Almagest

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The Moon conjunct Venus

the Moon conjunct Venus, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart the Moon conjunct Venus is read as two of the tradition's own 'yin' energies aligning directly: feeling and affection sharing one register so completely that the placement rarely announces itself the way a harder contact would, since there is little real friction here for the personality to work around. Ptolemy counts Venus a benefic, and the tradition reads the fusion as a temperament naturally inclined toward pleasure, comfort and a gentle sociability, liking what comforts it and being comforted, in turn, by what it likes. Between two charts, one person's Moon conjunct another's Venus is read as one of synastry's most fortunate contacts: sources describe sweetness, tenderness, affection and caring as essentially what the aspect promises, generating mutual support and genuine enjoyment between the two people, a warmth that needs very little active maintenance to keep giving.

The story

A conjunction sets two bodies at, or close to, the same degree, with no real angular distance between them; Ptolemy's own chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs measures the opposition, trine, square and sextile by the number of degrees separating two positions, yet Wikipedia's summary counts the conjunction among the five traditional major aspects sometimes called Ptolemaic, and reports that conjunctions are said to be the most powerful aspects, because they mutually intensify the effects of the involved planets. Aphrodite, whom Rome called Venus, is not born as an infant in the oldest telling but rises fully grown from sea foam, produced when Cronus cast his father Uranus's own severed genitals into the water; Roman theology went on to describe her as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and balance of life, a birth and a nature both tied to water before they are tied to anything else. Fused together, the tradition reads that same generous, water born nature giving itself entirely to feeling: affection and instinct sharing a single register so completely that the resulting warmth barely needs occasion to appear.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Moon:Venus:conjunction.