Every village home hides a box of old photographs, each one a relic of time. The boxes evolve with the years, just like the images inside, which fade as memories do. Black-and-white photos crack at the edges, their hues stubbornly enduring, while color snapshots blur, perhaps because our eyes, now spoiled by sharp resolutions, judge the old ways harshly.

But I prefer to see it this way: as we forget the names of faces in those frames, their features soften. When the moment they captured slips entirely from memory, the foreground blends into the background, and we lose why someone thought to seize that fleeting second. Where memory holds strong, though, where we still recall every detail, the picture stays vivid. We catch it! There’s his nose! The little bucket! And suddenly, we remember.

Today, from one such box, my daughter sent me a photo from the village—a snapshot of me, just younger than she is now. I’m sipping pear juice, my favorite. The picture was taken by a neighbor, always a step ahead with his gadgets, so this image doubles as a keepsake of him. I have so few photos from childhood, for reasons like these. Pluto rising in Libra might also explain the “helmet” haircut I sported for years.

Revisiting childhood always pulls you toward the Moon, toward Cancer. Therapists linger there most of their days. And right now, Venus is just stepping into Cancer’s embrace. Those photo boxes—they’re like a daughter texting her mother a memory, a glimpse of youth. It’s all so rooted, so homebound. Even now, Venus in Cancer stirs a “homegrown” love in our charts, no matter if we’ve wandered to Canada or Australia. But what matters more is happiness. Happiness is where we stand. It’s every place in memory that resists the blur. Every photo where you’re fullfilled with story behind the image, even ones you’ve never seen—and never will. There’s a piece about Venus in Cancer I wrote before, right here.

But what happens when Saturn and Neptune in Aries square her? They rough her up. Saturn in Aries chips away at her glow, and Neptune in Aries softens her edges, like all keepsakes dulled by time. They steal a bit of Venus’s beauty, her tenderness in Cancer, snuff out her dreams—but in that loss, her soul comes into view. Time reveals the soul—of wine, of humanity, of art like Van Gogh’s starry skies, where the stars still shimmer with magic today.

It’s as if a soul needs time to ripen. And memories to take root.
What’s gone, what once was lived, then lost. The soul is like that box, growing dearer when unearthed after years. Ask any collector, any antiquarian.

Yet in the rush of daily life, without that soft veil of time to blur the edges, things often falter. We might give up on something. Crack a tooth on a hazelnut in chocolate. Head from a birthday bash straight to a funeral. These are farewells—like young people on some island tonight, drinking until dawn because tomorrow they scatter. This is the ache to be happy. And how hard that is, as Hesse, a Cancer, once wrote. Something—or someone—always spoils it. If not a person, then “circumstances,” “distance.”  It’s the theft of joy, of a dress, a camera, even someone’s photos or identity. In Denmark, this falls under laws protecting personal appearance, facial features, and voice.
This transit carries love’s wishes, songs, the dreams of lovers left alone. Like empty glasses and bottles, drained dry. Like the juice box in this photo of me as a child, which returned to my life while Saturn is square Venus. If it returned to my life under a Venus-Jupiter glow, juice-box will be full.
So much more could be learned about that little girl in the picture just from today’s transit: that she grew up too fast, ran faster than everyone else, started working too young, had to learn to say no to so many things, but also that a single moment was enough for happiness!

That moment is captured in Saturn in Aries, like a stern jailer resolved to chase her forever with work and whip her with strength, let his eyes drift shut. He was exhausted earlier than she was. And Venus in Cancer, supposedly lulled to sleep as her name implies (Sanja – in Serbian San – Dream), had him used to her steady presence—day after day in the warm dining room, chatting with clients about fears, dreams, past, and love. She softened him, as Venus in square to Saturn works her magic on him too, until he could close his eyes, weary from his vigil, and doze. Neptune in Aries is that sudden, dreamlike lapse when someone—even Saturn—just switches off. And that was enough for her, who lives against rules or tradition, to become a mother. This is also my grandmother, sneaking out at night to bring food to her daughters in a town a few kilometers away, returning before dawn so the jailer-grandfather wouldn’t wake.
A little dance with time and dreams, a little sneaking, and life hums! In squares, we can endure, wait, or cheat, steal. Especially with Saturn. Because otherwise, nothing works, or nothing happens! Stolen happiness, tenderness preserved from harshness, and care—that’s what it is!

translation:

Knock, knock, in the dead of night, a sound stirs.
You’re awake, but your eyes stay shut,
For you know—it’s darkness tapping at your lids,
It’s darkness tapping at your lids.

I promise you truth: miracles unfold.
Between your eyes,
A hidden window waits.
Peer through it now,
And tell me—what do you see?

I see a great heart, struggling, defiant.
I see a woman shouting from a mast, land lost in fog.
I see a fearsome wave rising, and her in a boat,
In a walnut shell—or someone’s palm.

But I see, too, a light leaping from body to body,
A sea of lanterns like a starry sky.
I see her growing, slowly stronger than all,
Rising, expanding— Pride reshapes fate.

Then, a flutter rings out, a chime across a hundred miles.
A flock soars high, a dazzling band of fairies.
She looks at her hands, and her hands become wings.
She flies after them, her heart called by the distance.

Upturned nests don’t return to branches—
They’re rebuilt anew, better, stronger.
Oh, restless beauty, look closer:
In that walnut shell, you stir the sea.

Fortune follows the brave.

Oh, glorious beauty, look deeper:
In that walnut shell, you summon the tide.

It’s hard to say who dreams whom here.
In an embrace’s comfort, every woman stands alone.
Carry what you can take with you,
Let the rest go when you say goodbye.

Fortune follows the brave,
the brave find fortune.
Of all that threatens,
your love is greater.

Oh, alone… oh, alone…