I am posting this on December 10th - Venus is in Cappy, moving forward. The Moon is waxing (growing). The personal planets are all moving forward. Only Uranus, Ceres and Chiron are retrograde. Venus is starting to slow as she approaches her upcoming retrograde, but this is still a time when we want to be TAKING ACTION. This week, we have some advisements against going-too-big, BUT it's not a time to be sitting still.
So, for now forward action, but in nine days Venus will station retrograde and that will be a whole other story. What story? Well, let's unpack it.
With Venus in Cappy we are attracting what we want/need through Cappy behaviors - being sober, competent, realistic, goal-oriented, smart/funny, patient, structured/stable, being a
boss. People born with Venus in Cappy probably like to be seen this way and are attracted to partners who are like this (
of course, there are other chart factors that will influence this).
For our lovely, benevolent Venus this is something like being a young adult woman living in her father's house. There are rules.
Venus goes retrograde every eighteen months and every eight years Venus will retrograde through the same sign. This pulls us back to late 2013/early 2014. You might find similar situations/themes at play in your life this time through. You can also go back sixteen years, twenty four years, etc.
If we were to draw a map of these retrograde points in her eight year
cycles we would draw a five pointed star. And if we drew a map of these
Venus retrograde points (named Venus Star Points) over long
periods of time we would draw a perfect and graceful five petal
flower/a delicate piece of sacred geometry showing us something of our
own Venusian nature's kinship with beauty, balance, love and connection.
Since the 1980's (when Aquarius and Virgo cycled out) Venus has
cycled through retrogrades in Aries, Capricorn, Gemini, Leo and Scorpio.
Over the next ten years Aries and Scorpio will cycle out and Libra and
Pisces will cycle in (more signifiers of the gentler and more cooperative years ahead, I think).
So, different generations of people are born into, and live through, different Venus Star Points.
Venus retrograde - all 40 days and 40 nights - will have us re-assessing BIG themes in our lives.
On December 19th, Venus will station retrograde (a few hours before Chiron stations direct) at 26 degrees Capricorn with an EXACT conjunction to Pluto. She will get all the way back to 11 degrees Capricorn on January 29th (hours before our annual New Moon in Aquarius).
November 5, 2021 - Venus enters Capricorn - sobers up/starts answering to Saturn
November 17, 2021 - Venus reaches 11 degrees (starting her retrograde shadow)
December 19, 2021 - Venus stations retrograde - 26 degrees
January 8, 2022 - Venus meets the Sun - midpoint of Venus retrograde cycle - new beginning for Sun/Venus, CLARITY about our Venus retro story-line
January 29, 2022 - Venus stations direct - 11 degrees
March 1, 2022 - Venus reaches 26 degrees (ending her retrograde shadow/cycle) and then starts covering new ground
People with planets/points between 11-26 degrees Capricorn (and the other cardinal signs through squares and oppositions - Aries, Libra and Cancer) will probably be most strongly impacted, but Venus is a personal sign ruling our relationships/money/self-esteem, EVERYONE will feel this one.
So, when Venus goes INTO Capricorn - and this is in play as I post this - tradition/nostalgia will become a focus - maybe the way something has always been done.
This doesn't mean we have to continue doing things the way we've always
done them, but these things will come to our attention now. We get more serious about money. Our careers/the way we show up in the world. Our reputation, Our authority. We get more serious about love, too. If something isn't going anywhere,
this can be the transit we cut it loose. Our focus returns to what is
real. We attract stability and longer lasting success/love/money by
finishing what we start and honoring our commitments.
While Venus stations retrograde, we will be re-thinking this whole boss-girl thing. Maybe the way we value ourselves, and other people, only when we/they are being productive/working. The whole 'feeling we have to earn love' is very Venus in Capricorn, so maybe now we are rethinking this. Old situations where we worked too hard/not hard enough or where we didn't quite measure up will be re-hashed in our heads. Again think - young woman in her father's house.
During Venus retrograde we will be doing the "re's" (re-do, re-assess, re-value, re-connect, etc) with Venusian
themes - women, beauty, art, love, money, our resources, our values and
self-esteem. Someone from our past could re-appear. An old way of making
art or love or money could re-appear. A situation we have been through
before with Cappy themes could reappear. We will be "reviewing" what we value. In Cappy, this will also play out through your natal Capricorn house theme and the collective themes of -
our career, the way we show up in the world, the way we deal with authority/step into our own, our commitments, our fathers, our paternal heritage, our karma, our goals, our reputation.
This time period will be asking us, through the situations that transpire/the people who show up - to re-look at how we are investing our time, energy, and resources.
With Venus meeting Pluto multiple times, some things will not be coming with us ...
During this cycle Venus is going to meet Pluto three times. So, although a Venus retrograde in Cappy has a Venus/Saturn (ruler of Capricorn) flavor - this one will also have a strongly Venus/Pluto vibe.
Venus stations retrograde attached at the hip to powerful Pluto. Merge/purge. Scorpian themes are pulled into the Venus/Cappy mix. So, this is almost like two transits - the Venus/Saturn (Venus in Cappy retrograde answering to Saturn) and the Venus/Pluto.
With Venus/Pluto, things can feel very life and death - whether or not they actually are, this is all designed to show us clearly WHAT WE REALLY VALUE. There could be a death - figurative or literal. An ending. An inheritance situation. A tax situation. A loan situation. Intimacy issues. Reproduction issues. Obsession, compulsion, manipulation, power plays.
Venus/Pluto always makes me think of the way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly - it's fun and educational for kids to watch the chrysalis inside one of those net/cage thinga-ma-jigs, but wouldn't be so much fun for them if they could see what was actually happening INSIDE that chrysalis.
This part gets gross, so skip this paragraph if you've just stuffed yourself with all those holiday cookies that didn't look good enough to gift .. with Venus/Pluto we are the caterpillar who is digesting herself into the butterfly.
I wrote about my own Venus/Pluto transit a few years ago (back when Pluto was in Sagittarius and met three times over two years with my natal Venus which is on the Galactic Center). The next couple months is kind of a mini-collective version of that. We have transiting Venus back and forth over Pluto. I had transiting Pluto back and forth over Venus - a much longer/intense/dark night of the soul transit.
It's not the same, but there are similarities, so I'll unpack it a little at the bottom of this post.
You probably won't be dealing with things exactly like these, but this might give you a feeling for the kind of 'flavor' Venus/Pluto can bring. Secrets, buried truths. Intimacy issues. Merged money issues. Life/death. There is an intensity.
Once Venus stations retrograde on December 19th, the energetic flow is more about the re's. Re-turning to something (sometimes someone) we once loved (this might not be a lasting thing), re-assessing our work in the world/our career, etc. Starting something brand new isn't favored until Venus stations direct on January 29th. We would be swimming against the tides here. Sometimes this can't be helped and we just have to go into the "new" knowing there will be re-visions, etc, later. Venus rules beauty, and in Cappy, we might be feeling tired/older - it still could be best to save any major makeovers until she stations direct, especially if it's a radical change not easily "tweaked" later, if what we want changes.
That 26 degree Cappy will be strongly hit by the Venus/Pluto and the 11 degree Cappy ultra potent for CHANGE. Venus will trine Uranus from 11 degrees AND the final Saturn/Uranus square on Christmas Eve is 11 degrees Aquarius/Taurus. So, the number 11 is hot, hot, hot.
Also when Venus stations retrograde, Juno is going to be at the "about to get hot" 11 degrees Cappy. This is about marriage/serious commitments and contracts and she will have multiple meetings with Venus as this stuff gets re-looked at in BIG ways. Another indication this Venus retrograde needs to be taken seriously.
Some good news for Venus in Cappy is she (as we) is going to sextile (opportunity) Neptune in Pisces. First on January 5th while retrograde and then again toward the end of February after she meets with Mars and he meets with Neptune. Cappy/Pisces is 'making the dream real' energy and activated during this transit. This, plus upcoming aspects with Jupiter let us know once we get PAST THE DEATH (Pluto), there is ALOT to look forward to!!
We'll talk more about all this as we get closer, and we'll also look at the ways Venus is interacting with the "time runs out" degree of 2020 in part II - there are REAL reasons to believe the virus's latest variant is a good thing (no matter what the fear-mongering media is saying).
We'll have a Full Moon in Gemini the day before Venus stations with the Sun on the Galactic Center and Chiron changing direction, so we've got some shifting ground to cover before the Venus retro.
Also during the Venus retro, the nodes will move into Taurus/Scorpio appointing Venus our North Star - think GPS destination point here. I am going to write about the Taurus/Scorpio next because that's a collective BIGGIE and, although it doesn't start until January, happening in our money houses - and involving Venus and Pluto, too - it is reinforcing the retro energies AND it can pay off (ka-ching) to start thinking about this sooner instead of later.
Hope something here is helpful. We'll talk about it as we get closer, too.
Here's a little rundown of themes by house. This area of life will be familiar to you because it was uber activated for a couple years when it was all Cappy all the time. This is approx 11-26 degrees Cappy, so could be more than one house in your chart. You can also check this chart for your Sun sign house to factor that in.
CAPRICORN RISING - 1st house Capricorn - our identity, actually our heroic quest for identity
SAGITTARIUS RISING - 2nd house Capricorn - (one of Venus's natural houses) our values, our resources, our money, our self-esteem
SCORPIO RISING - 3rd house Capricorn - communication, information, writing, doing multiple things at once, siblings, community, transportation, tech, commerce
LIBRA RISING - 4th house Capricorn - our roots, home, family, security, home-business, family-business
VIRGO RISING - 5th house Capricorn - self-expression, creativity, romance, children
LEO RISING - 6h house Capricorn - work, health, service, pets, daily obligations
CANCER RISING - 7th house Capricorn - (one of Venus's natural houses) partnerships
GEMINI RISING - 8th house Capricorn - merging/purging, other people's resources, taxes, inheritance, secrets, life/death, sex, spouse's income
TAURUS RISING - 9th house Capricorn - travel, higher education, publishing, religion, beliefs, wedding, legal issues, politics
ARIES RISING - 10th house Capricorn - profession, vocation, goals, public life
PISCES RISING - 11th house Capricorn - the goals that bring us into connection with others, friendships, causes, networks, the internet
AQUARIUS - 12th house Capricorn - things done last, things forgotten and put away, imagination, healing, spirit, addictions
xo all
(copied and pasted from an old post about my Venus/Pluto cray-cray)
For me this transit turned on like someone had flipped a switch in me as Pluto moved
within orb and turned off just as quickly when he moved out. This
process took a couple years. You can only have one Pluto transit like this in your lifetime and many people never have one (Pluto moves very slowly and may not contact your natal Venus degree during your lifetime). My Venus being in a fire sign in my 2nd house certainly exacerbated the whole thing.
During that transit - some minor Pluto passions stirred - I started reading true crime books,
sorting out the family finances, got into Bitcoin (this was early in and I could have made a mint if I stuck around, I did make some bucks) and renovating my bathrooms. I fell more deeply in love with astrology which I consider Uranian, but is Plutonian, too. Textbook Pluto stuff.
The big thing that happened though - I became obsessed with my
husband. Strangely obsessed. Venus rules my 7th (partners) and 12th houses (past life/ancestral story-lines, etc). I felt jealous/consumed. I never felt like this before/don't think I'd want to feel like this again. Our physical relationship got crazy
intense. This made him very happy ... until it didn't.
Being an Aquarian Sun with an Aries Moon he needs his space and I was,
quite unconsciously, always there.
Afterwards, I had hard-earned a very real understanding
of the kind of intensity/passion that I (also being a detached/in my head Aquarius) had never experienced - the kind that drives people nuts. I understand totally
why my soul chose this experience and am grateful, although at the time it was a
kind of agony of vulnerability. I understand people's obsessions in a deeper, more personal way now.
In more recent years, hubs had a Pluto transit/conjunction to his natal
Venus. His is in Capricorn. Venus rules his natal 2nd house (money, resources, possessions) and 9th house (expansion/freedom/over-doing, etc). He did not get
obsessed with me - no lessons left for either of us there I guess -
DAMMIT. But he did get obsessed with the idea of purchasing quite an expensive
object. Two of them actually. First a boat purchased at auction
after Hurricane Sandy, (surreptitiously with joint finances, all very Plutonian)
that he proceeded to secretly rehab for a year. We had it in the water for one
amazing summer, but only sporadically after that. He has a million
excuses about why this
is, but the truth is his longings and affections had by then moved on to object number two.
Which he proceeded to purchase, again secretly with joint finances,
after spending hundreds of hours researching (I am probably not exaggerating/might be a bit) on the internet. This time
his "longing/compulsion with having" ended almost instantly upon
purchase because the transit ended that very week. Luckily we sold it and didn't lose much money, but the
second purchase created big-time trust issues between us. It's kind of amazing
neither of our Pluto transits split us up. Pluto rules third party situations and this stuff gets trickier when other people are pulled into the mix - that didn't happen with us. I'll give astrology, and my
transit coming first, some of the credit for us outlasting the intensity, but when I tell you things had to come back from the dead, I am not kidding.
Asking yourself during this transit - why do I want this? why I am obsessing over this? why am I jealous? am I trying to manipulate/control something/someone? is someone controlling me?
With Pluto we have to accept the death/what we have lost/the ending and claim the real power we gain through the loss - which, yes, might look like ownership of some pretty barren landscape for a while ... but, this is Capricorn - GIVE IT TIME.
artwork by the talented SillyJellie