Scorpio Venus Star Point 2018: Psyche Awakening

Scorpio Venus Star Point 2018: Psyche Awakening
 

Driven by the force of love, the fragments of the world

seek each other that the world may come into being.

                                 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Today Venus kisses the Sun, ending her cycle as an Evening Star and beginning a new cycle as a Morning Star. Today she is truly clothed with the Sun. What new wisdom will she take into this next phase of her cycle? What have we learned in the past 18 months about ourselves, about Love, about connection?

With the METOO# movement, with what happen with the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, with the rise of white nationalism again, more women are reclaiming our powers -- the powers of an awakened soul.

In astrology, Venus is connected with love, sexuality, longing, harmony, union, acquisition and beauty. Venus in Scorpio wants to be utterly transformed so that the passions of her heart can guide her life. Even more than the Roman goddess Venus, it is Aphrodite, the Greek sister-goddess of this stellar energy, who embodied the Wisdom of the Body and of Love. She held deeper longings, the longing to become an awaken soul.

As Venus makes this transition today from Evening Star of Wisdom to Morning Star of Embodiment, she opposes the planet Uranus, the planet of awakening, of freedom, of uniqueness. This takes us back to the original creation myth of Aphrodite.

Hesiod's Theogony states that . . . 

first there was Chaos, and then appeared "broad-bosomed" Earth, who bore, first of all and as her equal, the starry Sky, Ouranos. Then She bore the great mountains, valleys, plains and the Sea, and after that She mated with Ouranos and bore many children, among whom were the Titans and Titanesses, the ancestors of the Olympian divinities, who represented the 'titanic' forces of the earth. Yet, although Ouranos came every night to mate with his wife, Gaia, from the very beginning he hated the children whom Gaia bore him. As soon as they were born, he hid them and would not let them come out into the light. He hid them in the inward hollows of the Earth, and it is said that he took pleasure in this wicked deed.

             The goddess Gaia groaned under this affliction, and felt herself oppressed by her inner burden. Therefore she devised a stratagem. She brought forth gray iron and made a mighty sickle with sharp teeth. Then she took counsel with her sons and daughters, asking who would avenge her for this wicked deed. Only Kronos (Saturn) took courage and agreed to act on her behalf. So Gaia rejoiced, and hid Kronos in the place appointed for the ambush, giving him the sickle and telling him her plan. And when Ouranos came at nightfall, inflamed with love and covering all the Earth, his son thrust out his left hand and seized his father. With his right hand he took the huge sickle, quickly cutting off his father's manhood, and cast it behind his back into the sea.

             Gaia received in her womb the blood shed by her spouse, and gave birth to the Erinyes - the strong ones - and to other creatures. The father's genitals fell into the sea, and it mixed with the foam and gave birth to Aphrodite. Since that time, the sky has no longer approached the earth for nightly mating.

Aphrodite is the embodiment of this ancient promise -- that we are called to live in love, with love, for love. And that is exactly what we are called to do now, as we watch our world split apart, as the old ancient hatreds erupt and the powers that be try to use them. Now is the time to be brave and stand in love rather than hatred, in connection rather than enmity, in beauty and harmony rather than ugliness and war.

The story of how Aphrodite trains us to awaken to love is the myth of Psyche and Eros. In the patriarchal version, Aphrodite is jealous of Psyche and gives her tasks out of spite. But in reality, Aphrodite's love guides Psyche (which means soul) to awaken to love and to her own self-awareness and being.

Psyche ~ Susan Seddon Boulet

The story of Psyche and Eros was first written down in the second century A.D. in Apuleius' novel The Golden Ass.

A great king and queen have three daughters. The youngest is so beautiful that men worship her as a goddess and neglect the worship of Aphrodite, called Venus, for her sake. One result is that the girl, whose name is Psyche, has no suitors, for men reverence her supposed divinity too much to ask for her hand in marriage. So her father consults Apollo's oracle about her marriage, and is told to hope for no mortal bridegroom. He is told that he must expose Psyche on the mountain-top to be the prey of a fierce and cruel beast. Her wedding and her funeral are to be one. With heavy heart, he carries out the oracle.

           Now Aphrodite, in a jealous rage over men's acclaim of Psyche's beauty, and the neglect of her worship, sends her son Eros to afflict the girl with an irresistible passion for the basest of men. But when Eros goes to carry out his mother's plans, he himself falls in love with the beautiful girl. As soon as she is left on the mountain as a sacrifice, he has the West Wind carry her off to a secret valley where he has built a hidden palace for her. There he visits her at night and makes her his bride, but he forbids her to see his face. She is content for a while, until in her loneliness she begs to see her two sisters.

            Now her sisters are beautiful with a human beauty, and so they each have married kings. But when Eros reluctantly brings them to see Psyche, they are jealous of her wealth as well as her status as the wife of a god, and plot her downfall. The god tells Psyche that she must not let her sisters talk her into trying to see him, or else she will bring ruin on them both, and on the child that she bears. But innocent Psyche cannot believe that her sisters would betray her, and when they insist that she must be married to a monster since he refuses to let her see him, she forgets the love they share and listens to her sisters' plan.

            And so that night she takes with her a lamp to see by and a sharp knife to kill the monster with. But when she lights the lamp, she is overwhelmed by the beauty of the god, and touching one of his arrows, proceeds to fall in love with Love himself. As she bends over him to drink in his beauty, some of the hot oil from her lamp spills on his shoulder, and he awakens with a cry of pain. He rebukes her and flies away. The palace crumbles behind Psyche as she sets out on her wanderings, exiled from her lord.

            The sisters have little time to enjoy their triumph, for Eros soon sends them to their deaths. Psyche, meanwhile, is in such despair that she tries to throw herself into a river, but the god Pan stops her and warns her that she cannot kill herself. Then he tells her to call on the God of Love for help. Psyche wanders on, coming to the temples of Demeter and Hera, but the goddesses refuse to help her for fear of Aphrodite's wrath. Finally, when Aphrodite offers a reward for her, Psyche decides to go submit herself to the Goddess.

           Aphrodite keeps Psyche as a slave, beats her, and finally sets her four seemingly impossible tasks, threatening death each time if she fails. First, She sets Psyche to sorting out seeds - all sorts of seeds: barley, oat, millet, poppy, sesame, chickpea and more - into separate piles. Psyche despairs for her life until an army of friendly ants comes to her aid, completing the impossible task by nightfall. Next, she is sent to collect the golden wool from some man-killing rams. Psyche wants to drown herself again, but a reed by the riverside whispers to her that if she but waits until the heat of the day is past, while the rams rest in the cool afternoon breeze, she can go and pick the golden wool off the bushes and branches of the meadow without fear.

   Aphrodite is angry and amazed when She finds that Psyche has accomplished these two tasks, and sets her a third. Psyche must fetch a cupful of the icy waters of the river of Death, which can only be reached by climbing the highest mountain. There, two dragons guard the spring which gushes from the mouth of a cave into a pool and then quickly disappears again into the earth. When Psyche sees the path, she knows there is no way to accomplish her task. In her desolation, she is numb beyond tears. But Zeus takes pity on her and sends his eagle to help her. The eagle takes the cup and fills it with the waters of death, and returns to Psyche. Gratefully, Psyche returns to Aphrodite with the cup.

Now Aphrodite gives Psyche her last and most dangerous task. She bids her go to the Land of the Dead and ask its' Queen, Persephone, to send back to Venus a boxful of her beauty. Psyche imagines that her end is near, and determines to find her way swiftly to Persephone's kingdom. She climbs a high tower to cast herself down, but is stopped by a mysterious voice, which tells her that she can survive the journey to the underworld and come back safe and whole. She is told that on the way she will be asked for help by various people who seem to deserve her pity, but she must refuse them all and keep silent. 

                                                   

Psyche & Charon

 

Taking with her gold coins for Charon, the ferryman, and barley cakes for the ferocious, three-headed dog, Cerberus, Psyche treads the path of the underworld, holding fast to the knowledge imparted to her. She declines Persephone's offer of food and comfort, accepting only bread and water, until she claims the box of beauty. Then she returns to the upper world.

           Now Psyche had heeded all the warnings, but finding herself at the end of her journey she weakens, and seeing the task almost completed, she succumbs to the temptation to take some of Persephone's beauty for herself. She opens the box, and a shadow covers her over. She falls to the ground unconscious.

Psyche's Last Task ~ Susan Seddon Boulet

           While Psyche completes her tasks, Eros is recovering from his wound in his mother's house. Aphrodite keeps him away from Psyche while he is hurt, but when he recovers he stretches his wings and flies away in search of Psyche. Finding her unconscious on the ground, he wipes away the shadow from her beloved form and puts it back in the box. Psyche awakens to her beloved, who takes her to Olympus, where she is accepted by Aphrodite and married to Eros by Zeus. She is made a goddess, and in due time, gives birth to a daughter named Joy.

 

This ancient story has been retold in countless fairy tales and is an important part of the heroine's journey of self-awareness. Too often we think that love should be easy and painless, but as the poet Rainer Marie Rilke says, love is work.

To take love seriously and to bear and to learn it like a task, this it is that young people need. – Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it into play and pleasure, because they thought that play and pleasure were more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work. So whoever loves must try to act if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself and collect himself and hold fast to himself; he must work; he must become something!

For believe me, the more one is, the richer is all that one experiences. And whoever wants to have a deep love in his life must collect and save for it and gather honey.

                                      Rilke: On Love and Other Difficulties

If love is to be our greatest achievement, then this new cycle of Venus must see us working to embody her Wisdom -- to become Psyche, to awaken Soul, to be Love.

Stories awaken things within us that facts alone can never show us. Meditate on these stories and next week when Venus is once again visible in the early morning sky, I'll be back to explain how you might live those 4 tasks that Venus/Aphrodite sets us to awaken our souls.

Walk in Beauty and Love,

Cathy

Venus Retrograde 2018

Venus Retrograde in Scorpio/Libra 2018:

Awakening the Soul Through Love

Part 1

The heavens are always moving and changing and telling us stories about the energies of life and death, love and desire, responsibility and possibilities. Since ancient times we have projected our experiences of life onto the night skies, telling stories about the star-groups we call constellations and onto the planets as we all revolve around the Sun. And we do this because intuitively we know we are part of the awesome mystery that sets the stars shining and the planets spinning.

Once thought of as gods and goddesses, the planets have become symbols of the archetypal processes of life. The archetypes are the cosmic laws of life, giving structure to collective energies that we each individually incarnate and make our own. They are self-organizing principles, so we experience them even when we’re unconscious of it. When we work with these archetypal energies consciously our own transformation quickens and we understand the meaning of our experiences.

Then we get to use our Free Will, making choices from a deeper understanding of who we are and what we really want.

Collectively, we have been immersed in a story of cultural transformation for the past 60 years, and it has only intensified over the past six years. The crises of climate change, overpopulation and continual warfare, and the pain and suffering they create, have to be faced consciously and resolved so we can let go of the past and create a different future for our planet and our children.

That means each of us has the responsibility to open to that change. The planetary energies and their cycles can help us understand what we can do to change not only ourselves but the world. While all the planetary cycles effect us, there are two important planetary energies we must look at and transform, for they are very personal and relate to men and women, and to how we work with the energies of the masculine and the feminine. These two planets are Venus and Mars.

Botticelli's Aphrodite & Ares

This summer when Mars, the planet of action, assertion, will power and desire, went retrograde in Aquarius over the South Node of the Moon, we hoped for a realignment of our collective masculine attitudes and energies. We see in the news that the old masculine attitudes are still entrenched in the places of power, but with ‘regular’ people, there is a new masculine attitude arising in men and women that gives us the courage to defend life rather than dominate it. I believe it will win out. Evolution happens.

Now it’s Venus’ turn to re-evaluate her priorities. On Friday, October 5^th, the planet Venus turns retrograde in Scorpio. Planets appear to ‘turn retrograde’ when the Earth passes that planet’s orbit and from Earth’s perspective, the planet appears to go backwards in the sky. During a retrograde, that planet’s energy turns within and we engage those energies within ourselves rather than projecting them out onto others.

What are the energies we’ll be healing and renewing as Venus disappears from the evening sky to later reappear in the morning sky? Aphrodite, the Greek version of Venus, is the goddess of Love, Wisdom, Sexuality and Harmony. She shows us what we value and why. As the spirit of Love and Wisdom and the Body, she is really at the center of our being. Perhaps that’s why Aphrodite is the only other goddess besides the Virgin Mary to survive under patriarchy, pretty much intact despite her degradation by the patriarchs.

Astrologically, Venus is said to represent sex, self-worth, values, beauty, relationships, money, the sacred Feminine and the Arts. In the ancient world, she also symbolized war, especially in her Morning Star phase. Why does this love goddess also go to war? Because we fight for what we love, don’t we? The struggle, as well as the surrender, is part of the process of loving and valuing people and things. 

Aphrodite's Bath ~ William Blake Richmond 

As we work with this Venus retrograde energy, we can descend into the Underworld with Venus, where she (& we) can shed old skins and emerge renewed from her sacred bath. It is a time to reassess our values (ruled by Venus/Aphrodite) and let go of ideas, people and things that no longer serve what we value most. In the intense sign of Scorpio, you can be sure that women and the divine Feminine will persevere until we achieve equality and some justice for our wounding by patriarchy and its adherents. Venus will see to it. And she will challenge Mars to help her.

 

The Venus Cycle

The planet Venus and her unique 584 day cycle is getting much deserved attention in astrology these days. The beauty and elegance of her repeating 8-year cycles forming pentagrams in the sky speak to the order and unity of our cosmos. 

 

In Gnosticism, it is said that Sophia, the Wisdom of God, would not permit anyone to enter her Realm of Light unless they were in complete balance within themselves. And the sign of this balance was the pentagram/ pentangle. This endless 5-pointed star (you can draw it without a break in the line) is a symbol of the Divine Feminine energy of life, the energy of incarnation. Its five points hold the energy of the integration of the 5 elements: air, fire, water, earth and the quint-essence, spirit.

The association of the 5-pointed star with the Goddess is as ancient as those long ago astronomers/astrologers who studied the planets as they moved across the night sky. They saw this pentagram drawn upon the heavens, experiencing the truth of the Alchemical saying: As Above, so Below. As Within, so Without.

The Venus cycle was studied by ancient astronomers/astrologers (they were one and the same) from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Maya in South America. There are many phases of the Venus cycle (see Adam Gainsburg’s The Light of Venus) but let’s keep it simple and stay with the four basic phases of the cycle.

Also see (http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_mrmvenus_e.htm) for a fuller explanation of the Venus cycle.

There’s the Morning Star phase, the superior/exterior conjunction to the Sun (when Venus is on the other side of the Sun furthest from Earth), the Evening Star phase and the inferior/interior conjunction to the Sun (when Venus is retrograde and closest to Earth). When Venus rises before the Sun as a Morning Star, she is called Venus Lucifer the Light-Bringer. In this phase, she is spontaneous and impulsive, ready to experience life on her own terms. Many ancient cultures saw this as a dangerous time and attributed warlike qualities to it. And perhaps it was for patriarchy. When Venus becomes an Evening Star, she is in her wisdom aspect and is called Venus Hesperus, which is a more mature, responsible expression of her nature. In general, Morning Star Venus is spontaneous as she searches for new values while Evening Star Venus integrates the meaning of those values and makes them part of our social expectations.

We’re about the enter this last/first phase as Venus disappears from the evening sky, turning retrograde for 40 days and coming closest to the Earth (interior/inferior meaning between Earth and the Sun) and getting lost in the rays of the Sun. She goes invisible and so we talk about Venus’ ‘descent into the Underworld’. Because Venus is close to the Earth, once she goes retrograde they pass each other rather quickly. Unlike the external superior conjunction that initiates the Evening Star phase, when Venus disappears from our skies for weeks, Venus reappears after about 10 days in the morning sky before the Sun.

While both of the Venus conjunctions to the Sun take us down to the Underworld/Innerworld, Venus is retrograde for only the inferior/interior conjunction. This is when the planet is closest to Earth; when our feelings are most involved. It is a time to reorient ourselves toward the future and reassess what is of most value to us. It is a time that initiates us into the deep feminine mysteries of life – the mysteries of death and rebirth – because we have to let go of someone or something we love that no longer serves us. And because we love them, it’s hard. But we have to let it die so it can be reborn on a higher level of consciousness; we get to realign our collective and personal relationship to the Divine Feminine’s continuing evolution, in both women and men.

The Divine Feminine has returned to us as many end-time stories have prophesied. We saw a sign of Her return when Venus transited across the face of the Sun in 2004 and again in 2012. This rare ‘conjunction’ of Venus and the Sun happens twice (within 8 years) every 105 – 122 years. This pass was especially potent since it occurred as our solar system finished a 26,000 year cycle in 2012 over the galactic center. 

Venus cycle over many years creates this!

 

I saw both these Venus transits and the beauty of it made a deep impression on those of us who saw it, and it definitely brought hope to my heart. It also reminded me of the true heroine of our Christian end-time story, The Book of Revelations. While many Christian fundamentalists like to point to this Book as a sign that we are entering the ‘end times’ (which we are as we leave behind the Piscean Age), they neglect to address the fact that the catalyst for real change is ‘a Woman clothed with the Sun, standing on the Moon, crowned by 12 stars, in labor giving birth to the Savior’. It is the Divine Feminine, who I believe comes to us now as Wisdom, who will birth this new age of ours. And it is women who are leading the way to a ‘new heaven and a new Earth’. Much to the dismay of these patriarchal fundamentalists.

The synchronicity of Venus’ upcoming retrograde in Scorpio, the sign dealing with sex, power, money, death and rebirth and the public spectacle of the Supreme Court hearings about possible sexual harassment by Brett Kavanaugh is hard to ignore. Venus turns retrograde on the day the FBI has to report back to the Senate on Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford’s (as well as others) accusations. There isn’t a woman I know who hasn’t been sexually harassed, abused or raped, just as this mighty goddess has also been denigrated by patriarchy and turned into the Scarlet Whore of Babylon. It is patriarchy which has turned sex into sin, pornography and violence. Aphrodite’s sexuality is sacred.

So as Venus descends into the Underworld for renewal, we will all be watching to see which side of the issue the power structure of the American government stands for. Have women’s rights progressed since 1991 when the Senate voted in another man accused of sexual harassment to the top court in our land? Astrologically, this time is different. But we’ll have to wait and see what our collective psyche has decided.

Will this be a defining moment not only for women’s equality but also for the need to accept the truth of other, more feminine ways of knowing? As Dr. Ford and many women know, when you’ve been attacked like this, the knowing stays with you, despite not remembering the facts. The return of the Divine Feminine demands more than the literal equality between men and women; it demands that we also recognize the validity of emotional intelligence and intuition alongside facts and rational reasoning. It’s interesting that during the Senate meeting it was the men who come across as over-emotional and ‘irrational’ as they fight to maintain their dominant position in our society. Their own feminine natures need renewing.

Sometimes we need something to help fire up our passion for change. With the help of the stories and myths of Venus/Aphrodite as well as those of the planet Venus, we can recognize, release, birth and integrate the new energies associated with this planet and this archetype.

I’ll be back to talk about this Venus retrograde through looking at the astrology of the retrograde as well as the myths associated with Venus, Aphrodite and the other ancient goddesses associated with the planet Venus.