This afternoon, while working in my home office, my dog, Magnus, who had been sitting quietly next to me, started barking like a wild man. I had heard a sound in the front yard, and frankly this isn’t unusual (we live amongst deer and other wild animals, and we always joke that he barks at ghosts) so I chose to ignore the barking. When he refused to be calmed, I got up, rounded the corner, and saw a woman in my living room about to ascend my staircase.

“You have a beautiful house,” she said. I recognised her as one of our neighbors, an extremely childlike adult (who had let herself into our front yard on a previous occasion because she wanted to pet, and then borrow, our chickens. I’d said no).”You’re not supposed to be here,” I replied. “Leave immediately.”  She apologised, and walked back out my front door.

After calling the police, I went to my ephemeris to look up the planetary declinations. She had acted as if she had every right to enter my house. She was, in effect Out of Bounds – also an astrological term we use to describe planets that reach an extreme declination, exceeding 23’28’ North or South, from the ecliptic. I had a hunch, and sure enough Venus in Cancer, currently at a declination of 26’02, is out of bounds all May -with 26’02’ being her highest declination. Cancer being, of course, the sign ruling home, hearth, women’s biology, women generally, domesticity… and lunacy.

Out of Bounds

Lawless. Refusing to play by the rules. Rule-breakers. Out of control. Gone wild. Breaking the mold. Shattering boundaries. Crossing explicit lines. This is how I’ve come to think of out of bound planets. Out of bounds planets refuse to play by the rules. One year, when the Moon was out of bounds, I recall a friend having decided she was going to get pregnant without her husband’s knowledge. We all cried “Foul play!” at the absurdity and unfair deception inherent to this act (she didn’t end up getting pregnant). I like using the metaphor of kick ball, the game you likely played in grade school. When someone accidentally kicks the ball out of bounds, everyone yells “out of bounds!”and it’s considered out of play by the consensus. But occasionally there is that one guy or gal who, full of chutzpah or an unwieldy and wild sense of freedom and daring, kicks it out of bounds, be damned the consequences. Wild, lawless, rebellious… that’s how an out of bounds planet behaves. And often how people who have out of bounds planets in their own chart behave, too.

Venus in Cancer, OOB

There’s not much information out there on out of bounds Venus. Astrologer Tony Howard is currently working on remedying that (and he has a nice initial article about that here).  In my real life example of Venus OOB, this woman walks, uninvited, into my house, tells me it’s beautiful and leaves when I ask her to. As trespasses go, rather civilized and gracious (Venus) don’t you think? Her partner then called to apologise and says that yesterday, being Mother’s Day, she had seen her family and this might’ve made her “a little too heady with freedom” (his words). He also said she’s mildly autistic, something I’d suspected. I told him I wasn’t trying to create tension but needed to put my foot down. He understood,  and said that I was justified in calling the police, as she’s had altercations like this before. So it’s all good in the neighborhood.

As far as predictions go, it strikes me that, Venus being Venus, during this OOB period people might do some crazy “out of bounds” things for love. One girlfriend is visiting psychics trying to find out when and where she will meet her soul mate He has been described to her by two independent psychics, in great detail, from his hobbies to where she will meet him. To do so, she has been told to attend a certain pancake breakfast and visit art galleries (can you say: Venus in Cancer?). Others may go crazy decorating their houses (an activity Venus in Cancer loves), or buying kitchen appliances, I imagine. Or baking inventive cupcakes. I’m now thinking of a certain bride-to-be who, over the past month, has “gone crazy” baking and inventing new cupcake combinations for her wedding – so much so that, as the officiant of her wedding, I’ve quietly suggested that she step away from her new standalone mixer and rest. Here’s her most recent status update: “I’ve gone completely mad: coconut cupcake filled with ginger mango chutney topped with a cardamom buttercream spiked with coconut rum and garnished with crystallized ginger.” Well, there you have it.

P.S.: Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus and very rarely Jupiter, and sometimes Pluto, all go out of bounds. The Sun never does. to check and see if you have any OOB planets, look to the declinations section of your handy ephemeris, for your birth day.