transits in real time: venus’ besiegement

This is the long and winding road of how Venus’ enclosure between Mars and Saturn affected me, my partner, and our housing situation.

First of all, I hope that this piece will teach me how to spell “besiegement”. I have put the I after the E too many times. Thank god that’s over.

Second of all, Venus’ besiegement between Mars and Saturn in Aquarius fucking sucked. The long story cut short: my partner and I were homeless for a week because of delays with our housing application, got our shit stolen, and the astrology of it all tracks so obnoxiously hard.

Some context: I’m a Cancer rising in a 1H Moon profection year from the ascendant and a 5H Mars year from sect light. My Venus is in Libra in my 4H, and my IC is in Virgo in the 3rd. My partner is a Libra rising with a Mars-Venus conjunction in 10H Cancer near the MC (Capricorn IC), currently in a 12H Mercury year profecting from the ascendant and a 10H moon year profecting from sect light.

On the Venus Retrograde cazimi (occurring in my partner’s 4H, and ruling my 4H), we received a notice from our apartment complex that our rent would increase from $1470/month to $2280/month if we went month-to-month. We had already been thinking about moving, but it then became an urgent issue. 

Around the same time, we found a brand new low-income complex in a very nice neighborhood, poised to open in February 2022. Since our lease was set to end on March 12th, we were elated to find what seemed to be an extremely accessible option. My partner works full time at minimum wage (which, thankfully in our city, is $15 an hour) and I work from home as a full-time astrologer. The prospect of paying approximately the same amount for more space and nicer amenities was incredibly exciting. Our old place was, to put it lightly, a fucking dump.

Initial Application Appointment

I start reaching out to the complex as Venus retrograde finishes up, and schedule an appointment to apply in person on February 7th at 2pm. Pretty good chart. Exalted moon in Taurus as L1, applying to a trine with its ruler Venus in the 7H. Mercury Mars and Venus straddle the DSC, not ideal to have an angular Mars in a day chart, but what can you do.

And then oops, surprise! The complex double-booked that appointment time and attempted to move us to late February. We’re supposed to give our notice to our then-current apartment on February 18 to ensure we don’t have to pay month-to-month rent at an $800 increase. I bothered the complex enough to get an appointment in the same week, but when I opened the chart of the officially scheduled time… ouch.

The actual application appointment.

I don’t think you could ask for a worse chart to sign paperwork. L1, the Sun, in its detriment, conjunct Saturn. The moon in my 12H - a transit I try to avoid doing anything during this moon year - averse from L4 Mars and the lord of the IC, Venus. Shit. South node in the 4H. Double shit. 

L7 - the other party - Saturn is in domicile and is the final dispositor of the IC. Okay, so they’re in control. The moon is separating from Saturn (L7) and applying to the Sun (L1), which honestly is the only saving grace of this chart. I thought, okay, well, at least the moon’s not void, it’s applying a trine to the Sun. It’s translating its light to the Sun in a positive aspect. There’s some hope, right?

Note the Mercury-Venus-Mars-Pluto averse from both L1 and L7. That’ll be relevant later.

Ironically, the complex is named after a fixed star, which happens to be located in tropical Gemini. Go figure. The moon can be subtle sometimes, but she certainly wasn’t here.

At the appointment, we pick our apartment, sign our paperwork, and start the application process. As it’s a low-income and brand-new complex, the process is a little different from a regular apartment application and they can’t give us an exact timeline for when we’ll be able to move in. The first date they give us is March 1st. This turned out to be sorely incorrect.

We give our notice on February 18th. Here’s the (foolishly unelected) chart of the email I sent to notify the apartment we will be leaving. I cannot stop using Cancer rising charts, whether intentionally or accidentally. 

Notice of Intent to Move Out

Unfortunately, Mercury ruling-and-averse-to the IC from the 8H speaks volumes here. We’re leaving because they increased our rent, but without a 100% guarantee that we’ll have a new apartment. Our housing is ruled from the Idle Place. Plus, the moon’s void, oops. Ruh-roh, Scoob.

March 1st comes and goes and we have heard practically nothing from the complex aside from receiving our rental report, which looks great. I call them, they say they’re dealing with issues with permits from the city. It’ll be a couple more weeks. I ask when the latest we’ll know is - they say March 14. Two days after our lease ends. I asked if we’d definitely be able to be moved in by the 18th, and they say yes.  So, I call my current apartment complex and ask them to extend our residency by a week - surely by the 18th we’ll be moving in, right? They agree and allow us to stay an extra week. Phew. Fingers crossed that that’s enough time.

Another week passes without an update. During this time, Venus and Mars move into Aquarius, my natal 8H, and begin Venus’ besiegement by the malefics. She, like us, is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Eventually, I get through to someone on the phone at the new complex - they’ve been notoriously bad at communication, to the point where I’d have to call multiple times per day and hope that they’d potentially pick up the phone. Mercury conjunct Pluto in the 6H of the application chart, averse to both L1 and L7 - nobody’s paying attention. Small communication issues get blown out of proportion (Pluto). They tell me they’ve been attempting to reach my bank for income and asset verification, and that I can send in bank statements to expedite the process. My partner and I send our bank statements on March 7th. No response.

Mercury ingresses into Pisces on the 9th. Suddenly, the ruler of my IC and my partner’s profected planet is in its simultaneous fall and detriment - fuck. That’s not gonna be fun. Okay, well, at least it’s applying to Jupiter, right? That’s gotta count for something? (it did not)

Finally, on the 11th, I get an email - I need to come into the office the next day for corrections on my application. When I’m there, they tell me that the bank has not gotten back to them and that I need to contact my bank to get them to send the verification. This appointment is at 1PM Pacific Time and I’m there for about 45 minutes. Cancer rising chart again, this time with the moon in Cancer. They ask me to call my bank after I leave. I am on hold with the bank for 15 minutes. I finally get through to the right number I need to call and surprise! They’re on east coast time and closed about 5 minutes before I could get through to them. This is a Friday, so we have to wait through the weekend.

I call my bank on Monday morning. The moon is in Leo, opposing Mars and squaring Uranus. Ugh. They tell me that they’ve sent in the information - great! I call the complex repeatedly. No answer. I email the complex. No answer. I pick my partner up from work and we go to the office - their lights are off. They’re refusing to pick up the phone. But we knock anyway. I speak to the person who helped me out Friday, who says that they never received any documentation. If they had, “we could walk out of here with our keys”. Which was, by the way, a total lie.

Since we’re experiencing more delays, I call my current complex to find out whether we could extend our lease again through the end of the month. Unfortunately, they have already re-leased our apartment and new tenants are moving in on the 25th, so no matter what, we have to get out of our place by the 18th. Uh oh.

I call my bank again Tuesday morning while the moon is void, because, of course the moon has to be void. Not to mention its last aspect was an opposition to Saturn. Eventually, they send my information over, and I’m all set and done. We email the complex again and, of course, after 2pm Pacific, they respond: they also need my partner’s information. We have to call the bank again the next morning and get their info. You’re joking.

By the time their bank information is verified, it’s Wednesday afternoon. The moon is in my partner’s 12H now. We need to be out of our current apartment on Friday, the day of the full moon in Virgo. I drive over to the office again and speak to the manager, who tells me that our application has been sent off to an auditor, who is also on east coast time. It’ll be 24-48 hours until the complex gets the file back from the auditors. “48 hours” will be after our lease expires. Cue tower moment. Thankfully, my partner’s boss has a spare room he offers to us while we wait for our application to be approved. My partner’s 6H contains their natal Jupiter in Pisces, which the full moon opposes. Their boss comes in to save the day. 

The full moon occurs 2º away from my IC, which is at 25º Virgo. At this point, I’m thinking “okay, that’ll be the transit that does it. When the moon hits my IC, we’ll get our apartment.”

Unfortunately, it’s not my transit - it’s my partner’s.

This full moon is occurring in their profected house, not mine. The 12H themes are strong - we are experiencing a major loss. On the Virgo full moon, my partner, our two cats, and I “move in” to their boss’s spare room. We begin living out of a suitcase. We have a place to sleep through the weekend, maybe through the week. My partner works at a local music store, where we’re storing our many instruments.

Saturday comes and the complex lets us know that there were corrections that needed to be addressed with the auditor and that we should come into the office on Sunday to fix the last of our paperwork. I pick another Cancer rising chart, 11:30 AM, and we cross our fingers and pray that this will be the last time we need to adjust anything.

Final Application Corrections Appointment

Most people wouldn’t use a Cancer rising/Scorpio moon chart if they were threatened about it, but this is my exact lunar return. Please, moon, we’re besties - let’s get this apartment. The moon is exactly trine to the AC and MC, so even though she’s fallen, we’re all doing our best. Jupiter-Mercury applying - god, please, let’s just get this done. We speak with someone we hadn’t worked with before who actually seems to know what she’s doing and treats us kindly, understanding the situation that we are now literally homeless waiting for our file to be approved. For once, we’re treated with some actual urgency and immediacy about our situation. We finish our paperwork and our file is finally actually complete. Our file gets resubmitted to the auditors the same day, but as it’s Sunday, they might not get back to us until Tuesday or Wednesday with an auditor response.

Monday morning, my partner arrives at work. There’s been a break-in. Venus-Mars square Uranus shit. People broke into the construction site behind my partner’s work, then took a sledgehammer to the wall and broke into their work. Not the instrument showroom or the store itself, mind you - they break into my partner’s personal drum room, where we are storing our personal instruments.

The only things the thieves take are my partner’s very first guitar and the guitar they gave me as a Christmas gift this year. Nothing from the store itself. Only the personal property of two homeless trans people in their early 20s. Fucking awesome.

Just for flavor, the chart of when we realized our guitars had been stolen.

Remember when I said that we couldn’t escape Cancer rising charts? I swear it’s the only sign that’s risen all month.

Moon’s opposing Uranus and applying to Jupiter, who happens to be hanging out with Mercury right on top of my natal south node. Talk about Venus’ besiegement - Uranus stole our fucking musical instruments! What the hell! Poor Venus. Poor us. RIP Ferdie (my guitar). You will be sorely missed, my beautiful mahogany acoustic. Thankfully, both of these instruments have been used by my partner in a work context, as they’ve taught lessons with both of the instruments, so we’re still praying for some insurance reimbursement. Let’s go Venus in the 8H??

Back to housing, we’re still dealing with corrections on our application. By Wednesday, we find out that we’ll have to be out of my partner’s boss’s place soon, as his kid (he’s a single dad) will be coming to stay with him that weekend. With no timeline on when we’ll get into our apartment, we have to book an AirBnb that accepts cats so we can have a bed to sleep in.

I post a mutual aid request graphic on Wednesday to cover our costs and, in a shocking turn of events in a week/month.existence of terrible news and constant roadblocks and issues, we hit our funding goal within 24 hours. Here’s the chart for when I posted the request - can you guess what sign was rising?

Mutual Aid Request

If you guessed Cancer, you’ve been keeping up. Venus is ruling the IC from the 8H again, but this time, the IC is in the whole-sign 4H and receives its ruler by a trine rather the aversion we’ve been dealing with. The moon is breaking through the Venus-Mars conjunction and applying to Venus. It’s my partner’s lunar return. Exalted Sun on the MC with the Part of Fortune - the post is visible. It gains traction quickly. We’re able to stay on our feet.

This is the part where I am extremely grateful for all the help we received. My partner and I are not well-off by any means, but we’ve spent the last couple of years building our savings to the best of our ability. That was poised to go completely out the window and leave us on our asses to rebuild if we didn’t get help. And we got so much help. We got more help than I could have hoped for. We’ve been able to pay off the AirBnB, our storage unit, and most of the moving costs we’ve had to pay up front. Neither of us would ever have expected that our community would show up for us like this, and my gratitude for every donation, whether it be $5 or $150, is immense. Thanks to the outpouring of support from our people, we had a glimmer of hope in the dark. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So, we book an AirBnb. We attempt to book a studio apartment in our city, which is a smaller city outside Seattle. Unfortunately, the place that we tried to book was listed while it was going through repairs. Ugh. The host offered another one of his properties - he owns 61 in the area - a townhouse located in a weird neighborhood of Seattle, but it’s a larger place and was available immediately, with no price increase. We agree to stay there and move all of our stuff, and our cats, out of my partner’s boss’s place and into this AirBnb. After all, what choice do we have? We need a place to sleep, and we need one immediately.

We’re in the AirBnb for two nights when suddenly, on Friday, we get a message - the original place we tried to book is available starting at 3pm the next day. I ask if we can just stay in the townhouse since we have two very freaked out cats traveling with us, but the host says no, as he had declined to mention when offering us this place that new guests were booked to arrive the next night. What, pray tell, the fuck???

AirBnB host kicks us out of our rental.

That Saturn-DSC, South Node-IC is loud. And painful. I honestly don’t have much more I can say about it. This was an awful and traumatic experience for myself, my partner, and especially our cats. I’m not going to delineate any further, but this is the chart of the moment for that experience.

We were given an 11 am check-out time and a 3 pm check-in time. The places are half an hour away from each other. We have two cats. They hate their carriers. This was an entirely untenable option. The host offers us another place - this time, a house even further away from where we’re trying to be. This one we can move to right away, so we pack up all of our things and our cats and drive to the most run-down, decrepit house you’ve ever seen. Other people’s trash is in the cans. There are no screens on the windows. There is a birthday balloon (????) in the living room. 

Meanwhile, the final corrections come back from the auditor, and there’s been an issue with my partner’s retirement account (which they were given as a gift at the end of 2021, of course during Venus retrograde) that needs to be resolved immediately. We are promised that as soon as that’s resolved, we can move into our apartment. After a ridiculous amount of time on the phone, it’s completed and we set an appointment to sign our lease and get keys the next morning.

At long, long last, Saturday. Keys day. We pack up our AirBnb, send a scathing message to our host in regards to the condition of the place we were staying, and check out early. We arrive at the complex, pay our fees, and get our keys.

Lease Signed, Moving In, Nightmare Over

The moon at 26º Capricorn is 1º past my partner’s IC at 25º Capricorn. 13º Cancer rising is my exact natal AC. Yes, L1 is in detriment, as it was in the initial application chart. L1 in 7H is so obviously signing paperwork for contracts, I suppose. Venus is still enclosed but is on her way out. She happened to sextile my natal Saturn on this day. Very sweet of her.

But I’ll fucking take it. This apartment is beautiful, it’s cheap, and it’s a place to call home. Our nightmare has finally, truly, fully ended. We are safely and stably housed.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. One of the few things that kept me going was knowing that eventually, our transits would lighten up and we’d be able to get through this nightmare experience. We’re still rebuilding and recuperating, but things are looking up.

I hope this astrological anecdote provided some kind of insight into how potent particular transits and charts can affect an individual or a couple. The besiegement of my 4H ruler Venus truly did a number on my housing situation, but ironically, it brought out the best of my Taurus 11H - my friends, my community, my people all rallied around my partner and I when we needed it most. Thank you for reading, thank you for helping, thank you for being here with me.