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✨ Time Stamps

0:00 The Cosmic Calendar

1:24 Horoscope Overview

2:21 Venus Morning Star

3:08 What does a sextile Mean?

4:01 Opposition in Media

7:15 Mars and Venus sextile Neptune

11:24 Neptune in Pisces

13:28 Apocalypses in the Ancient World

17:00 Summary

Mars & Venus sextile Neptune

This is your Horoscope Highlight for the week of February 21 – February 27, 2022, with world-class astrologer, historian, and author of The Cosmic Calendar, Christopher Renstrom.

This week, Christopher retells the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and the impact it left as we approach Neptune’s sextile with both Mars and Venus on February 23rd and 24th. He highlights the importance of reflecting on where we are willing to step outside of ourselves in order to make peace with others instead of holding onto grievances that could destroy more than we could’ve ever imagined.

If you’d like more personalized guidance from Christopher, make sure you subscribe to receive your free Weekly Horoscope so you can read what the week ahead will bring for your sun or rising sign, delivered to your inbox every Sunday!

Get Your Weekly Horoscope at astrologyhub.com/horoscope

Transcript

This transcript is automatically generated. Some miswording might be present.

Christopher Renstrom 0:02
Hello there, it’s your weekly horoscope columnist Christopher Renstrom. And I’m delighted to announce that my much anticipated course with astrology of the cosmic calendar is now open for enrollment. The Cosmic Calendar is designed to teach you how to turn your birth chart into a personal calendar, one that’s uniquely aligned to your natural flow and personal seasons, you’ll be able to look at the year ahead and know exactly how to plan your life. Whether you’re looking to launch a business, dive back into the dating pool or finally get around to writing that book you said you’d get around to writing Monday. The cosmic calendar will help you to identify the best times of year to pursue your dreams. So if you want to join me for the cosmic calendar, you can enroll today by going to astrologyhub.com/cosmiccalendar, that’s astrology hub.com/cosmiccalendar. It begins on March 3. I am so looking forward to seeing you there. We’re going to have a lot of fun.

Hello, my name is Christopher Renstrom. And I’m your weekly horoscope columnist here on astrology hub. And this week, I wanted to talk to you about the upcoming Mars Neptune sextile followed by a Venus Neptune sextile on February 23, and February 24, respectively. Graduates lose their shape, and vendettas their fury, when you have these sorts of sextiles between Mars and Venus to the planet Neptune in the sky. This is a good unfortunate thing, especially given the current cosmic climate. Right now we have Mars named after the Roman god of war, exalted in the zodiac sign of Capricorn meaning most strong and most celebrated. And we also have Venus in the zodiac sign of Capricorn as well. Venus by dignity doesn’t really do much one way or the other when she’s in Capricorn. However, Venus right now is rising as a morning star you can see her just before sunrise every morning. And Venus rising as the Morning Star had a bit of a notorious reputation, particularly in Mesopotamia, and more specifically in Mesoamerica. In Mesoamerica, Venus as a morning star was seen as bringing a harbinger of war and catastrophe. So the planets aren’t exactly broadcasting the most positive messages from upstairs. This is why we’re embracing the fact that both Mars and Venus in these particular positions are forming a sextile to the planet Neptune in Pisces. Anytime that we have a Trine and more particularly a sextile, involving planets that could be in a volatile or agitated state. What happens particularly with the sextile is that it turns down the heat of the situation, and makes things more amenable if both parties are willing to be amenable or willing to willing to take action towards some kind of peace treaty, or truce. And so that’s what’s being suggested. We don’t get a lot of opportunities to make peace, we don’t get a lot of opportunities to extend the olive branch. There are not a lot of opportunities when we’re put into the right headspace or the right heartspace heartspace. To recognize what the benefits of this might very well be. This is why these sorts of sextiles particularly with the planet Neptune, are so very, very important. My husband is the artistic director of a ballet company. And for the past couple of weeks, we’ve been putting on the ballet Romeo and Juliet. And I’m sure that you’re all pretty familiar with the plot of Romeo and Juliet. It’s about a boy and a girl from two warring families of Verona who fall in love. And you know, through one bad fumble or Bumble or mistake misunderstanding after the next and committing mutual suicide to be joined together in their love in heaven. One of Shakespeare’s lighter stories, not but anyway, Romeo and Juliet has sort of remained in the minds of our culture as like, really, it’s about passion. It’s about love and If you can’t have love in this world, you can certainly go and have it in the next. And so that pretty much is is the focus of the play and, and of the ballet as well, of course, but sitting there watching the ballet and and ballets are wonderful because they’re really paced according to the music and the choreography. So you get a whole other and different story that that that comes across with a ballet than you do with with spoken word, whether it be in a play or a film. But sitting there watching the ballet, so many interesting themes that are very relevant right now struck me. You have Verona which is which is this city state basically, in which the two main governing forces in this part of Italy are two warring families, you have the Montagues and the Capulets, and they are such a powerful families that they trump the government which is which is in control, they trump, the Duke of Verona. So in other words, they can go ahead and they can get into these sword fights, and they can steal from one another and they can mock and agitate one another. And basically, they bring calamity to the streets. I mean, this is the sort of thing that got recast in West Side Story and even that recent version with

Claire Danes and I think it was Leonardo DiCaprio, you know, where, where the families are really sort of portrayed as gangs. And what’s so fascinating about this is that you see two absolute opposites Okay, two absolute opposite gangs are two absolute opposite families and all they can do is is is take the opposition with each other continually you know, everything is interpreted as a slight everything is interpreted as you trespassed on my territory, everything is is responded to with violence and with with with with swords, and a number of people who have nothing to do with the families die. In the course course of the play, and the course of these families, exacting their violence on each other, this this remarkable one, upmanship that takes place. And I want you to sort of reflect on on that idea that I initially introduced that grudges lose their shape, and then dedas lose their vigor. When when the when Mars sextiles Neptune, and when Venus sextiles Neptune as well, one might think, Okay, well, you’re involving Neptune. So this is about forgiveness, and, and it’s about peace, and you know that to be the word of the day, we should just be forgiving, and, and make peace. Well, as I’d like to say, in our series of podcasts, there are going to be 12 different ways of making peace, there are going to be 12 different ways of forgiving. In other words, you’re going to have 12 Very different contexts in which these things can take place because you have 12 signs of the zodiac, so there isn’t really one way of making peace, there isn’t really one way of forgiving. These things have to take place, according to the planets and their dispositions, and where they appear in the Zodiac chart, which, which introduces a lot of nuance to this kind of idea.

Now, when we’re looking for instance, at Mars and Venus in Capricorn, we’re dealing with two planets that are slow, Capricorn is regarded as a slow zodiac sign, it’s not speedy, it’s not quick, it’s not razor sharp or anything. Along those lines. It’s slow. Like, if you look at the goats climbing up the mountains, I mean, they can do some hopping along and skipping. But then there’s a point in which they’re scaling the sheer face of the mountain and that’s very slow going, they’re picking their way very carefully. So so this kind of idea of moving towards a sort of grudges losing their shape, or vendettas, their their verb, their force is going to be very slow going under Capricorn. And there’s also going to be another quality as well. Because of the positions of Mars and Venus in Capricorn, there’s going to be the quality of skepticism. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn. And so it is a very skeptical sort of sign. It could even be said to be cynical in a way. So it’s like, really, we’re going to make peace. Really, we’re going to both agree to settle this grudge. I don’t think so. Or I don’t really believe it. So this is the kind of energy that’s that’s that’s coming up right now. So we kind of have this, this this ongoing. You know, I had the word for a moment and I think I’ll do it in mind. We have this one ongoing up one upmanship. Okay, we have this ongoing one upmanship. It’s taking place particularly Woodley when when Mars is involved in this placement. And and so how are these energies going to be sold on, like the Montagues and the Capulets laying down their swords and making peace? As you know from the play that doesn’t go well. In fact, any sort of overture to, to peace brings even more disaster. It’s Romeo after he’s married Juliet who, who says, who intervenes between Tybalt and Mercutio and says, Don’t make war anymore. Don’t don’t fight anymore. You know, love is the answer. And it’s in that moment when Mercutio, you know, is is like, WTF with with Romeo, like, What are you talking about? And Romeo, physically, you know, keeps Mercutio from from dueling with Tybalt, that tipple takes that opportunity to mortally kill, mortally slay Mercutio, which of course, moves everything on up to both is killed in turn, and it’s a runaway snowball effect. So Shakespeare actually really has a very dour view of Love thy enemy. Because if you look at Romeo and Juliet objects, and the drama of love of Romeo and Juliet, Love thy enemy, it does not turn out well. It leads to more and more disaster and

more and more and more bloodshed. So So where’s this going to stop? How is this going to end? We’d look to Neptune in Pisces and we see, you know, a lot of Neptune in Pisces is the promise of forgiveness, of dissolving boundaries of, you know, softening the chips on the shoulder and maybe even lifting them off and taking them away. And and this is a lot of times the way that people will look at Pisces they’ll see Pisces as, as the zodiac sign of unconditional love and and peace and love and, and and and very spiritual, very soulful, you know, and this sounds like a wonderful thing. But what people aren’t, and those things are true by the way, those things are true in Pisces, but but Pisces has a whole gamut of what it’s going to represent. And we have to remember that Pisces is the last sign of the 12 signs of the zodiac. And so Pisces carries with it within its symbolism, all right, within its archetypes it carries within it the apocalypse, okay, the the end of all things. And that’s even written very early in the book of Genesis and Bible, you know, what’s the disaster that wipes out the planet but the flood, okay? And it’s the story of Noah’s Ark, you know, that God gets to a point where he’s so upset and frustrated with his creation, that he floods the world. You know, it’s really kind of like, you know, it’s the ultimate like, you know, delete, or something like this. He floods the world, he wipes out the world. But but he favors no and his family and so they survive, and they survive to sort of basically repeat the same pattern over again, we see the same thing in in Wagner’s Ring cycle, you know, that, that no matter how many times you refresh your browser, or you recreate the world after the apocalypse, things inevitably go wrong, you know, they can’t help but you know, anything new is going to end up becoming soiled and dirty and broken down as long as it lives on this planet. Okay, so so so this idea of an apocalypse and we have to remember that in the ancient world apocalypses were a dime a dozen. I mean, we’re all familiar with St. John and the apocalypse and things like that, but actually, Gnostic Gospels, other forms of literature. apocalypses are a dime a dozen. Okay, everyone’s writing an apocalypse. And that’s because Apocalypse isn’t the ancient world. Apocalypse is in the ancient world with where the fantasies of slaves okay, they were the fantasies of oppressed people, you know, in the Apocalypse, the right God is going to show up the right God is going to vanquish all the people. The right God is going to you know, throw over the rich and throw them into the douching pits of hell or make them suffer horrible torments and the God will come and raise the poor and raise the oppressed and put them you know on on thrones and make them revered, you know, the meek shall inherit the earth that kind of an idea. This is very much bound up in Pisces, okay, and you can see it in the Piscean temperament. Okay, some of you are like really, but you can see it in the Piscean temperament in terms of you know, if you’ve ever seen a Pisces get angry, you know, I mean, Pisces is ruled by Jupiter and the modern ruler is Neptune. These are two storm gods from Greek mythology. So Pisceans get angry, get angry in a very thunderous hurricane winds, you know sort of way you know, and they will bring out the ultimatums they will rain down the curse. they will you know it’s a fury when you really watch a Pisces lose it you know. And and and it’s wipe everything out and beginning again from the beginning you know this is you know if Pisces has reached a point where they’ve had it or they’re walking out of a relationship or job though take everything out with it, you know complete Wipeout and start a new start a fresh you know, perhaps somewhere somewhere else. And so what we see um, you know, in the story of this of this Romeo Juliet Yes, it is connected. What we see in the story of Romeo and Juliet, the only thing that really sort of stops the families in their track. Obviously, it’s it’s the twin suicides of Romeo from the Montagues and Juliet from the Capulets, and their bodies being discovered in in a tomb as a result of a harebrained brain scheme by Friar Lawrence. But anyway, um, you know, what,

the thing that really sort of wakes up the families to this is that their own heirs have been destroyed. Okay, their own future has been destroyed. Juliet, who is the heir to the house of the Capulets at Romeo, who is heir to the house of the Montagues are both dead. And so the family line ends there, okay. And this is the thing that gets them to wake up. This is the thing that gets them to realize that you know, if you pursue a vendetta blindly, if you pursue a vendetta, you know, with with undeterred, you know, making no concessions making, making no willingness to understand you will why wind up annihilated I mean, that’s basically the message of the play and, and, and, and it’s a message in life that nothing, it’s more than nothing good comes of it and don’t be a vengeful sort of person, it’s, you will wind up wiping out yourself and those and and, and the other party. And so in astrology, you know, the planets in their courses are always changing their relationship with one another much like the ball scene and Romeo and Juliet, you know, they’re, they’re changing their partners and and their, their choreography with one another. And so this week, we have an opportunity. This week, we have an opportunity to make peaceful overtures, we have an opportunity, because the sextile will will put you in a headspace or heartspace, where you may be able to look at someone else’s point of view, you know, someone that you’re warring with, you might be able to see their point of view or, or appreciate their story or appreciate what they’ve gone through. Or because we have Capricorn being Capricorn being channeled here as a cosmic energy, you may actually simply recognize the practicality of bringing a feud to an end, that it’s been very expensive, that it’s expensive for the other side, and it’s expensive for for you, and maybe it’s about cutting your losses, or allowing the other side to save face or finding a way out. And this is what sextiles do, the planets don’t command us, you know, do these things, the planets, kind of like open up Windows on these possibilities. Sometimes they bar the door, you know, there’s a no exit, I mean, you can have a heart aspect with the planets and there’s no exit. And sometimes like with sextiles, which is what makes them so lovely is that they open they they open windows and they open up possibilities. So that’s something to keep in mind. When you’re looking at that agency which is being so unforgiving with you were being so oppressive. Or if you’re looking at that person that you’re feuding with or if you’re looking at that, you know, lawsuit like Bleak House, which has gone on from generation to generation to generation, you know, the sextile says, you always have an opportunity to extend the olive branch now there are times when you can extend the olive branch and it gets slapped down. That’s why we love sextiles your your your case is being heard the other party is is listening, you know and then you have to sort of readjust your eyes so that you can recognize readjust your eyes and readjust your ears so that you can recognize where the other party is softening or how or if the Potter party has approached you how you might soften and how you might rethink where you are and so what’s beautiful about this particularly because it involves Neptune is that allows you to step out of you know,

well they did this and they did that and they did that you know that’s what grudges are their scorecards, right? It’s like they did this and they did that or whatever not until I see this Whatever will I ever you know, allows Neptune softens that allows you to step outside of that and be like, You know what, we could just do this scorecard. thing forever in a day, or we can, you know, take advantage of this energy and try to make some kind of peace come to some kind of understanding. It can be very intimidating, and it can be very overwhelming. When you look at our world at times, you know, when, and especially nowadays, Mars is exalted, and Capricorn and Venus rising as the Morning Star, and you can sort of feel defeated, or you can sort of feel like this is an exercise in futility, you know, trying to bring some sort of peace to these warring houses of Montagues and Capulets, wherever they may appear in your life, whether it’s USA in Russia or whether it’s, you know, to factions on the board of directors or, or, or in the neighborhood, you know, it just may seem like an exercise in futility. How do you, you know, preach peace, you know, on a global level, I mean, you know, when the din is so loud and deafening, and what what you sort of realize in a situation like this is that it’s important, especially, you know, with Saturn in Aquarius, right now, it’s, it’s important that we don’t retreat to our own separate corners. It’s important that we don’t retreat to our own separate corners in this world, and just sort of shutter away or shut off what’s going on. What’s important is that we realize that it’s from our own little corners, that the ripple effect of our good deeds and actions, although they may start out humble and small, but it’s from our own little corners that the ripple effects of our own good deeds and actions spread beyond our community and out into the world and affect the lives of those we know and affect the lives of those whom we may never meet.