Venus is back and beautiful. Readers in the Southern Hemisphere can see it now by looking due West shortly after sunset. Soon it will be the proverbial evening star for all of us. The timing is auspicious. Venus returns to visibility in Libra, the cardinal sign it rules, and Libra is a very big deal right now. A week ago, Sun’s ingress precipitated an equinox. A few days later it was a New Moon. Mercury combined with the luminaries to resonate with the entire zodiac and all of it was deposed by Venus, which is in conjunction with Saturn today for good measure. It is likely that there is also a substantial confluence of events in your own life and the reappearance of Venus is a message about that. Venus is telling you that there is a common factor that ties it all together, a factor in plain sight.
Each planet is an archetype for a facet of your psyche. Planets wear the symbolic expression of whatever sign they are in like an energy mantle. When there is a whole heaping handful of planets in one sign at the same time, it’s like a masked ball where everyone is wearing the a similar costume. It becomes a challenge to distinguish the ACs from the DCs. Such is the case with Libra right now. There is a method to sort things out, starting with what planet rules which sign.
To paraphrase the late Robert Blaschke, astrology at its most basic is observation and correspondence. Ancient sky watchers observed the visible planets in their motions and somehow distinguished which sign or signs each is most compatible with. Since then, some have seen fit to be skeptical about the methods employed by antiquity, but most modern astrologers have found the madness of classical consensus to be useful. We don’t know the details, but long ago the correlation for Venus was Libra, and it makes sense in a cultural context.
An underlying cultural assumption for many influential ancient astrologers was that truth and beauty are one and the same. Libra’s unique symbol has long been a set of inanimate and indifferent balance beam scales. Those scales on Earth were a familiar, every day tool for determining truth of proportion. Imagined as a pattern in the sky, that tool represented truth as an ideal. Venus was an ideal as well.
Long before we could account for what planets were and how they moved, it was understandable to think of them as ideal and immortal beings. Following the same reasoning, it made sense that the brightest of the bunch should be equated with the ideal of beauty, the source of all attraction. From there, it was only a few cultural constructs away from placing Libra, the astral realm of truth, under the rule of beauty’s epitome.
Venus is thus considered to have an idealized connection with Libra no matter where it is. If you want a clue about what’s going on with Libra at any given time, one method is to figure out what’s going on with Venus and apply the planet’s situation back to the sign. When actually occupying its own sign, a planet takes on the additional role as a point of reference for its entire realm. That’s how the archetype of Venus can come in handy for you right now.
Unless you are the exception to the rule, the mash up of energy signatures in Libra is reflective of how busy and complicated your life is in this moment. You can use Venus as an example to help you sort it out. Start with your relationship to events, people and things. Think of Venus conjunct Saturn and make a list of where the power and boundaries are in each of those relationships. Then trust your own sense of attraction and weigh it in the scales against your sense of repulsion when considering every connection. Remember that Venus is in the holistic role of ruler, see the big picture connected through its parts, and don’t get lost in the crowd. Rather, see yourself as Venus in Libra, the central denominator of the events in your life.
Nearly all of us are wired in to how big, complicated and potentially dangerous the world is at this time. Not as many are sure of who and how we are in it. Indications are that the sense of everything happening at once will only continue and amplify for some time to come. Being able to distinguish your own identity from the rest is the beginning of an order you can create. That’s how a visible Venus to can work for you. Weather permitting, you will soon be able to look towards the West, see the Sun go down and watch Venus appear with your own eyes. You will know what you see, and by that awareness know that you are a part of what you see. You will know you are as bright and beautiful as any object in the sky. Come out and shine.
Offered In Service
Hi Zerosity,
You’re so welcome! 😉 And thank you as well for sharing your thoughts. As I was reading your comment, I thought about the current eclipse family we’re in: Sag/Gem. As Scorps, we can also feel this energy in our 2nd and 8th houses. The 8th has a lot to do with shared resources, death and resurrection, and yes, taxes….and sex. So, as you and I sort out a mundane financial process, a deeper one based on sexual/pyschic bonds gets to be explored as well. My gut also tells me that, as a release happens in the 8th, we can re-enter the experience of the 2nd where by we have renewal in our material surroundings which provide the nourishment we need to find ourselves again. But I’m open to more perspectives on that angle.
I do hope your tax issues resolve themselves completely and peacefully.
Kind regards,
HS
Hugging Scorpio: I, too, am a Scorpio (cusp of Sag), but with Virgo rising, and with Venus and Saturn conjunct in the second house. Oooowhee, I know of what you speak with tax issues front and center to be addressed. I find your words regarding relationship helpful, especially when considered with Len’s sage advice for a place to start – with relationship to events, people and things. It’s another reminder from Saturn to learn the lessons of relationship with career and money.
I ,too, have been sensing this last week that my tax issues can be resolved, unlike the fear and anxiety that used to be all consuming. Thanks, HS, for providing some ressurance to another Scorpio that it can be so.
The night sky now will serve to remind me that there is balance to be sought and experienced (especially a balance between resources and obligations of all types – monetary, familial, vocational, spiritual). Never paid much attention to Venus before but I’m now interested in following her through the sky and her wardrobe changes.
Thanks, Len and all PW. I no longer feel like a sitting duck.
JannKinz
Great post/thinking Len. really helpful and appreciated
liminali: good catch, thank you for being so kind.
Alex: It seems that my “thank you” is not enough for such generous praise, but that is the best i can offer at the moment. Thank you so very much.
susyc: That’s very powerful and moving. Thank you.
Hugging Scorpio: The gratitude is mine. May your love sandwich last long. Thank you for the link as well.
aword: Thank yoou for the kind words and the smile.
Thanks, Len. Beautiful. Helpful, as always:
“Being able to distinguish your own identity from the rest is the beginning of an order you can create.”
Additionally, knowing I am a fish, and not a duck – this being observed and confirmed by generations of classical astrologers – strengthens my internal balance regarding your Venusean principle of truth and beauty….although I may choose to tip the scales occasionally with a small quack-up.
xo
Thank you Len for providing some light and attention to Venus. I’m Scorpio but have Libra rising. There is always a double meaning for influences to my sun and rising signs, in that the houses they light up feel differently at times. So, for example, Saturn is now in my 1st house but when I really feel it, there is def more of a 12th house energy (I generally feel planets influence more to my Sun sign). A manifestation of this Saturn quality has been resolving a shared tax problem. Taxes represent energy that is shared/exchanged (money is energy). Sharing the problem with another person adds a psychic element. Saturn’s entrance coincided with the discovery of this tax problem. One of the elements present with this transit is to clear up the deeper psychic debris of that relationship and the energy associated with it in order to make room for a new structure and “grace” in one’s life. This is never a fast process either. In this endeavour, one releases many bad patterns and clears up dysfunctional relationships and behaviours. With the recent stelluim, it seems my tax issues have resolved themselves I’m happy to report, although next spring will be a truer indicator. A release is “in the air” though and I’ve been feeling a lot less tension in my gut. Today, as Venus becomes visible, I can’t help but feel this loving energy. My Moon is Taurus, so I get to feel her in my 12th/1st and 7th, a kind of Love Sandwich… 😉
And today I heard this song which just made me feel good too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=REZxO8Ypjbk
With gratitude,
HS
Beauty is truth & I can’t wait to see more of her in her glorious Libran raiment showering us with the light & the dark of it whatever it may be. Something’s coming sings Romeo & it is good & loving & worthwhile even if I, as Romeo did, must give everything else up for it.
Brilliant writing, Len. Perspicacious and educational, particularly regarding the earliest observational approaches. You assimilate and integrate to produce a consistent offering, yet within your unique idiom.
High class – and thank you in particular for bringing broad brush strokes into clear focus.
Alex
Len! Thank you, thank you again *virtual hug*!
Hey, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, . . well, you know.
LOL!
Thank you, Len for this article and one of the best typos EVER!
“Each planet is an archetype for a faucet of your life.”
Faucet/facet? what’s the difference?
My chart is ruled by its Venus faucet, yep, works for me! 🙂
be: Your own kind and generous erudition is another valuable part of Planet Waves. Thank you for the look forward to another auspicious moment and tying it into the present. Also, it is interesting that the subject of ducks keeps coming up over the past few days. A quack in the cosmic egg? A bill coming due? Perhaps we should not duck the question.
Len,
Somehow it all seems logical, even simple, the way you explain it; to create order out of chaos. It’s good to remember too that Saturn does have valuable attributes that, when not overdone, can provide something to lean on and provide structure to that chaos.
As you and Gary explain today, and it always bears repeating, Venus plays multiple roles on a regular and repeating cycle. It is understandable then, that she would rule Gemini esoterically. Seeing that she will be direct for the next 7 1/2 months, and when she DOES station retrograde, she will be in Gemini and in a near-exact trine to Saturn. I’m thinking now could be an especially important time what with the emphasis on air (sign), visiblity and her camaraderie with Saturn, because 3 weeks after she stations she will make her occultation of the Sun. On that day June 5, 2012, she will not only conjunct the Sun but also TNO Chaos. Would you say now might be a good time to be getting our ducks in a row?
be
Gary,
Thank you for the fortifying gift of your erudition and for the link to your photos.
Visually speaking, Venus has 3 incarnations: Morning Star, UnderWorld (or Invisible) and Evening Star. Her Eastern appearance as Morning Star is separated from her Western appearance as Evening Star by 60 days of darkness. As She passes through the crucible of the Solar fire, during her superior or exterior conjunction with the Sun, she is invisible to the outer vision of humans for 60 days and nights.
Following her 60 days in darkness, Venus returns in the West to shine in her Evening star incarnation. This return is followed by 7 conjunctions to the waxing crescent Moon.
I took some pictures of the first of these last night
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150324458698897.350958.128554723896&type=1