Venus Retrograde: The Work of Love

Venus Retrograde: July 25—September 6, 2015

The Work of Love

To take love seriously and to bear and to learn it like a task, this is [what] 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.

Rainer Marie Rilke: On Love and Other Difficulties

If asked, most of us think of Love as play and pleasure, but anyone who loves someone knows that love takes work too. It is the most important work we can do—to learn how to listen to the heart, know its truths and act on them. Love wants to see through the collective glamour of romantic love into the heart of the matter. Love asks us how do we let our connection to Self, to others and to the world shape our lives?

For the next 40 days, we get to think about these heart connections and work at them. For the next 40 days, the planet Venus is going retrograde in her final phases as the Evening Star of Wisdom. Go out and look to the West as evening falls and you'll see Venus shining brightly. But very quickly her light will begin to dim and she'll move closer to the Sun until she disappears into its light on August 11^th. On August 15^th Venus will conjoin the Sun before she reappears in the morning sky on August 20^th as Lucifer the Light Bringer, the Morning Star. As Evening Star, Venus symbolizes a wiser love nature that takes into consideration our social responsibilities. As Morning Star, Venus is more instinctual, urging us to find our personal values and subjective love. 

 

Venus is completing a 583 day cycle which began in January 2014 in Capricorn. What did you learn about love and connection in the past year and a half? As Venus ends this part of her cycle, which over 8 years forms a pentacle (5-pointed star) in the sky, she wants us to become wise in the ways of the heart—Leo's great task, which includes the joy of being alive as well as the joy of relating to others with an open heart. If you align yourself with your heart needs, this can be a time of emotional rebirth.

Venus represents the power of love, sex, beauty, our values, the arts, all types of relationships, as well as money and possessions. She symbolizes the power of balance and harmony, attraction and cohesion, pleasure and creativity. Venus, who is a Romanized version of the great Greek Goddess Aphrodite, also symbolizes deep feminine Wisdom, the kind of Wisdom that we develop when we open ourselves to Life and the Creative Imagination and listen to our own instincts, feelings and intuitions. 

 

Venus/Aphrodite is the great Connector, the power of Love in all its phases, the initiator of Psyche/Soul. In the earliest myths, Aphrodite arises from her watery womb when the potency of Heaven mixes with the primal waters of Earth. She is our blessing and our curse, for this myth makes it clear that the truest gift of Life here on Earth is Love. “Love is the Water of Life. And a Lover is a Soul of Fire. The Universe turns differently when Fire Loves Water.” (Rumi) 

 

Our patriarchal society has not been kind to Love, instituting 'rules' about love that have twisted Venus' original energy to conform with society's needs. While there are many forms that love takes, patriarchy has only recently begun to let down the barriers it set around Love, our sexuality and the wisdom of the heart. From the twisted side of Venus' collective shadow comes the greed, jealously and entitlement that is rampant in our society. On a personal level, Venus' shadow can make us insecure, needy, jealous, manipulative and materialistic. As a society, we're slowly losing touch with Venus' need for beauty as we continue to ravage the Earth, creating ugliness rather than celebrating beauty.

Old astrological advice says not to start new love affairs or buy luxury items during the 40 days Venus is retrograde. For the soul, it means to stop looking outside yourself for love; it's a time to be with yourself and decide what you long for in your life. When the planet Venus turns retrograde, the energy of love and connection turns within and we get back in touch with our personal values, our individual sense of beauty, our self-love and our need for love. It's a time for literal solitude as well as inner silence, so we can re-connect with our psyche/soul and re-claim our own deepest truths, which always entails the needs of our heart.

As we all awaken from our patriarchal-induced illusions about life and love, we can use the power of our passion to create the type of life that we've secretly longed for since our birth. As the world resonates with the energies of the Pluto/Uranus square, we have the perfect opportunity to incarnate this divine feminine wisdom for our own sake as well as for the world.

Since Venus retrogrades back through Leo and joins up again with Jupiter in Leo, expect to expand on your heart's wisdom. Both planets square Saturn in Scorpio after it turns direct on August 1-2, so we are challenged to integrate the final intimacy lessons of Saturn's stay in Scorpio. Use Jupiter's curiosity and open-mindedness to help you let go of the past and trust in the future. Let your heart knowledge guide you and open you to new experiences and people. The new story is here to stay. Take what you've learned from the old story and then let all the rest of it go.

The astrological energies of the next few weeks are once again intense. Try to attune to them, especially if you have natal planets involved.

1. July 25^th – Venus goes retrograde at 1* Virgo. Mars at 22* Cancer squares Uranus at 21* Aries, urging us to find our freedom and express our needs.

2. July 26^th-- Uranus turns retrograde until December 25^th.

3. July 31^st – Aquarius Full Moon at 8* Aquarius-Leo.

4. August 3^rd – Saturn at 29* Scorpio turns direct and leaves Scorpio behind on September 17-18^th until its next visit in 2042.

5. August 5^th – Venus and Jupiter unite again at 29* Leo on the powerful star Regulus. Look to the West at sunset for a last look at this beautiful celestial energy before Venus disappears into the Sun's light on August 11^th.

I'll discuss these astrological happenings in more detail in the Aquarius Full Moon newsletter.

Until then, walk in the Light!

Cathy

Astrology Time-Line

• Venus in Leo until October 9 turning retrograde between 25 July-September 6th descending from the Evening Star into the underworld  to re-emerge  as Lucifer ahead of the Sun as a Morning Star
• Venus and Jupiter in two conjunctions in Leo on July 1st and August 4^th -a pairing known as the Guardian Angels
• Jupiter square Saturn between July 19 and August 11^th at 29 Leo/Scorpio
• Saturn turns direct in Scorpio on August 2
• The Master degree of 29 Leo on the Leo/Virgo cusp conjunct Royal Star Regulus is activated all summer by Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and the Sun
• Jupiter enters Virgo for the first time in twelve years on August 12^th

There is alchemy afoot in the way the planetary trifecta of Venus, Jupiter and Saturn perform a sacred and intricate dance through July, August and September ; in the way Venus’ descend into the underworld at the same time as Saturn excavates the Scorpionic dungeons of our personal histories for the last time until 2042.This is a summer long process of soul retrieval , made possible by Jupiter the Hierophant carrying all the learnings of the heart from his 12 month stay in Leo across the wisdom cusp into Virgo to be mediated by Regulus..Our fragmented selves -those dispossessed, abandoned, aspects trapped and lost in some past or future time–line, are crying out for a homecoming, a true sense of belonging, where the jagged injuries inflicted by the world can be repaired, individually, collectively, nationally and globally

Venus is completing a 583 day cycle which began in January 2014 in Capricorn and ends as she reveals the Leo mysteries. Expect a shift away from Saturn’s preoccupation with authority, agency and responsibility towards the Sun’s operating manual which includes how to enjoy being alive, how to relate to others from an open heart and how to create your reality so your needs are met easily and abundantly. With Venus as Queen of the Heavens, put your own highest interests first so that you can better be present for others. Just as the life giving light of the Sun is always shining somewhere in the world, as you clear away your small Me separations and specialness-Leo’s shadow-you become a light in the Great Web for others. From July 25 when the Goddess enters her Lucifer phase descending into the underworld, expect relationship dramas, separations, endings, beginnings, the return of former partners .Cast your mind back to the 8 year Venus cycles of 2007, 1999 and 1991 to map your personal Venus mandala on your birth chart. Frame the process as light being shone into the dark corners of your psyche to show which of your unconscious and habitual beliefs and behaviours are toxic, outgrown or limiting.

Reflect on these questions:

• How much do I love myself on all levels?
• Do I know that I carry the DNA of radical self love?
• How do I express it day by day?

On August 15 UT , when Venus conjuncts the Sun, if you’ve changed your patterns to get results more congruent with your needs, your emotional rebirth is over and you’re poised to begin a new phase of love and relating.

The Retrieval of Disassociated Parts: Saturn in Scorpio

 Saturn has turned back into Scorpio until September 18^th tapping the barometer of your psyche and giving you one last look at anything you need to clear out of the basement of your life. Between October 2012 and December 2014 you faced up to aspects of yourself that were outgrown, unconscious and toxic- ready to be left behind. This time around you return in a much more resilient and resourceful state to get completely right with yourself by shining the lamp of hindsight on to missing soul pieces, tattered ghosts and shoddy compromises. Between July 19 and August 11^th when Saturn aligns with Jupiter, laser away those last rays of Dark Matter and ask

• What in me is dead by the roadside?
• What is emerging, calling me, summoning me on?

The Return to the Upper World: Jupiter

As Venus and Saturn are excavating the dark corners of your unconscious, Jupiter holds his lantern of wisdom as he journies through the last degrees of Leo .The Hierophant reaches the master degree of 29 Leo and conjuncts Royal Star Regulus between 7-18 August on the cusp of Leo/Virgo. During the summer, all the inner planets will pass over this degree, sensitised by the Jupiter /Saturn square.

The Chandra Symbol LEO 29
A broken sword.
Consecration to a higher power. The giving-over of the personal will–the marvel of root change. Coming to the end of your own path, and it is just the beginning of the greater way. The heart must open. The infinite must be born inside. The destiny-necessity is there–so much karmic backlog. So many ways to be right and to be wrong. The realisation in the very midst that there is nobody listening to the old tale and everybody is awaiting somebody else to come through. A profound and utter doorway into a great unknown. What has been is finished. What shall be is so very different. And what is now is a question and a prayer and a destiny that must find its redemption

Regal Regulus is the closest star to the ecliptic and therefore closest to the red carpet path of the glorious Sun ,a symbol of archangel Raphael, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and a great protective healer.

When Jupiter enters Virgo on August 12 for the first time since August 2003 with Venus shining as the Morning Star and the Lord of Time and Karma heading back to Jupiter’s sign of Sagittarius, you will begin to reclaim then integrate those gifts, talents and strengths that are now available with the return of the soul. As Epigenetics and NLP show, your brain has the endless potential to create new neural pathways and out of those, new forms of behaviour. Whatever is blossoming in you is drawing you nearer to a compelling future.

“Dare to love yourself
as if you were a rainbow
with gold at both ends.”
Aberjhani,