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 5th,
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.
