Anxiety and Fear After Venus Eclipse

 

July 23, 2004

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/july23.html

 

Hi Eric:

I've been getting Planet Waves from day one. LOVE IT! I learned about you through your sit-in for Jonathan. I hope you're doing well in London! My Question is: During and right after the Venus eclipse, many close spiritual friends and I were hit very hard with anxiety and fear. This lasted around a week. Many of us are still trying to put ourselves back together. I myself am a Taurus, with Leo rising and Scorpio moon. Can you explain why we felt this way?

Mari, Phoenix

 

 

Dear Mari,

This is a pretty good time to revisit the Venus retrograde, so thanks for asking. We are starting to get to the point where we can play Monday Morning Quarterback (in England, this would obviously have something to do with penalty shots). We are nearing the end of the whole retrograde experience, except to say that this event marks a major turning point in world history, and for many people, in their personal history.

 

The turning point is that Venus is about to leave the degrees in which it was retrograde, or to keep things simple, this retrograde happened in Gemini and Venus is about to move into Cancer. I am pretty certain this will come with a sense of relief.

 

Specifically addressing your question of anxiety. This was not an especially comfortable transit for many people. Turning points rarely are, especially where they deal with such personal values as does Venus. Because Venus is so closely associated with our sense of security, I would imagine that a lot of the issues had a lot to do with this.

 

Venus in Gemini in my view is also an invitation to bring all the deep themes of Venus to the surface or consciousness for discussion: values, money love, sex -- the big taboos, and all closely related in astrology, by the way. These are, unfortunately, the things that we just end not to have very deep or honest conversations about, particularly with the people closest to us. This, in turn, is the cause of great struggle in our relationships, as we don't often known when a fundamental issue of values is beneath a conflict because we've never gotten beneath the conflict.

 

One of the most unusual, distinctive things about Venus retrograde in the current phase is that Venus has made (or will make) a total of three oppositions to outer planets and galactic points across the sky in Sagittarius, and this is really putting the heat on. For example, over the next few days, Venus will make its third and final opposition to Pluto, and this is a very intense, meaningful meeting. It is a kind of resolution point, and moment of clarity, about all that has transpired this spring and summer.

 

In other words, that which you are feeling anxiety about may suddenly become apparent. And it may not be what you think! Venus is meeting some powerful forces over the next week, including making an opposition to the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which is a functional astrological stand-in for the idea of God or as some would call it Shamballa, but let's say it's the core of something big, deep and important.

 

Venus has a lot to do with relationships -- and these relationships are, one by one, coming into focus. I'll come back to this theme in August, when we have a bit more of a sense of how things have worked out.