Venus enters Libra

I was on the phone with a crony checking in on our lives as old gals and old friends who have not just witnessed but held for safe-keeping the reality of life when it's not pretty or easy. We live in the same state but are hours apart and in many ways a universe separate. My writing is the common ground we meet on. I write she reads. Every once in awhile I call and we talk.

"So, what happened," my friend asked.

I explained as best I could, though the written version is the mundane and the mythic truth. She'd read this already and it's times like this when a bit of voice is necessary. Banking the fire. I'm loving the textured meaning of that image of a banked fire loving the irony of not being able to be with fire for years now. The irony of life is such bitter sweet reality touching the core of a good thing even when you can't have the real life.

After hearing me out, I could hear the catch in my friend's voice when I suspected she wanted to say something ... something to help. She is a solutions-oriented Taurus and to be without a solution to our current dilemma is painful. But she, this old crony, told me of what she imagined possible for us. She spoke of how her partner and she dream of possibilities.

Hearing me out as I spoke of the limitations and challenges of a life with MCS as we experience it, she made me privy to the challenges and solutions in her life. A door is opening up the winter bleakness to light, and space outside. Literal solution for a Bull is big. I was happy to be hearing the scraping and sawing of tools in the background. I imagined the big glass sliding door, a steaming mug of fresh coffee and my friend barefooted or in booties in winter.

When it was time to say good-bye my friend said, "I won't give you platitudes like 'hang in there." She knows that's what we do. She knows we make do and then she said, "I know enough to know there is magic waiting. I wish that for you! (or something close to that)"

"Keep writing," she said. "I'm reading the new one."

"Thanks. I really appreciate that you aren't giving me platitudes." Others give us that, and that's just a sign that they don't get it. Uncomfortable with their helplessness, and in some cases, so attached to their fear of our version of homelessness it's all they believe they can do.

Venus the planet of love is newly in the area of the sky where Libra reigns (Relationships). It's possible to use the power of love to learn how to light a fire that could burn and burn well into the night. It's a practiced skill to bank a fire, but one that would benefit the wood being burned, the beings awaiting heat, and the one who woke early to start it. Warmth for the long term, bank the fire.