An Exposed Descent
Early on the morning of October 3, Venus stationed retrograde. This station is the beginning of Venus’ descent, like many stories of Goddesses past, she begins her journey to the underworld, letting go of all she possesses, her bright light disappearing from the evening sky through a 40 day and 40 night journey before she eventually returns to morning view. She will conjoin the Sun early in the morning on 24 October, closing a chapter on her current Synodic cycle.
This Venus retrograde season has come in with swiftness and volume. An appropriate entrance as the places Venus will revisit along her journey to and from the underworld speak to boisterousness, joyful expression, desire, and insatiable hunger.
Book ending her station, we saw a T-Square formation between Mercury, Mars, and Pluto- all at 3° of their current respective signs. A symbol of some big upending, transformative cycle transpiring over the next several weeks. Meanwhile, we saw a trine between the Moon and Venus. The Moon in the 12th part of Virgo reflects the integration of information this retrograde has been bringing, and will continue to bring, to the surface. Some, quite heavy in nature given the decan of Scorpio Venus is currently moving through.
Finding grounding practices to allow all this watery energy constructive flow is necessary as we encounter the dark recesses of our hearts and souls as our lady, Venus, lays her self bare, dying to all that she knows. Ritual may help us touch the inner Eros we are left craving for without her light.
Austin Coppock reflects on the first decan of Scorpio as a part of a ritual fast- a time when we can look our hungers in the face.
Balance is emphasized as these insatiable hungers rise to the surface of our psyches, making themselves known so we may confront them with a critical but tender eye.
We see this show up in so many ways in our daily lives, whether that’s personal challenges we’re navigating through Venusian themes- the values we carry, the way we commune with one another, the ways we express our eroticism- but also, through our culture at large, our over indulgence in alcohol, drugs, shopping, rotting, our unfulfilled desires. We see it in the conversations around power and what the term ‘masculinity’ carries with it in our current zeitgeist.
The way women, at large, have been harmed by our current system. There are different levels to this imbalance between cultures- one extreme that currently comes to mind is what’s happening in Afghanistan, but to bring it home to my own place of origin, the blatant disregard our systems have for women’s safety and care. The way in which even women perpetuate the patriarchal structures this country was built upon.
With this retrograde period, we are being given the opportunity to see, with some clarity, our own hungers and where we, ourselves, fall from a place of balance, justice, or peace. We are being offered a platform to make change collectively in the way we choose to show up in the face of what we have been offered by those who have shown up in places of perceived power, with lack of humility for where they are perched.
Stay with yourself, kindly, through this transit. Many blessings to you and all you hope for and hold beautiful in this life.
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