Mike 2023 SSR planning

[Ember Nyx (Mike V)]

My next SSR here in Inglewood, CA (I've moved again) isn't great and I'm looking to pick a different one.

There are a few things I can’t change, namely, a respectable Pluto square to Solar Moon, a very tight Saturn transit to natal Mars, and an equally tight Jupiter transit to natal Venus.

On the one hand, I can definitely try to get that Jupiter transit to Venus into the foreground, but it’s difficult to get both very angular at the same time. Jupiter rises along an arc right by Cheyenne, WY, although as I move westward, I move natal Venus closer to Zenith. Casper, WY captures Jupiter within a degree of Ascendant, natal Venus on Zenith just over a degree, and an assortment of transiting Eris, Moon, and Uranus, as well as a touch of transiting Venus.
Various places along a similar longitude have much the same effect (even Vail, CO, where I was last year, has the same general picture, though it doesn’t maximize anything). Even as far south as Lubbock, TX, the picture is mostly the same. Billings, MT maximizes natal Venus, at the expense of rotating Jupiter out past the 1 degree mark. Estes Park, CO, is a rare location that has both natal Venus and transiting Jupiter within a degree of their respective angles - but my most foreground planet actually becomes natal Eris at 0*04’, whatever that means.

On the other hand, I have the interesting option of trying to get the transiting Uranus-Venus opposition on angles - in Rolla, MO, transiting Venus is 0*00’ on Descendant, opposing transiting Uranus within about half a degree in longitude, or 2* in mundo. Transiting Pluto is widely angular at 7*34’. There are a lot of other locales that bring transiting Pluto right to the angle, which I think I probably want to avoid. (I’m not scared of transiting Pluto per se, but it’s not the theme I’m trying to focus on here.) But I'm sacrificing Jupiter-Venus if I go with that approach.

I’m not sure what makes the most sense to prioritize here. Any thoughts?

[Jim Eshelman]

I looked at the Inglewood chart and - yuck. Yeah, gettoutahere for your birthday. (I don't think the natal Jupiter redeems it nearly enough.)

I'll look at this as the day goes on. From what you've said already, Estes Park sounds great. (Of course, to me, Estes always sounds great and I'm curious what it's like in December.) Since we don't know that much about Eris, I don't know of anything we can do but ignore it, or go with the small bit we do know and recognize it wouldn't mean a time when things are tightly under control and predictable with chaos-math.

I'll bounce around a few charts as time opens up.

For exct aspects, I mostly want to dance around or neutralize Saturn's 6' square to your Mars.

[Jim Eshelman]

Oops. I forgotd, I can't use astromapping on the laptop I have at work, only the one I have at home. (Long geeky reason.) So I can't get the visual overview but may play around with spot-checking until I can carve out some time at home this week.

[Jim Eshelman]

I see why you like ROlla, MO. Transiting Venus-Uranus and natal Venus-Mars foreground with transiting Venus quite exact. It's in the middle of nowhere, not exactly the fun capital of the world as far as I can tell, but you'd have the rest of the yer for that. (With a chart that boils down to Moon-Pluto, Venus-Uranus, nd Venus-Mars, expect existing relationships to be challenged or at least require substantial reinvention, but room for some unprecedented sort of fun.)

Looking in the general area of Rolla, though, got me curious how things look in St. Louis (certainly an easier trip). It's really good! Transiting Jupiter is 38' from EP, transiting Venus 1°31' from Dsc, transiting Uranus 3°+, natal Venus 1°09' from Dsc. The two Venuses on either side of Descendant have their midpoint 0°11' from the angle. You bring the 8' Jupiter transit to your Venus foreground, Venus to your Venus (and transiting Uranus), and still the Moon-Pluto. Saturn to your Mrs is still there but away from angles, The only negative I see is that the background Saturn picks up a mundane squre to natal Jupiter.

For that matter, Memphis (which Marion, Bryce, Susan, and I know petty well and could give you more amazing things to do to than you could fit into a week) manages to be even better than St. Louis. [Your SSR is on Thursday. If you pick Memphis and can do so, I suggest planning staying at least through Friday night if not Saturday night. Things start warming up a little on Thursday and really kick off Friday and Saturday nights.] Consider:

t Jupiter on EP -0°39'
r Venus on MC -0°49'
t Venus Dsc +1°34'
t Uranus on Asc +2°28'
r Mars on dsc -6°18'

My one reservation is that natal Mars creeping into the foreground puts more attention than I think ideal to the 6' Saturn transit to your Mars. Saturn itself is non-angular, so on a "read the foreground" basis the aspect doesn't count (It "counts" anywhere in the world at 0°06' wide. The rest is a juggling act. Picking Memphis would be relying on the overwhelming benefics to carry the day and make the Saturn-Mars transit no more important than if it were there in the middleground all year.)

[Jim Eshelman]

I'm home now and able to look with a broader eye.

I see why Cheyenne caught your attention. As you noted, Jupiter rises precisely there and it misses a close hit on the Venus. Jupiter-Venus is still foreground, though, and Moon-Mercury works for your working life.

North of Denver, as you noted, is better in key ways, and if you're going to be north of Denver Estes is way nicer than, say, Fort Collins. It pick the extra focus on Venus + Jupiter there ovwer Wyoming.

Where found for the precise Venus in Missouri, besides probably being a boring place with some difficulty getting there, doesn't seem as good as if (keeping the Venus close) you move east to pick up the Jupiter square MC line, which means places like St. Louis or Memphis. The charts aren't too different: There's no compelling astrological reason to pick one over the other. Benefics are a little stronger in Memphis and, though Mars creeps into the foreground, I don't think this makes the Saturn-Mars any stronger than it is anyway. So far, they look the best to me.

Because of the Jupiter-EP line (i.e., square MC), I checked New Orleans also. This also would be an astrologically great site, with natal Mars barely foreground (a little less than Memphis) but bringing a natal partile Mars-Pluto conjunction into the peripheral foreground. Concentrating on Class 1 and 2 angularities, it looks like this:

t Uranus Asc +0°34'
t Jupiter EP -0°31'
r Venus Dsc -0°46'
t Venus Dsc -1°23'

Kinda wow! I could argue back and forth between this and Memphis (fine shadings of Venus, whether a bit of natal Mars-Pluto plays better or worse than a lesser amount of Saturn to Mars, etc.). NOLA comes out slightly better on the grounds of only considering the pile-up of benefics, but Jupiter is as strong almost to the minute both places, NOLA has some tighter orbs but Memphis has the midpoint of the two Venuses closely angular.

At this point, I'd say pick the place you most want to go.

[Ember Nyx (Mike V)]

Thank you for all of the guidance and suggestions! I'll ponder on Memphis, St. Louis, and New Orleans over the next few months. I definitely like those choices much better than the ones I came up with, both as actual trips and astrologically (in a vacuum). Double Venus with Jupiter, all partile (in Memphis), is very, very tempting. But I'll compare and let intuition weigh in if it has any other suggestions between those three.

[Ember Nyx (Mike V)]

I ended up picking Memphis for last year.

Here's the recap.

t Venus Ds +0°26'
t Jupiter on EP -0°29'
r Venus on MC -0°49'
t Uranus on As +2°27'
r Mars on Ds -6°18'
r. Eris As +7°08'
r. Pluto Ds -8°02'
t. Eris As +8°40'

t. Jupiter sq r. Venus 0°08'
t. Venus op t. Uranus 0°41'
t. Venus sq r. Venus 1°15'
t. Jupiter co t. Eris 1°29' M
t. Eris co r. Eris 1°43' M
r. Mars co r. Pluto 1°44' M
t. Moon sq t. Eris 2°12'
t. Uranus op r. Pluto 2°25'
t. Moon sq t. Pluto 2°40'
t. Venus co r. Pluto 3°06'

Also:
t. Saturn sq r. Mars 0°06'
t. Neptune sq r. Saturn 0°33' M

PVP aspects (which I am just now seeing for the first time):
t. Moon sq t. Venus 0°13' p
t. Moon sq t. Uranus 0°26' p
t. Moon sq r. Venus 0°35' p
t. Moon sq r. Pluto 1°32' p
t. Moon sq r. Eris 2°20' p


Primarily, this is about transiting Jupiter and Venus both aspecting natal Venus in the immediate foreground, plus transiting Uranus in there as well.

It was a year focused primarily on evolution, changing relationships, many new friendships, dating and affection, and my appearance. There was more, but those were the dominant themes of the year.

Big pile of experiences:

• I had been caring for a colony of stray cats since late 2023, adopted one of them, and invested a lot of effort into the rest.
• I traveled a ton, flying all over the place. (More than I even wanted to.)
• Some brief, very difficult emotional spots, but I have had great support throughout.
• Started painting my nails again, and put renewed effort into my appearance.
• Spent a considerably larger amount of money on cosmetic-related purchases than any other time in memory.
• Finally settled on getting a septum piercing I’ve been waffling about for literally 10 years. (The actual event is gonna take place under my new SSR, though.)
• Had some gender realizations about myself, started testing a name and pronoun change, and started identifying as nonbinary.
• Got a vasectomy. (This could be natal Mars-Pluto just as much as Uranus-Venus.)
• Had more dates and talked to more prospective dates than at any other time in my life. Ended the year talking to one person who I think has a lot of promise as a partner.
• Several new and rather close friends.
• Some changed and discontinued friendships.
• Renewed friendship with my best friend of 10 years.
• Got closer to several California friends I’ve known for a long time.
• Invited out to a whole ton of get-togethers.
• Got a small cost of living pay raise (but, then, I did the last 3 years too… although I also typically had Jupiter on angles for those.)
• Led the frontend portion (and contributed key backend code) for a project at work which went about as well as I could’ve asked for.
• Spent a considerable amount of my personal time on Time Matters dev work, to great reception. (And lots of bugs. But those are a given.)
• Joined a magical order/congregation (Juan’s Congregation of the Lamp of Invisible Light) to administer the namesake ritual for the public, which I have universally gotten great feedback for. Much development along those lines.
• Cranked up my already-heavy investment schedule and worked out future retirement math and timing. The numbers are much better than I was expecting.
• General competitive failure, though it was not a major theme of the year. (And I've actually improved significantly at chess, so it wasn't universal failure by any means.)

Let's take a look at those PVP aspects. (This isn't what I was expecting to do in this post, but we're here now.)

t. Moon sq t. Venus 0°13' p
t. Moon sq t. Uranus 0°26' p
t. Moon sq r. Venus 0°35' p
t. Moon sq r. Pluto 1°32' p
t. Moon sq r. Eris 2°20' p

Transiting Moon is on AV, so it makes all the PVP aspects here.

Moon-Venus is a little hard to tell due to all of the rest of the Venus going on anyway, but this line from Jim's interpretation strikes me profoundly:

Marked predominance of female component in behavior (any problems arise from inability to accept full scope of feminine side);

I find this interesting because I don't think this interpretation is necessarily true for Venus merely being on an angle.

The moodiness and such were also pronounced - but not in a Neptunian way. It was just a lot of everything, not necessarily all bad moods.

The Moon-Uranus interpretation is all a solid fit. It does feel a little bit more appropriately "intimate" and "personal" than just Uranus on an angle, but I might be projecting that meaning onto the interpretation.

Moon to natal Venus is also appropriate, but hard to distinguish from other Venus manifestations.

Moon-Pluto is actually really sharply appropriate, much more than Pluto's angularity by itself would suggest. (Solar Moon does also square Solar Pluto, but this feels much more like a natal Pluto thing to me.)

Moon-Eris I have no idea about... except all of this nonbinary/trans/gender stuff. The vast majority of it was all stuff I already knew about myself, but a little bit of extra research and contextualization totally blew my mind and made me consider all of these separate pieces in a new, holistic light. This sort of "it was all right there under my nose but I didn't discern it" feels like Eris. (And there's a decent amount of both natal and transiting Eris in the angularities and aspects, though none of them are dominant in their respective categories.)

This is not a good chart to get a clear idea of PVP aspects in solar returns, but the PVP Moon aspects here "feel" very right and descriptive to me, for what that's worth.

[Jim Eshelman]

Wow, what a year. Thanks for detailing this so conscientiously.