In the absence of thorns, the beauty of a rose — lush, fragrant roses are venereal flowers, just like Libra is a Venus-ruled sign— wouldn’t last. Thorns (prickles would be a more accurate term) are roses’ defense mechanism. Roses teach us about beauty, pleasure and desire in ways that subvert our dichotomic, binary understanding.

The Full Moon arriving today, March 28, at 6:48 PM UTC, 8 degrees 18 minutes into the Venus-ruled sign of the scales, reminds me of roses and their gracefully sharp-edged boundaries against predators. Venus, ruler of this Full Moon, sits in the opposite sign of Aries, thus in the sign of her adversity; too, the illustrious Queen of all things erotic and luscious is cazimi, meaning that she just underwent her yearly purification rite of passage in the heart of the Sun.

Planets that are emerging from the cazimi condition usually allow for deeper clarity and lucid reckoning; the heat of the Sun burns away the debris to reveal the polished surface underneath. The awareness this Full Moon is illuminating — awareness of our relationship roles and dynamics, of all that seems antithetical to love, like rage and grief — didn’t just happen. It was, most likely, hard-won. We might not know what to do with it just yet — the condition called combustion will still be in effect for a while, and it usually indicates secrecy of some kind —but by now, we’re probably aware that it’s nearly impossible to have honesty and transparency inform our connections while we go out of our way to conceal our thorns, responding to others’ needs while we repress our own, participating in dynamics that do not feel aligned with our sense of who we are, keeping our non-negotiables a secret for fear of taking up space.

Mars-ruled Venus in Aries also understands that not everything warrants unconditional acceptance on our part. Mars-ruled Venus in Aries understands the importance of severing in order to rebalance excess. Mars-ruled Venus in Aries ruling today’s Full Moon in Libra radiates fierce homecoming energy.

Picture by Min An on Pexels.