When you look up at the sun today, keep in mind that Venus is hovering right next to it, though you cannot see her. At 2:21 pm CDT, she will make her closest pass as that is the moment of peak conjunction. The moon, also invisible at this time, hovers near by and is not even 24 hours past new (as I am writing this).
The new moon marks the beginning of a cycle, namely the lunar month. However, we are halfway through the month of August and more than halfway through the sign of Leo. Given the Venus-sun conjunction, we are also halfway through Venus Retrograde.
Today’s conjunction marks the start of Venus’ 10 months as a morning star. The next time she passes by the sun (on the back side) will be June 6, 2016, and she’ll begin her reign as an evening star after that.
It takes two to three days after the new moon before we can see the waxing crescent. It will take maybe a week or two before we’ll start seeing Venus rise up before the sun. I have a great view of the eastern horizon, so I’ll keep a look out for her and let you know.
Surely you remember the beautiful Venus-Jupiter conjunction in the evening sky a couple of months ago. Well, we’ll get another conjunction between these two in the morning sky on October 25th. This time, Mars will be joining the party just a few degrees up from the others.
Invisible to us, Venus and Jupiter met last week as well, the 2nd conjunction of the three. This occurred only 4 degrees from the sun and almost exactly square to Saturn.
I could go on an on describing the planetary dance right now, because the details are numerous. Taking a step back, we have basically been having half of the planets do-si-doing around the sun: Mercury, Venus, Mars & Jupiter. This motion makes me think of a dishwasher or washing machine. The energy is mixing and churning. Little by little, the dirt gets rubbed off.
Taking another big step back, let’s consider the two closest gas giants. Jupiter and Saturn just recently squared (on August 2nd). Each is fixing to change signs. So the inner-planet dance is churning, but also ramping up the shift in the background. Generally speaking, Jupiter changes signs once every 12 months, and Saturn takes about 2-½ to 3 years to do the same—not an infrequent shift, but not an everyday thing either.
All of this has been hitting my chart very significantly. I’ve been too busy living it to write about it.
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m seeing it even more now: Astrology is not something that happens to us. It is a mysterious tool that somehow describes what is happening. It doesn’t change our choices; it simply gives context and shines light (like the individual planets and luminaries) showing us the truth at a deeper level.
More and more, I find myself going with the Astrology, and it has been oh so interesting.
As I mentioned, we are halfway through Venus Retrograde. The last time Venus’ motions was apparently backward was in January 2014. Then, I took a road trip to San Diego, the city I lived in for 8 years before moving to Austin. I spent 10 days there. It was a vacation. I also sprinkled my cat Notte’s ashes into the Pacific.
It was the first time I drove back to CA after leaving.
Venus Retrograde is about reevaluating our relationship to…life. It is nostalgic. It reminds us who we spent time with…sometimes bringing someone back into our life (for a visit if nothing more).
In 2014, I revisited the previous phase of my life. This Venus Retro, I went further back. I decided to do something I have not done before: I drove from Texas to my childhood hometown in Connecticut. Round trip, I traversed 4400 miles.
Essentially, it was a working vacation. [Venus Retro squared Saturn, after all.] I built a wood shed for my sister, and did some house maintenance for my parents. And I did some readings here and there. But I also met with family and friends I had not seen in decades: two or three.
The insights and symbolism were many. For example, when I lived in Danbury, I drove a small car. Any time I visited, I drove either a family car, or a rental, but always a car. Here in Austin, I own a truck. Let me tell you, driving my truck down those streets of my youth felt entirely different. The roads felt narrow. The view—a good 18 inches higher—was noticeably different. I was literally seeing my hometown from a different perspective. Isn’t that what Venus Retrograde is all about?
The day Venus changed direction, I extended my journey northward, from my parents’ house to my sister’s…a two hour journey. I found myself switching Pandora to play songs from the 80s, when I used to live there. En route, I drove through Springfield, MA, the city where I spent my first two years of college. [A week later to the day, I met up with my best friend from college, who I hadn’t seen in 23 years.]
Because I drove to New England, I was not only in my Texas truck, I also brought my tools, most of which I acquired here. And I brought my carpentry skills, which I mostly developed here. My sister’s woodshed is a bit of Texas in New England as it was inspired by Texas architecture.
Venus is currently transiting my first house. She will back up over my Ascendant in about a week. In fact, all of the inner planet dancing has trounced my Ascendant, the cusp between unseen influence and personal identity.
2014 was the first time I went into Venus Retrograde consciously. This time, it is all about my relationship to me…reevaluating who I have been in order to decide who I am now. Because it’s Venus (and not Mercury), it’s not simply thinking about it. Remember, Venus rules Taurus and Libra. Taurus represents values, but also possessions. It is tactile and physical. Libra brings in the relational aspects. Venus wants us to connect with people and life around us. Thoughts conjure up feelings, but not nearly as profoundly as life does.
Most of Venus Retro will have been in my first house, which is a conspicuous part of our chart. During this first half, I have been very aware of the influence. But now that I’m back in my not-yet-familiar-new home, I wonder what the next half will be like. Surely there’s more to do. I feel very different; I see evidence around me showing me how I’m different; yet the day-to-day here is more or less back to the same as it was before. The day-to-day is something I want to change…and have for some time.
Road trips like the one I just took are profound. I now have a visual path connecting my childhood hometown to my current home. Last year, I drove to San Diego (a few times) AND San Francisco (one of the three trips). I thus connected my prior two homes to Texas then…and now I have the full coast-to-coast journey completed. In my mind, I can travel from each of my homes to the any other. I can remember how the terrain and sensation shifts as one travels.
“So now what?”
Yes, that is still the question burning a hole in my gray matter. I still need to decide where to go from here.
Saturn is finishing up with Scorpio—it enters Sagittarius on September 17th. It will not cross out of my 4th house (home life and foundation) until next year. It will then retrograde back into for a bit.
In my sun sign chart, it will cross my descendant into my 7th house (Sagittarius).
The changes I seek are pretty much all focused on the descendant: work and relationship. The current dance is all around my ascendant. It makes sense that in order to change what’s on that end, I need to change what’s on this end.
Limited thinking is hard to overcome. We drag our past experiences along with us…and they have weight. Even when current life shows us something different, we sometimes give more credence to the past than the present.
At one point last weekend, there was a discussion about letting go of a past experience (and getting over it). I found myself reminding them of this: even if you let go of (forgive) what happened, you might find yourself looking out for it when something similar approaches. If you got hit a few times in the past, you’ll surely duck a lot faster now.
In other recent conversations (readings) I have found myself saying to others: “the first thing to do is decide you want something to change and in a specific way.” I think that message is very clearly for me as well.
By the end of 2013, I very clearly and intently wanted things to change. Since, many things have been very different. However, I was not sure where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do…and some of that is still yet to be decided…
Tarot readings can be somewhat predictive. It’s not rare to see a bit of what’s coming…even if it’s hard to say when.
Astrology readings, however, seem best as a tool for digging into the big picture shifts happening right now. Even though I can look at a future chart, it doesn’t seem to speak to me until it is present.
By the way – Scribe to the Pantheon of Rome received its first review…a rave review! Check it out:
A Fool's Inclination 
I typed up a long reply about you post, only to have WordPress lose it because I needed a password and didn’t know it. The just of it was all the road trips down memory lane I’ve encountered recently, my own and others. I even had a similar experience to your dishwasher analogy through a different perspective I encountered through changing jobs, back in the same building, different project, different floor, different people, different view out windows I’d only envied before. Mainly I thought about perspective, thanks to your blog, David! I just wanted you to know how right on the Venus R info was and how enjoyable to read about it’s meaning and how it can manifest. Blessings!
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