on another, and the split from wholeness. (This is played out collectively through the concept of “the axis of evil.”) The other story is about the relationship between the immortal twin and the mortal twin. This is a story of soul and personality. It is Venus’s job to synthesize duality into greater wholes. This is the goal of the feminine, and the soul: to merge dualities, to synthesize masculine and feminine, the intellect and the imagination, the old and the new, spirit and form, into new synergies of creative expression.

Thus we have a planetary marker, our stellar poetry, for the acceleration of a paradigm shift which has long been heralded. Along the axis in the sky between Gemini (ruled by Venus) to Sagittarius (ruled by Earth), every 130 years comes Venus to dance directly in front of the Sun to beam its messages to Earth. It is truly beautiful, a stunning dance in the cosmos. We are its participants. This has happened every 130 years, in twin moments, eight years apart. But what is so different about this time?

The June 8, 2004, Venus transit was the first time that Venus merged with the heart of our solar system in the age of Aquarius. It is as if Venus is providing an unique doorway to the Age of Aquarius. Venus’s qualities, which bring us deeper and deeper into our true nature through discovering truths by asking questions, resonates exactly with the meaning of the Aquarian age, which is to come into knowledge and move away from the adherence to blind devotion of the last age, the Piscean age. And this current set of Venus/Sun alignments, ending in 2012, concurring as it does with the end of the Mayan calendar heralds the ending of one great epoch of humanity and moving into the next. This is truly the sign we have been waiting for.

Venus and these United States of America

The movement into one humanity, a transformation of the use of power, the movement into the Aquarian age whose quality expresses itself through concrete knowledge about our true nature, marks the time for people to awaken, to ask questions, to seek wisdom. It is a time when the energies of the cosmos aid humanity in claiming its power and creativity.

In another part of the planetary dance from April to the end of July, Venus will find itself in exact opposition to the planet Pluto, occurring three times. The themes of Pluto are reversals of perspective through exposing what is hidden, intensifying whatever is going on, tearing down the old structures. There is often physical and symbolic death, leading to transformation and rebirth. We can see these themes as we currently watch the planet go through the terrible lurchings of war, terror, torture, punishment, retribution, floods, famines and earthquakes.

And indeed, April 2004 has been called “the cruelest month” in the Iraq war, with U.S. and Iraqi fatalities at an all-time, terrible high. War, death and destruction have intensified. The purpose of this, from the point of the stars, is to initiate a transformation of our use of force and domination. This is a transformation of how we, as a country, use the masculine force.

What can we do now

As we watch the worldwide situation of karmic unfoldment, what is important is that we take actions based on deep inner convictions rather than opinions or reactive emotional beliefs. What anchors this transformation is the receiving and opening of our hearts, each of us following inner direction. Each person will experience this amplification of Venusian energies in different ways, as we together weave a greater consciousness around the earth.

We are witnessing a dramatic story of polarity and transformation in the United States since 9/11. What has been out of balance because of our identification with materialism, separativeness and being caught in our past histories, is now undergoing radical transformation.

The heavens are flooding us with the power of the lights and heightened frequencies so our true identities can be known and the return to spirit and unity consciousness can take place.

In answer to what can we do now a Hopi elder speaks

“This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.

“Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.

“And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we take nothing personally. Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

“The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

“Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we must do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Susan Heinz holds a monthly group using astrology and ancient wisdom teachings to illuminate the meaning of these times. Together we envision the greater wholeness of who we are and how we fit into the solar system and the cosmos, a bridge to the soul of humanity, returning the sacred way of being to the Earth. The first Friday of the month, 9:30 AM to 11:30 at the Center for Transformative Visions.