So, I’m trying a new thing with the zodiac right now. We just finished Taurus season, where my Sun is, and I spent a lot of quality time reflecting on Taurus and my Sun and the Ninth House where it lives. I found that exercise really useful and meaningful – more so than I expected – so I’d like to extend it and develop it further.

One of my projects over Taurus season was reading The Taurus Witch and trying out some of the ideas in there. Summarized very briefly, one of those ideas was to think of the signs and planets as spiritual entities that you can cultivate a relationship with. An extension of that idea is treating your personal planets – my Sun in a certain degree of Taurus in the Ninth House, for example – as a personal court of zodiacal spirits who can be called upon to help you, if you put in the time getting to know them.

(Ivo Dominguez Jr. has a different book that I think covers this in more detail, Practical Astrology for Witches and Pagans, which I’ve now ordered to help me keep working on my astrology. So I expect my understanding of his ideas to improve as I work through the book in the next while, but for now I’m working with what I have.)

I had a lot of success connecting with my personal Sun. That makes sense; she should be one of the easiest ones to befriend, going by the book that inspired this new project. The new project is trying to connect in some deeper, healthier way with all of my natal planets – I thought it might make sense to mark and celebrate the sacred cycle of the year in a new way, and look at my chart and devote each sun season to connecting with the planets that reside there.

And then I remembered I have 3 whole planets all cozily piled up together in Gemini, which is the season we’re in now… so giving all of those their due in one season might not be realistic. We’ll see!

Helpfully, the first of my three Gemini planets is Venus, and I could start there but that relationship is already pretty robust. I’ve been working with her for a long time, and since she’s in the Ninth House with my Sun, and the ruler of my sun sign, so it’s always felt right to honour her and seek her counsel in Taurus season. I think she often asserts herself in Leo, too, since I have no planets there and she’s connected to my Sun. Same goes for Libra, which Venus rules, and where I only have my Black Moon Lilith. That should be interesting, when we get to it.

So, if we’ve spent lots of time with Venus lately and will likely return to her before long, the next up is Mercury… and my Mercury’s a lot, so this next exploration will come in several parts.