Ladies of the Zodiac...It's Showtime.

Venus is currently slowing to station retrograde in Scorpio October 8 conjunct Mars and Eros, and the pressure in our most intimate relationships is mounting. Long-held dirty tricks and suppressive techniques, especially of the masculine over the feminine, are slowly being drawn to the surface.

There are some very interesting asteroid ingresses around the time of the retrograde station, and we can see the feminine taking strategic position in light of the tricky and arduous progress it has to make over the next while.

The masculine-heavy corpo-governmental oligarchy has its five-year plan all laid out for the series of squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn. Its obedient and handsomely-rewarded foot soldiers have Powerpoint presentations at the ready. Designer coffee is percolated. Spreadsheets are filled with all the trumped-up facts and figures they will need to implement the further domination and running into the ground of feminine wisdom, nature, emotion, health, well-being and anything that threatens unabashed worship at the altar of phony money and corrupted power. Increasing the profit margins on its purposefully-inflicted misery, clawing ever-deeper, becoming ever-more nasty and vicious as it works the law of diminishing returns...

And the feminine is here to say: Not so fast, bigshots. Your idea of progress is not our idea of progress. We didn't agree to your five-year plan for this planet or for our lives. We've got different 'strategic goals.' And we've got alternative facts and figures - based on what is truly valuable on this planet, not on your number-shuffling trickery and cardboard facades.

A strong strategic position is what's needed here, and a strong strategic position is what the feminine asteroids, along with Venus, are taking.

The effort here turns to the microcosm of our interpersonal relations. As always, the personal is political, and what happens in the boardroom is reflected by what happens in the bedroom and vice versa.

As most know, we deal in an astrological zodiac that is masculine-heavy, reflecting certain reinforced dynamics on this planet. Eight of the ten major planets are considered masculine. Only the Moon and Venus are feminine. Important as they are, this is still a whole lot of imbalance.

The asteroids are where we pick up the slack with the feminine influence. The three major asteroids currently used in astrological charts Pallas Athene, Vesta and Juno and the dwarf planet Ceres are considered feminine, though they most often play second fiddle to the planets, other points and even to other asteroids, doing their thing with little recognition or fanfare in mainstream astrology. An invisible feminine force doing more than half the work from a disempowered position for much less than its due recognition, respect and reward. Sound familiar?

Even if we go against what feminine wisdom tells us and play by the standard masculine rule of "bigger = better" (that's worked out so well for us all), there's an unjust sharing of power within the astrological zodiac. Ceres is vastly larger than masculine Chiron and, unlike Chiron, is an actual dwarf planet with its own mantle and core. The use of Chiron, however, is much more widely integrated in today's astrology.

The fact that Ceres relates to agriculture, the growth of plants, especially grains/cereals, the seasons, the harvest and the fertility of the Earth and that it is so often an invisible symbol in the astrological chart indicates a broader disconnect - purposefully manufactured - between people and the sources of their food.

When it was discovered in 1801, Ceres was actually classified as the 8th planet. After about 50 years, it was reclassified as an asteroid. But in 2006, when the rules for the classifications of dwarf planets were changed, both Pluto and Ceres were reclassified as dwarf planets.

In effect, these reclassifications were a leveling of the masculine/feminine playing field, but the system has not yet adjusted to reflect this reality.

This is indicative of broader dynamics we're attempting to address during the upcoming retrograde of Venus in Scorpio (October 8 - November 18). The embedded and hidden nature of it all. The fear, hatred, mistrust, abuse and suppression of the feminine by both men and women and subsequent denials of feminine reality and masculine/feminine dynamics.

During the retrograde, we've got squares from a line-up of planets and bodies in Scorpio to Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius to help us penetrate, from the vantage point of our personal lives, the glossy collective illusions we have placed over these realities and dynamics.

As a testament to its brilliant resourcefulness, the suppression of the feminine can also be helpful - part of the quietly strategic nature of the feminine's work as we Plutonically transform all the masculine-heavy Capricornian structures whose dysfunction threaten the very survival of humanity on this planet.

So ladies of the zodiac, yes, as Venus stations retrograde at 13 Scorpio, dispositing the 2.5-year rebalancing and restructuring process between masculine and feminine indicated by Saturn in Libra - it's showtime.

Pallas Athene, feminine warrior asteroid, has been trailblazing in Scorpio on her own since December 2009. She was working ahead of the other planets and bodies that now transit the sign, using her bullshit-cutting etheric sword to clear a path out of the tangled, twisting, clinging vines of masculine-feminine dynamics on this planet. Over the past ten months, Pallas worked with almost supernatural persistence, courage and endurance to hit the initial trigger points, dig up the deeply suppressed spots, and draw necessary attention to areas left long neglected, unrecognized and unintegrated. You might have heard her voice over the past little while and even used it if you weren't one of the people putting a boot in her face...

Pallas Athene usually spends two to three months transiting a sign. She has spent the past ten months in Scorpio, and you can see how much work there was (and is) to do in this sign of sex, death, power and underlying energetic dynamics, mergers and exchanges - a sign that makes most people uncomfortable and one that most prefer to skip over.

But there's no more skipping to be done at the tail-end of the astrological Piscean era.

Pallas has finally completed her long journey through Scorpio and enters Sagittarius October 7, just one day before Venus goes retrograde at 13 Scorpio. Though quite comfortable in a sign co-ruled by warrior planet Mars, Pallas has had enough of trailblazing in this sign. She's tired of being out on a limb, battling her heart out in dangerous territory for collective progress while most people go about their daily lives without a clue that any of it is even going on - or why. Heavy and mostly thankless work, it is - though (as always) there are others doing this Pallas work at the same time, going through the same battle rituals, working on extrication from the same suffocating etheric bindings - mostly cloaked and on the down low, as Scorpio is apt to be.

Pallas Athene moves into Sagittarius now until entering Capricorn at Winter Solstice - the same time Venus leaves its retrograde shadow. Don't you just love astrology? From Sagittarius, Pallas shares her wisdom and unleashes some flaming arrows of truth about what she has learned during her extended trek through untouched Scorpio territory.

On the heels of Pallas leaving, asteroid Vesta enters Scorpio October 8, just as Venus stations retrograde. Vesta moves into Scorpio now to ensure that none of Pallas' hard work goes to waste. We're invested in the alchemical process painstakingly initiated by Pallas Athene and tend it carefully as the other bodies (Venus, Mars, Eros, the Sun, Moon and Mercury) pass through the points Pallas Athene triggered, continuing the process of garbage-clearing, bondage-breaking, strengthening, healing and integration.

Vesta, too, dwarfs Chiron and is the second-largest asteroid after Ceres - though there is some grey area about whether Ceres is still considered an asteroid now that it is a dwarf planet. Vesta even has its own family of asteroids (the Vesta family), whose members broke off Vesta itself after collisions with other asteroids. Vesta is the asteroid related to hearth and home - specifically the sacred flames we're invested in tending and continuing so that others may also light their candles by them. You see the import of what is going on here for lineages both past and future on this planet.

Earth Mother Ceres is also ready to make a move as Venus stations, and it's a big one. Ceres re-enters Capricorn October 9 after her retrograde regroup in Sagittarius, gathering all the strength, courage and faith she could to bolster herself for the upcoming conjunction to Pluto October 19.

The clock is ticking as we head to a major show-down conjunction within the Venus in Scorpio retrograde with Ceres, Pluto and the North Node in early Capricorn - the sign of concrete collective progress - all coming together throughout October and November. The rebalancing and restructuring of masculine and feminine - especially within shared power dynamics/structures - is desperately needed on this planet. We need to create a new and much different definition of 'progress' and 'success' - one that doesn't require the soul or physical deaths of the majority of life on the planet.

Saying that this is a matter of life and death is no melodrama. The fence-sitters are about to be kicked off the fence, one way or another.

So here it comes, and it might not be pretty. The process of real healing often isn't. We're dealing with a feminine that has been held hostage, exploited and abused while most traipse through the manufactured distractions of their daily lives unaware, walking over the trapdoor that covers her, bound and gagged.

A phony, controlled, androcentric version of the feminine has been slotted in in its place in the mainstream as vacant-eyed model, as mannequin interchangeably in store window or on man's arm, as plastic sex doll with red-lipsticked grin, as pretty, unblinking, emotionless android - and all variations therein. How convenient.

And we're dealing with a masculine that is scared spitless of what the feminine is going to do once it has worked its way out of the ties. Scared of the power shifts and what they might mean. What it might mirror back.

Unconscious, semi-conscious and overt tricks and power plays on the part of the masculine to keep the feminine right where it is can be expected. These will be apparent in men, but also with women. Really shifting things means breaking out of the comfortable societal rewards system that has been set up inducing both women and men to reinforce more of the same. Going beyond rewarded roles as far as how we look, what we say, how we act...as well as superficial lip service paid to the issues.

The superficial shall not be cutting it with this much Scorpio energy on the docket.

On the other hand, the feminine can be one wrathful force, especially when its sense of injustice is triggered (Pluto kidnapping Ceres' daughter Persephone and dragging her off to hell, for example), so the highest forms of Scorpionic sensitivity, caring and awareness are required here from both men and women in order to bring masculine and feminine into a workable state of fairness and balance with as little battle and disturbance as possible.

Growth is a key word for Scorpio, especially the deep, soul-triggered growth that forces us to adjust our egos in ways we never conceived possible. So expect some bruised egos - especially in men who have gotten used to the unquestioned positions of power that go along with male privilege. Do what you can to give people space and support as they work shit out without letting them off the hook or giving up your own very valid position.

This is about us as individuals in relationships, but it's much bigger than that, also.

Within Scorpio, we're working to find just the right combination of alchemical ingredients - the right tenor of emotional authenticity, the application of the spiritual mind to the most degraded of unintegrated aspects of human life on Earth (especially the dark feminine), the from-the-core integrity and courage, the release and movement of energy, the strategic mergers - that open the portals taking us to a much different five-year plan than the string-pullers of the corpo-governmental oligarch have in mind. If we do what we know is right and make an effort that would make Pallas Athene, Ceres, and Vesta proud we might find those portals with just enough time to zip through and turn those nasty plans ass-over-teakettle.

NASA launched a probe called Dawn (how apropos for burgeoning Aquarius) in 2007 to explore both Vesta (in 2011 and 2012) and Ceres (2015). The asteroid belt where Vesta and Ceres lie is between Mars and Jupiter, and the most basic of interpretations of those two is the expansion (Jupiter) of war and aggression (Mars). Both are masculine planets, but maybe the effort and influence of the feminine asteroids between them can thwart those nasty plans. Maybe they already are. And maybe that has something to do with the probe.

My guess is that Vesta and Ceres really don't care to be probed by NASA at all. I sure wouldn't.

Dawn is now in the asteroid belt, and in June, one of the censors on its reactor wheel sensed "excess friction" building up.

Excess friction building...

Saturn in Libra is showing us bottom line necessity as far as relationships and partnerships. We really need each other in order to get through this next decade and beyond. We need strong, responsible partnerships built on a solid foundation. This Venus in Scorpio retrograde can help us to clear old sticking points, untangle old etheric connections and heal old wounds so that we can turn our attention fully to the relationship-building tasks at hand without distraction or drama.

Contrary to popular belief, Scorpio doesn't break old dynamics and patterns apart out of sheer vindictiveness, mean-spiritedness or spite. It does it to get rid of old, enervating poisons, hidden from the perceptions of many, that threaten survival so that something stronger, truer and more soul-aligned can emerge and merge.

We're challenged now to go over our relationships with an intuitive fine-toothed comb, following our niggling feelings and gut checks. This is a time frame when we choose who we want standing with us, who we want in our corner, when the wolves are at the door.