How, With Whom & Why: Notes on Venus Retrograde
The time (July 27th - September 8th) is for revisiting how, with whom and why we value and relate. The terrain of Venus is of course money and relationships, but behind those is our value systems, our sense of self-confidence and how we relate one thing to another.
During this Rx, you’re being called to call into question how, with whom and why you value and relate. At your best, you’ll see that the situations and realizations that arise are opportunities to understand more about your Venus function. This time is for re-evaluation and re-view, and while things don’t have to change, we tend to grab opportunities to act on our money and relationship issues, and making changes as you become aware of things can be a good thing. After all, you’ll be suddenly armed with new layers of understanding of how you work your confidence, money and relationships.
At your worst…well, I invite you to see how things change during the period as telling you stuff about yourself and how you live that you can use. Use how? To let go of what doesn’t work and set the stage to usher in new things on those fronts that do.
I’m staying open to what I can learn about those fronts in my life, with some admittedly shifty eyes and half a grin. With Venus as my chart ruler and in Libra just above the Ascendant, this planet carries a unique focus in my life. I tend to watch its transits with shifty eyes and half a grin because the lessons can be entertaining to me in their obviousness and my concomitant obliviousness to their obviousness. Many opportunities to point and laugh at myself and how serious I take Venusian stuff with these transits.
I’ve been offered a partial-trade-for-rent living situation in another part of the city that will help me achieve some financial goals in the short term, so there’s that. I’ve also made some new friends recently who present me opportunities to have a new view on myself re how I am in relationships, how I navigate them. The Rx isn’t about new relationships as much as revisiting old patterns or old relationships, but new ones can point out to you stuff about old patterns. I’m taking their cues at Venus stations retrograde (when it appears to slow down before the actual Rx period) to shift into that layer of awareness.
I wondered if a recently-ended relationship could have further (and I’ve felt needed) resolution, but I learned today that that won’t happen soon. I’m totally okay with this as, even as it’s a specific I expected and hoped for, I’ll still get the opportunity to learn and clear out some old patterns…I just might not know how that’ll happen…
AND, perhaps the most amazingly significant thing I’ve done for myself re Venus in a long time: Recently I bought a tennis racket and a can of balls, after not touching a tennis racket forI think 19 years. I used to spend hours almost dailyy hitting against a backboard in the summers. I think from ages 9 or 10 to 14. I used the backboard much more than I played with people, though I did that, too. It helped me get out aggression and to focus, so that I could think clearly. Also, with all this Libra, I LOVE the opportunities for grace in movement while playing tennis. I won’t dance for any reason, but I’ll play tennis against a backboard for hours almost every day. There is such subtlety possible in handling a racket and returning the ball, and it’s a conversation between you and…and a green wooden board. All my Libra loves that possibility for conversation. And when my grip and consistency are a little more re-settled, I’ll look for actual people to play with.
The last while that I played as a teenager I played with a close friend from the neighborhood. He got the whole athlete thing on a level I never dreamed I would.* I assume I held my own in tennis, at least, since I seem to remember that I was pretty okay with it. But anyway this friend e-mailed me out of the blue during the last Venus Rx, December of 2005?, after not having contact with each other since high school. I just dug up his e-mail address and am about to e-mail him - how almost Venus Rx of me to return the favor 18 months later.
So anyway, I’ve been hitting against the backboard and feeling awesome about it. I think that experience deserves an entire other post, as I’m learning a ton about how I use my Libra-1st house energy - Mars & Uranus conjunct there…yeah, more on that later.
*We were also on the same little league team, which his dad coached. How I got on the team: The day that they were having tryouts at their house one summer, I was there, hanging around there and playing with Jason because that’s what we did. His dad asked me if I wanted to be on the team, and I asked what I would have to do. He said some vague-to-me sounding stuff about concerning myself and interacting with a baseball (literally, I found out later), running sometimes, catching sometimes, and I casually agreed because I couldn’t think of a reason not to. For four years I played left field, which is where my attention tended to be as a kid anyway - Bruce knew how to place kids, I know now.
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July 23, 2007 By Tom Jacobs