Astrology for Thursday, 14 November 2019:

​Today we move through a tight T-square as the Moon in Gemini opposes Venus in Sagittarius then makes a square to Neptune in Pisces, followed by Venus squaring Neptune. Our ideals for love are being called into question by what we can know. The Moon opposing Venus asks: how are you bringing your liberated visions of love into daily practice? Can you balance critical thinking and affection? That which we love cannot be beyond examination or critique; in fact, the ability to critically consider that which we love may be evidence of how much we value it. If our love cannot be subjected to careful and thoughtful examination, we may be more invested in our own ideals than that or those we love. The Moon square Neptune challenges us to discriminate between illusion and knowledge that can be intersubjectively shared and affirmed. This aspect reminds me of Donna Haraway’s description of “situated knowledges” and “feminist objectivity.” She writes, “Feminists don’t need a doctrine of objectivity that promises transcendence, a story that loses track of its mediations just where someone might be held responsible for something … Feminist objectivity is about limited location and situated knowledge, not about transcendence and splitting of subject and object.” In other words, objective knowledge is not defined by transcendence or universality; feminist objectivity is committed to the partial and the particular, the locatable, the embodied, and the situated. As Neptune squares the Moon, we may feel the allure of the transcendent or the universal, but truly objective knowledge happens in the details, at the scale of what can be known from our limited, embodied positions. Finally, Venus in Sagittarius squares Neptune in Pisces. Both Sagittarius and Pisces are mutable signs ruled by Jupiter. It can be difficult to maintain our boundaries or our footing in the here-and-now in these signs. This T-square is reminding us that however expansive our ideals for love might feel, they must remain accountable to the details of how such love is practiced and acted out. As Judith Butler writes, “Love always returns us to what we do and do not know. We have no other choice than to become shaken by doubt, and to persist with what we can know when we can know it.”