Venus Stations Retrograde | relationships and money and women and what we value and how we value ourselves gets re-assessed, maybe life feels like a high stakes poker game, what are we willing to bet? what do we love NOW? and are we too focused on what isn't ours?

Drive. Through the Shadow. by A. Finch

Venus stations retrograde today at 10 degrees Scorpio. I wrote about it HERE

This retrograde is reminiscent of one 8 years ago when she stationed at 13 degrees Scorpio on October 7, 2010. We might find similar themes playing out in our life over the next few weeks.

On Halloween she will get back into the sign of Libra and continue moving backward until she gets all the way back to 25 degrees Libra (November 16th) and then she will station direct and start moving forward - walking again, this time direct, all the degrees she has walked before.

So the degrees from 25 Libra (which Venus first walked back on September 3rd when she kicked this whole season off) through 10 degrees Scorpio are the "hot" spots for this retrograde. She won't be covering entirely new ground until the middle of December when she sextiles Saturn and moves past 10 degrees Scorpio.

Venus is considered in her detriment in Scorpio AND during her retrograde she will be traveling through the "Via Combusta". Via Combusta are the degrees between 15 Libra and 15 Scorpio - that ancient astrologers labelled some of the most challenging degrees of the zodiac because both the Moon and the Sun (the lights of the zodiac) are in their "fall" and the so-called "malefic" planets - Saturn (exalted in Libra) and Mars (co-ruler of Scorpio) are strong.

So, Venus (as us) has her work cut out for her over the next few weeks.

NOTE - the New Moon on Monday is on 15 degrees Libra!

I don't want to rehash what I wrote in THIS post, except to say while Venus is retrograde we will be doing the "re's" 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 Scorpian themes could reappear. We will be "reviewing" the things we value. In Scorpio this will play out through Scorpian themes - other people's money, big money, loans, inheritances, debts, sex, life/death issues, reproduction, shared scenarios, power struggles, jealousy, third party situations including triangles. Venus retrograde can also play out through the themes of our natal ruled Libra and Taurus houses.

We will get to some kind of cross-roads with whatever it is we are going through by around October 26th-31st when Venus will oppose Uranus bringing sudden changes and unexpected situations. Both planets will be in a Grand Cross with both the North Node (in Leo) and the South Node (in Aquarius) so whatever is going on will have the stamp of FATE marked clearly upon it.

And remember although Venus will be opposing Uranus, Uranus is in Taurus answering to Venus! Also keep in mind that Mercury is in Libra (answering to Venus), Uranus is in Taurus (answering to Venus), the Sun is in Libra (answering to Venus), Ceres is in Libra (answering to Venus) and the Moon will be in Libra (answering to Venus) for the New Moon on Monday - that's alot of our energy in the hands of Venus as she dives through the muck of mid-Scorpio!

October will dig up some relationship and financial challenges, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train - it's the Venusian Goddess herself in November as she backs into her home sign of Libra. She will still be retrograde, but we should be able to regain some balance. She will also have a stabilizing sextile to Saturn beginning the third week of October that should help.

We have been through some rocky waters since May, that have probably never really smoothed out. Note - the goal here isn't really about them smoothing out! If we make our goal for things to "smooth out" we won't be reaching that goal anytime soon. We are in the Age of Aquarius - things aren't smoothing out.

We need to find a way to live and love through rapidly changing times.

Now with Mars finally starting to cover new degrees next week we have the masculine energy literally revving up at the same time the feminine energy is struggling for air!

And Venus is squaring Mars as she stations! And Jupiter - moving through his long journey in Scorpio and preparing to move home to Sagittarius next month (!) - is finally leaving his retrograde shadow, too.

Plus this week we have had Mercury squaring Pluto. This is our mind being detonated with one of those Wiley Coyote stacks of dynamite. The Moon has been in sensitive Cancer so we are feeling our way through whatever is going on.

This stuff ain't for sissies.

Venus retrograde - all 40 days and 40 night of it - will have us re-assessing BIG themes in our lives.

The world is going to look so different by next spring. Let's not put any more pressure on ourselves right now than we have to - there is enough outside pressure already!

Let's take care of what is front in front of us. Let's do what is sensible. Let's give ourselves some air and some room to breath. Decisions are challenging during Libra season anyway and we will spend time agonizing over things that in reality are out of our hands anyway ...

Venus in Scorpio is going to make everything feel like life and death, and although some situations might be, many more situations will be playing out very differently than we expect them to over the next few months.

2018 is a bridge year (and yes, for many people it feels like one of those rope bridges swaying high over a bed of jagged rocks) carrying us into the changes of 2019/2020.

We don't usually have Mars and Venus retrograde in the same year - and we are all walking spaces we have never walked before AND in the middle of all this the nodes are going to switch from Leo/Aquarius to Cancer/Capricorn. This is all quite unprecedented.

The first aspect Venus retrograde will make is that square to Mars (in Aquarius) early next week, so we don't want to be overthinking everything right now. Keep that in mind. Or out of mind maybe.

xo all

Mercury Square Pluto, 3rd Quarter Square Moon | power struggles, facing the truth, words are power, news and information, honoring ourselves, hard to cooperate, growing ourselves up, eating the damn apple

autumn by Art-de-Viant

The sensitive Cancer Moon (people with planets/points around 9 degrees of the cardinal signs - Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn - will feel this most strongly) reaches its third quarter square of the month with the Libra Sun.

This is tension/stress. The 3rd quarter Moon is a time of crisis. Summer squares autumn.

This is about the themes of our Cancer/Libra houses or the collective Cancer/Libra themes of relationship insecurities, relationship imbalances, what is fair, what is just. Think about those Libran scales and look through the lens of Cancer (peeking out of her shell - is she safe here?).

The resolution will come through honoring ourselves - our safety, our security, our self-nourishment - AND coming into balance with the other person's position - compromise, cooperation, diplomacy.

Have we been neglecting our own needs/wants to stay in relationship with someone/something? On the other hand have we been unrealistically looking to someone/something else to mother our grown-up selves? Cancer is both the mother and the baby.

Saturn is opposing the Moon now, so we could feel like giving up. Let's not turn a corner into a dark alley just to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

We also have the exact square between Mercury and Pluto today - this one has been in play for a couple days and will take a couple days to unwind itself.

Mercury (communications, information, thinking) from 18 degrees Libra is squaring Pluto (power, life/death, big money/finances) at 18 degrees Capricorn.

Whatever we are thinking about/talking about - will be INTENSE, powerful, deep - maybe bitter.

With Pluto (ruler of that murky Scorpio 8th house) there are secrets and back door deals.

We don't know what we don't know. We can't see what we can't see. It is safe to assume we are not getting the full picture.

Mercury in Libra wants to just push this whole mess under the bed, slap on some lipstick and pretend everything is a OK. That isn't going to work now. Pluto rules Scorpio - the sign that follows Libra. The guy is dragged out from under the bed, the pretty lipstick gets smudged, the angry husband shows up with a shotgun - everything is clearly not a OK.

Some examples of how this energy is playing out with people I know - 1. someone is being audited this week. Mercury (which rules Virgo as well as Gemini - the details, the paperwork, the dotting of the i's and crossing of the t's) squaring Pluto (the tax man, power, other people's money). 2. Someone else is dealing with bankers - this is a similar dynamic and again there is a certain innate unfairness and imbalance (Libra) built into the situation because one side has the power.

3. Someone else is dealing with the reading (Mercury) of a will (Pluto) in a complicated family situation with power struggles. 4. I am dealing with Olive's (Mercury rules Virgo and Virgo rules pets) life/death (Pluto) health issues and surgery again.

All kinds of buried crap is hitting all kinds of fans this week (last week and next also).

This is the stuff coming out from under the bed - I hope for you it's just a few dust bunnies and there aren't any real monsters under there. Are there real monsters? Here's where we need to put on our big girl pants and assure our seven year old self we can handle this.

So what do we do?

Don't pour pink paint and pretend everything is OK. That paint is going to chip and we will be right back here again with an even bigger mess - and there won't be enough paint to cover this anyway.

Whatever it is we are afraid to look at - LOOK DEEPER. The expression - "the truth hurts, but the truth will also set you free" comes to mind here. 

Don't allow someone to manipulate you into something you don't agree with/something that takes away your security. Maybe we need to channel our Black Moon Lilith who is hooked up with Mars today - the powerful are not the only ones with power now.

Don't manipulate someone else and call it persuasion. Keep it real.

We need to be smart and tactful. We need to see/feel the other person's point of view (maybe that is the space where we need to look deeper?).

We may need to stand up for ourselves and we definitely need to take care of ourselves.

Situations will likely have an undercurrent about power and control (maybe life and death or could feel like life and death - which BTW is hard on our physical bodies which can't tell the difference, so take care of yours) and there won't be easy solutions/compromises.

Words are powerful now. We could burn the whole place down with our language today, so be careful.

This is excellent energy for research, delving deeply into some information, journaling, therapy, working out a puzzle, getting to the bottom of a legal matter.


xo all

An example now with the Kavanaugh story playing out in the U.S. collective is understanding HIS-story. Yes, I know we have thousands of years of understanding HIS-story. But LOOK DEEPER.

I was reminded yesterday by someone's Facebook post about the 80's classic Sixteen Candles that "rape in the 1980's wasn't something done by acquaintances at house parties" - remember the scene where the very drunk girl was handed from one boy to another (weren't they the hero boys in the film or am I remembering this incorrectly?) like a sex doll. In the movie, this was all a joke and good, clean fun. We are reminded this was the culture at the time. It's not an excuse. But it does allow us some way into HIS-story if we need one. And we do. Need one.

Because we carry all these archetypes within us.

And we have reached a point in time where it is just too painful to continue on in an un-integrated state. It is no longer possible to just stuff our own fear. It is no longer possible to just ram things through. The polarity within us just stops us dead in our tracks. We must face it directly and resolve the "split" within us in order to be able to move forward at all now. This is why we are feeling more "prevented" and "opposed" than ever. We can push the blame onto the other person or the situation for a time, but it won't stay "pushed" for long now before it pushes back!

Note - this doesn't mean I think Kavanugh should or will be appointed to the Supreme Court. No, I don't (hell, no) and the astrology looks like this storyline is definitely not wrapping up in week. Venus is going retrograde this week, to dig something up in Scorpio (!), and she won't be hitting new degrees until 2019.

And yes, I am being totally triggered by all of this, too.

Looking at 80's culture (and how it has evolved) is just a tool I can use to help integrate the part of me that - wants what it wants, that feels entitled to it, that played by the "rules" at the time (that aren't the rules now) and didn't get my "pay-off", that is foaming at the mouth angry.