From what we see on Earth, planets have been lining up for the most part on the same side of the sun over the course of the last month. By FEBRUARY 24th, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Pluto will all be in the constellation of Aquarius just after sunset on the horizon—even though the last two stay hidden beneath.

Even though Saturn and Neptune are still hovering just above and to the left in Pisces, Saturn will be sliding down a little each day, passing Venus (which is rising) on MARCH 7th and 8th. By then Mercury will be long gone.

Jupiter lives in Gemini for a whole year, though it's getting smaller and fading slightly as Earth overtakes it in our faster orbit around the Sun. Uranus, very slow moving, hangs out in Taurus for eight years near the Pleiades.

Since all the outer planets lie outside of Earth’s orbit, they can appear at any point moving very slowly in the sky after dusk depending on their current orbital position. Since they orbit further from the Sun, they are not tied to the Sun’s position in the sky. It’s nice to know the outer planets are shining down upon us, but you would have to really know how to read star charts and have a high-powered telescope to see the tiny dots of Neptune and Uranus way out there in the deep sky.

THE REAL ACTION NOW is happening on our constantly moving, quickly changing Western horizon with our two inner planets. VENUS appears higher up each night as MERCURY fades fast and slips back under to join Mars (who stayed invisible all month). On FEBRUARY 26, they will conjunct on the horizon.

Positioned between the Earth and Sun, Venus and Mercury as inner planets have a different movement pattern across our sky than the outer planets. They have a special relationship with the Earth popping up on each side of the horizon, not staying too long or ever reaching high into the dome of the sky.

IN THE OLD WORLD, THESE TWO PLANETS WERE SEEN AS OMENS, especially when rising briefly on the Eastern Horizon just before dawn. “Hey watch out today, there may be conflict coming.” The inner planets spoke directly to our destiny.In the geocentric world, or the Ptolemaic cosmography, prior to Copernicus’s heliocentric model, because Mercury moves faster and stays lower than any other planet, we thought Mercury was closer to us than Venus. The two inner planets were switched, giving us the order of Sun, Venus, Mercury and Earth.

PLATO DESCRIBES THIS REVERSAL IN THE “TIMAEUS”. "The sun, the moon and five other stars were brought into being for the begetting of time—seven bodies placed into seven orbits traced by the period of the Different: the Moon in the first circle around the Earth, and the Sun in the second above it, then Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. The Dawnbearer (the morning Star or Venus) and the Star said to be sacred to Hermes (Mercury) were set to run in circles that equal the Sun’s in speed, though they received the power contrary to its power. As a result, the Sun, the Star of Hermes and the Dawnbearer alike overtake and are overtaken by one another.”

Occultists note that everything said in the mystery centers about Venus actually referred to the visual planet Mercury, and everything referred to about Mercury referred to the visual planet Venus. This reversal makes sense when you start to think about how initiatic teaching presented spiritual truths as ‘inside out’ realities. “You have to stand on your head to see the world, because everything is upside down.” Our vision is part of this reality.

We can look to the Hermetic doctrine of microcosmic in macrocosmic reflexivity described in the Emerald tablet. “Therefore, the truth is certain and there is no doubt that the inferior corresponds to the superior and the superior corresponds to the inferior.” This is about how the inner human life reflects the outer Cosmic and vice versa.

 

In many ways, the Earth still is the center of the universe, as we are its reciprocal.