Life is how you feel about it. – Some Guy
Your feet are sore, your back is aching. Your eyes are blurry and your mind is fried. You are full. It was a long-ass day filled with emotionally draining circumstances that made you feel both connected and separate, out of place and at home, radiantly beautiful and hideously horrid. You’ve run the gamut of feelings available to a human being. You came, you saw, you conquered. All there is left to do is to call it a day and go to bed.
Having traveled an entire cycle around the sun, this Sunday Venus will conjoin it, beginning a new cycle. Metaphysically speaking, it’s thought that the planets need the same kind of rest that we do. Everyone needs a break, except for the sun, who will probably one day just call it quits. The start of Venus’s next cycle begins after she conjoins the sun. She receives her cyclical saturation of the luminosity that can only be given by our greatest energy source.
This occurrence is known as entering the heart of the sun or Cazimi. Generally speaking, getting to the heart of any matter means that we have to go through the layers that cover it, cross the thresholds that forego it. We encounter any guardians of the gate that guard it along the way. Getting to the heart of the matter wears us down. We are then open to receive what we may be normally too proud, resistant or hesitant to accept. Venus tells us about our relationships, culture and perhaps even about our style and money issues (as modern astrology links it to). Venus is the magnetic force that draws to itself what it deeply desires.
I don’t find Venus to be inherently gentle about the whole deal (which varies greatly depending on what sign it’s occupying). Desire is a rough ride and there is nothing refined about attraction. What Venus evokes in us is a raw and honest admission of what we long for, no matter how ashamed, unworthy or incomplete we feel. We cannot escape our greatest longings for connection, or our even greater resentments about not getting it. As an astrologer I am always asked to explain the celestial heavens and then promptly asked what to do about the current situation. I can usually come up with a suggestion or two but my real talent feeling and intuiting my way into the astrology (#cancerfordays).
However, I can tell you some of the questions that I have been meditating on this week that have helped me to become more related to my own issues around intimacy: What expectations do I have of others? Are those expectations fair? Do I try to meet those needs for myself first or at all? Do I feel little haggard and warn, left out in the cold, resentful, afraid or used up? How am I giving without also allowing myself to receive? Am I sustaining relationships that no longer feed my soul or support my growth? How am I setting myself up for failure in relationships by being overly needy or afraid to be vulnerable? What are my underlying motivations in all of my interactions?
Just to add to the increasing emotional intensity, on Wednesday, January 1tth there will be a full moon in Cancer. The sign associated with feelings, nurturing, nourishment and feeding our emotional needs (hey codependents, this one’s for you!). Not to be outdone, later that day Venus will square Mars which is significant for a couple of reasons. One, it is always important to note times where Venus and Mars square each other because of the issues that they deal with, i.e. personal ways of dealing with life and relating to folks). It’s also an important transit because Venus and Mars are central to the entire first half of the astrology of 2014. Both planets are going retrograde in cardinal signs. This means that they will activate the Uranus Pluto Square creating a cardinal grand cross. Venus already has and Mars will in April. A cardinal grand cross is “all systems GO!”
This configuration functions on somewhat of an internal level, however. Retrogrades tend to unlock some part of our lives, our consciousness or our personality. More often than not, these are times of exponential growth. We need to move in different directions to grow. Doing the same thing all the time numbs our senses and tends to extinguish the fire in our belly. Studying the cycles of the personal planets can illuminate when some of the more fundamental shifts in your life occur.
Mercury (retrograde from February 6th-28th), Venus (retrograde from December 21st-January 31st) and Mars (retrograde from March 1st-May19th) retrogrades give meaning to and definition of the larger themes at work. For a hint about what Venus may be up to in your chart, you can think back to December of 2005 to January of 2006 (the last time Venus was retrograde in Capricorn, although it started its retrograde in Aquarius). Did any significant relationship material arise, start or finish at that time? Are there any similarities to the present moment?
Here’s to hoping that we can embrace the retrogrades. Here’s to our growth both backwards and forwards. Growing in both directions means making peace with our past so that we can live in our present as it happens in real time. When we stand in the center of our lives we aren’t doomed to dwell on what happened, but we also don’t run from it.
Venus Retrograde Love! Chani
P.S. Venus retrogrades are fascinating cycles to watch, Nick Dagan Best has been doing a stellar job at explaining the Venus cycles and if you are interested in learning more about them check out his site at: www.nickdaganbest.com.
