Venus recently completed her 44-day retrograde journey that took place between July 22 and September 3, 2023, between 12° and 28° of Leo.
As someone who was born with Leo rising in the East, I knew this retrograde would be very important for me.
The ascendant sign and degree in a chart (and the first house which contains it), symbolizes the skin you are in, the body that houses you, the visible vehicle that moves you through time and space.
It reflects your first name, your sense of self in the world, and it’s often the launching pad from which you initiate new endeavors. Marking the Eastern horizon at the time of your birth, this area of the chart represents how you rise up to meet the world each and every day, and for the rest of your life.
The first house, along with the ascendant sign and degree, is all about YOU.
So when preparing for Venus’s retrograde through Leo, the sign of my ascendant, I knew it was going to be all about ME - and that which I am connected to, by virtue of the planet Venus who is all about connection.
Therefore, I’m beginning this blog post with some personal reflections on Venus’ 44 days of retrograde action.
Every eight years, Venus returns to the same zodiac sign for her retrograde journey.
Eight years ago was the summer of 2015, when Venus was last retrograde in Leo.
My dad died suddenly that summer, while I was trying to finish writing my master’s thesis. His spirit left his body after a 15-minute seizure that quickly turned into cardiac arrest.
It was a fast but dramatic passage, not a gentle one.
I counted out his last breaths to the 911 operator; I remember I made it to “6.”
I took one week off for the funeral and to “recover” (from the shock at least). And then I got right back into my writing process in order to finish my long overdue thesis by a deadline that was in just a few weeks time.
It remains one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Throughout August 2015, I always had two documents open on my computer - my thesis, and another Word document where I wrote down everything I could remember about my dad’s brain injury and eventual death. In a single day I would switch back and forth between the two documents multiple times.
The summer of 2015 was a significant chapter in my life, to put it mildly.
So as this Venus retrograde neared my ascendant degree yet again, I was understandably a bit apprehensive - but also curious, as always.
The summer of 2015 was a tough one, but it was ultimately one of liberation and freedom.
If the ascendant is the boat in which we travel through life, the planet who rules our ascendant is at the helm. (I believe I first heard this analogy from Demetra George)
The sign of Leo is ruled by the Sun.
In my chart, the Sun lands in Pisces, in the 8th House, with Mercury cazimi, directly in front of the solar power. The 8th house often implicates people we are connected to and it speaks to where we are tangled - e.g., energetically, emotionally, financially, psychically.
Although 8th house activations (via the Sun as my ascendant ruler, in this case) can be heavy, one of the gifts they offer, is the opportunity to get untangled; the opportunity for you and others to get free. 8th house activations can mean some major psychological house cleaning is in order.
Finally finishing my thesis freed me from ten years of university, three degrees, and the overwhelming weight academia had loaded onto my psyche. When I made the final submission at the end of August, I could almost feel the chains falling off me! I promised myself I was done with institutionalized schooling forever.
While it was intense and immensely stressful in many ways, my dad’s unexpected moment of transition freed him from a body that had rendered him unable to communicate in any way, eat through his mouth, or make any intentional movements, for four years.
Although I dearly wish I could have been given the gift of more time to be able to postpone the funeral and move more slowly when there was so much to feel and digest, my immediate reaction when my dad was declared deceased, was one of enormous relief - he was finally free.
I can also say that the summer of 2015 profoundly, irrevocably, shifted my sense of identity and how I located myself in the broader world.
This makes sense in light of Venus’ retrograde in Leo, which led her across my ascendant degree three times during the summer of 2015.
Releasing the identity of “student,” a protective role that I had hid behind for many years, opened me up to the type of big questions inherent in moments of great transition: Who am I now? What’s my role in this world? What next?
I also was now part of the dead dad club; one of only a few of my peers who had lost a parent. Processing my dad’s impact on my identity and sense of self, would become a central narrative thread in the years to follow.
Finally, connections and relationships of all kinds is a central theme when Venus is making big moves in the sky.
While my relationship to my self was certainly key to this first house transit, as Venus (and Jupiter, who was also in Leo at the time) transited the most visible part of my natal chart, I was reconnected with numerous people following my dad’s death and his packed funeral service (which was appropriately very loud and fiery - everyone wore bright tropical shirts in honour of him) and again later on, following my thesis submission announcement and graduation celebration as I re-emerged into the world.
[Note: due to the length of this essay it may be cut off by your email provider. Click here to read the full post on Substack.]
Fast-forward eight years later…
…it’s July 2023 and Venus is about to retrograde in the same area of Leo once again.
Rather than passively await my fate, I decided to take matters into my own hand and initiate (something we are supposed to do in the first house) a very Venus-in-Leo-crossing-my-ascendant project.
I decided to post on my personal Instagram account every day, for each of the 44 days that Venus was retrograde.
At the beginning I was like, okay, totally doable, just over a month. BUT ACTUALLY 44 DAYS IS FOREVER.
Or at least, it’s a very very very long time and A LOT of posting for someone who has barely been visibly active online since 2016 - at least not in my own name.
Posting online anonymously is a different experience; there is a lot more protective distance.
Here is an example of my first post:
Day 1 / 44:
If texting is somewhat equivalent to a private conversation with someone, and if a group Whatsapp chat is like a dinner party, then platforms like Instagram and Facebook are like a stage.
Audience sizes may vary vastly from one to millions, but regardless, posting anything on these platforms seems to me like putting something on a stage, often veering toward a type of social performance.
Since I already maintain private communications with people in my life, when it comes to posting publicly, I'm just like... what's the point?? My life doesn't exactly feel "stage-worthy," and the act of asking for public-ish attention (via posting in this case) feels uncomfortable for me - sometimes excruciating.
However, humans are host to a cacophony of polarities, and I am no exception. As with most people, there is a part of me that wants to be publicly expressed, seen, and witnessed - even if I resent this part and the psychic muscle responsible for it, is weak.
Therefore, for the 44 days that Venus is retrograde in Leo, I will exercise this muscle as a project for myself by puking something from my life up on here daily :) I'm not sure what I will post about yet. Possibly lots of plant-based posts. Unfollow if this will bore you!
I archived my earlier posts (the version of myself who published them is long gone anyway), and once 44 days are up, these posts too, may disappear into the ether! Comments are turned off for now.❤️
The next day I did a post for Day 2 / 44… and the next day, one for Day 3 / 44… until finally I was writing out Day 44 / 44.
I must say, counting out each day of the retrograde while investing a tremendous amount of care, many hours, and ruining my sleep schedule to craft a mini piece of art at the end of each day, really made me acutely aware of this transit like never before!
I came close to quitting a few times as I wondered why I was putting myself through what seemed like self-torture.
If you are a frequent online post-er this may seem hard to understand.
If you almost never post online, and then get anxiety over your once-every-two-years public update, then you get it. Everyday for 44 days is a lot.
The group of followers on my personal ig account are largely those I have collected through academia, as well as through various work or volunteer endeavors dating back decades in some cases. The number of people in that group who I actually communicate with semi-regularly, is like 5 % maybe.
Whatever your niche interest is, there is plenty of room on social media to establish your presence and find your people. I did that with my now inactive Lilith Rebellion instagram account for example, but in terms of my personal account, throughout the 44 days I was often wondering:
“Whhhyyyy in the world am I investing so much of my time and creative energy crafting these vulnerable posts about my interests which includes things like herbalism, tarot, astrology, and ancestor veneration… for people who probably don’t care, for people from my past I likely have very little in common with now, for people who probably think I’m really weird?”
Well, it was partly for the same reason I’m posting about this 44-day project here, on my Lilith Rebellion blog.
After years of keeping these two versions of myself separate, I wanted to challenge myself during this Venus retrograde and take steps toward unifying these different public faces I maintained; to be more transparent with who I am (at this ever-changing moment).
Social media has a myriad of issues and potential harms, but it can also be a useful tool. It is what you make of it. When you intentionally decide how you want to use it and for what reason, you take your power back.
For this self-growth project, Instagram was the perfect tool. It was really challenging for me and the vulnerability hangover is still lingering, but when I step back and look at the big picture, I think it was a beautifully aligned offering to Venus and a worthwhile engagement with solar work.
The Sun, ruler of Leo, is the celestial body with the closest affinity to themes of identity, visibility, being witnessed and accepted. The Sun, for each of us, wants to shine and be seen. We are doing our solar work when we are intentionally engaging with the many layers around being seen.
For my final post on September 3rd (actually more like the early morning hours of September 4th), my sister-in-law took 30+ photos of my face with my hands covering it from various angles. I then set the photos to flip through quickly to the beat of a musical piece. Below is a slightly edited and abbreviated version…
Day 44 / 44:
In 2019, I began my journey in the Somatic Experiencing Professional Training program; a journey that has also been personally transformative.
A key concept in Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is "coupling dynamics," a somewhat strange choice of phrasing which refers to "an association between a stimulus and a response." When different elements of life experience and various sensate inputs are "over-coupled" (i.e., over-associated, too connected), people might say they are "triggered."For example, based on highly stressful past experiences, a military veteran's brain and nervous system may have over-coupled really loud explosive sounds (including those from benign fireworks), with the emotion of fear, with mental images stored in their memory from being in a war zone, with the sensation of their heart pounding, and with the physical movement of running as fast as they can.
Stressful past experiences can also lead to under-coupling, where different life elements and sensate inputs may have become so disconnected and fragmented that some degree of dissociation occurs. This may look like someone who doesn't notice danger signals, or someone who shares a story of something horrific that happened to them while laughing and joking about it.
Both of these responses are incredible examples of the body's brilliant efforts to self-protect - there is a unique logic in every response.
*And* these self-protective responses can have their own detrimental and disruptive impact on a person's life and physiology when applied by the body indiscriminately in contexts that do not warrant them.
Personally, the experience of "being seen" for me, is intensely over-coupled with internal reactions that communicate to me that I'm in danger (in some way).
I know I'm not alone in this - I think most humans probably have this type of over-coupling, over-association between "being seen" and a sense of threat to some degree, based on past experiences that continue to live in the body. Everyone's experience of this sense of threat is unique though, based on their unique life journey.
Another key concept in SE is that of "pendulation;" meaning to move back and forth between two directions.
In SE we apply pendulation to the body by first noticing what areas hold the most activation or energetic charge (neutral words for what could otherwise be described as constriction, heat, numbness, bracing, etc.), and then conversely, we notice what areas of the body feel the most resourced, comfortable, safe, and free.
While tracking sensation (as the participant), we shift attention between these two states, internally pendulating back and forth between areas of the body that hold high activation, and other parts of the body that calm and ground us.
Pendulating (i.e., shifting our attention back and forth) can help us stay present with areas of high activation in the body, until the energy there begins to move, transmute and subside.
One of many things I've noticed during this 44-day challenge, is that my hands are almost entirely okay with being seen. My hands seemed to have no problems taking up space in my videos and pictures; they appear frequently in my feed. In contrast, I'm aware other parts of me hold way more charge and activation around taking up space and being seen.
This is certainly not "SE," but I had the concept of pendulation in mind when my sister-in-law helped me capture this spontaneous dialogue between my hands and face.*****
For years, I've always had some kind of social media posting project or online blog on the go. It's a type of creative outlet I really enjoy, but I usually do it with at least some degree of anonymity. It is a *completely* different experience to show up as me, to make content and post under my own name among people whom I've crossed paths with at some point, in real life.
I've really enjoyed the digital scrapbooking aspect of this 44-day project. I've also never worked with video content as much as I have in the last month, so that was fun!
However, it was also EXTREMELY CHALLENGING. I'm a bit shocked that I made it to day 44.
I was curious... if I followed through on the audacious plan to post every day and take up space on Instagram for 44 days, how much discomfort, how much painful cringe sensation could I stay present with and move through? If my body was neurocepting danger while my brain was aware there was no real threat, would I have the capacity to stretch my growth edges if I gave myself the opportunity to discover safety outside my comfort zone?
This is a relatively small account. Even still, sometimes I worried (as I knew I would) about people who only knew me in a very particular context, during a specific chapter in life, or those who only connected with one facet of who I am... how would they respond if I challenged their perception of who I am? Did it matter?
At the beginning, I watched myself engage in all these energetic acrobatics, as if I was trying to perceive myself through other people's eyes, through their phones.
First of all, that's creepy.
But also, I really wanted to stay in this open and generous space where, with each time I clicked to publish a post, I offered anyone who saw it the freedom and agency to misunderstand me, to make whatever judgements they wanted to, and of course, to simply not care at all.
It was a practice of returning to my core over and over again - and sharing from that centered place.This project, which was a big time commitment, was about more than being active on Instagram, or Venus retrograding through Leo. The seeming threat of "being seen" has seriously inhibited me in just about every area of life. I could maneuver around it somewhat in my twenties when I had a bunch of roles and titles to hide behind, but once those were stripped from me, it became excruciating once again.
Posting on Instagram was the weaving of a spell, it was an offering made, it was a strategic effort to loosen up and melt parts of my life that seem to be baked in concrete.It was a stone thrown into a still lake; I'm watching for ripples.
I turned off the comments on all posts - not because I didn't want exchange or reciprocity, but comment sections are unpredictable, having online public conversations is something I find a bit odd, and I didn't want to be attached to a certain type of response (such as those @simone.grace.seol aptly wrote about recently - "secretly expecting/demanding a certain kind of reaction that will either caretake you or validate you").However, I value all the DMs and reconnections! I also want to express that I really appreciate seeing life updates on here from those I once crossed paths with - even if decades ago!
Social media has a bazillion problems and issues we all know about (and have probably suffered from), but also, it can be kinda beautiful?Flipping through posts and stories is sometimes like watching people pass outside a cafe window and experiencing "sonder," from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:
"the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk."
Except that social media makes the invisible visible in some small way, and engaging with it (at best) can be like witnessing a moving collage of the many diverse, meaningful moments that are part of the human experience as we all journey time together in parallel lives...
...the seasonal family celebrations, the weddings, the vacations, the birthday shout-outs, things someone found on the sidewalk on the way to work, baby's first steps, a heartfelt remembrance of someone who has passed, graduations, a delicious dinner out, the requests for advice or for help, the rants and opinion pieces, the yoga poses, the cute dogs, the hikes, the thrift store finds, the new hobbies, the street graffiti and sunset photos……and the numerous other beautiful random slices of life that show up in my feed!
It all matters.
Happy Venus Direct to those who celebrate!
I lasted 14 hours after my final post - and only because I had my phone in airplane mode for most of that time. When I logged back in, I freaked out and archived all my posts!
That was my experience of the Venus direct station combined with Jupiter stationing retrograde the next day.
Here’s what I wrote about this moment earlier in the year:
Venus is ready to station direct in Leo by September 3rd - while still holding a square to Jupiter in Taurus who stations retrograde the very next day. This may result in a very palpable sense of push-pull; something is going forward, and something is reversing or stalling. As Venus makes her way forward, she repeats her squares to Jupiter and then Uranus, for the third time. This is the post-retrograde shadow phase where integration occurs and wisdom is harvested.
In early September (around September 3rd/4th) taking time to pause and reflect on your current relationship to matters that involve pleasure, beauty, money, and desire, may help you integrate something that is important to this month.
In another example of this double station moment of push-pull pivots, here’s what else was happening that final weekend of Venus’ retrograde:
Some astrologers noted a reflection of stuck burners in the symbolism of the full moon in Pisces (a messy deluge) conjunct Saturn (a block or delay) which occurred just prior on August 30th, while widely opposite Mercury retrograde in Virgo. Mercury has an affinity with vehicles and being stuck with some kind of car issue is a pretty common symptom of Mercury retrograde. Being asked to conserve Piscean Water is quite Virgo-ish.
I think this interpretation is on point. In addition, Saturn brings up themes of self-reliance and communal survival skills - themes that circulated the online dialogue about this unfortunate event. Could burners put their values into action when the going got tough in a Saturnian way?
However, I also see Venus and Jupiter’s double station in this muddy moment - furthermore, both planets were squaring each other while stationing in opposite directions over that weekend. When a planet stations, regardless of the direction it’s facing, it is not moving. It’s stationary - just like all the vehicles at Burning Man!
Venus and Jupiter both relate to the physical pleasures of life, and when in aspect to each other, topics of hedonism, wealth, privilege, values and meaning, easily enter the conversation.
CBC reported re: the muddy burning man situation that “much of the reaction on social media had a whiff of schadenfreude;” a word (new to me) which apparently means “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others,” primarily directed at the “wealthy, privileged, hedonistic burners” in particular. Indeed, there was lots of schadenfreude going on from my vantage point.
I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other about Burning Man as a festival and a phenomenon (because I’ve never attended), but I must admit, the situation created spectacular fodder for memes.
On the ground, the full moon and Mercury + Saturn across the Pisces-Virgo axis likely felt more relevant, but online from a distance, the stationing pair of Venus and Jupiter seemed most prominent in the discourse about it as festival goers remained stuck and stalled, with overflowing porta potties.
Okay, I got distracted, but that’s my segue back to my 44-day project for Venus Rx… “stuck and stalled.”
Burners were stuck, I was stuck. I was moving forward, and then I suddenly retreated.
I read this lovely post today, which felt synchronistic and timely:
I don’t really think of myself as an artist, but I will still heed this advice.
I am also offering myself some healthy, supported, contraction this week. Because if I don’t, I will continue to contract in painful ways. Literally, I’ve found myself instinctively curling up into these awful contracted postures the last few days and now my body is sore and stiff all over.
44 days of posting (under my own name) was a lot of expansion for me, a lot of stretch.
Expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction is nature’s rhythm - and it’s the type of growth pattern that is best for the human nervous system.
Forcing constant expansion toward continual change and growth, typically backfires in major burn-out, breakdown, or self-sabotage.
This concept of healthy, supported contraction largely came to me via
and her Substack article below, as well as her podcast episode titled Rituals for Digesting & Resting amidst Big Change.As Rachael writes (quoting here but really just go read her full article/listen to the episode because there’s so much more good stuff):
One of the most important skills to develop when it comes to sustainable positive change is the capacity to digest it.
Emotionally, physically AND socially.
So that you don’t bounce back into familiar fear physiology to try to protect against the very change you’ve been praying for.
So that your nervous system can attune to a new baseline of safe fulfillment, pleasure and power, as well as find BELONGING as the new you. (emphasis added)
Archiving all my posts was an impulsive decision, but I’m honouring the contraction right now. Finishing the 44 days released a whole pile of divergent emotions that surprised me.
Maybe I’ll un-archive when Mercury stations direct next week.
I think it is noteworthy that Lilith (the mean calculation of the moon’s perigee) is finishing up her transit in Leo. She crossed my ascendant around August 30th, but essentially is hovering around this ultra-visible part of my chart associated with my emergent presence in the world, from about mid-August to the end of September.
I was born with Lilith conjunct my Moon in Gemini, so I’m quite familiar with her, but I’m reflecting deeply on her rebellious story and symbolism once again as I have the opportunity to fully embody her best attributes, in a new way.
I should also add that among my DMs during the 44 days, I heard from someone who had the courage to begin an herbalism program after reading my posts, someone else who was recommitting to a goal for this year after watching me finish what I set out to, someone who felt safe enough to open up and share things with me they otherwise wouldn’t have, and someone who discovered a calming moment in the day when they began sitting with the sky and tracking moon phases after being inspired by my post about connecting with the moon… among other lovely messages.
So despite how painful it was at times, and how pointless it seemed to be putting so much effort into something I didn’t think most of my “followers” cared about, maybe it was worth it in more ways than one.
A big question I continue to play around with, is:
What would have happened if I had NOT embarked on this 44-day posting challenge for Venus Rx?
Would something else have happened instead? Would Venus have expressed herself through another channel?
I certainly didn’t want a close repetition of the summer of 2015, that’s for sure.
There’s a couple of life events I can think of that occurred between July 22nd and September 3rd, which rhyme with Venus’ relational symbolism… such as reconnecting with my aunt who came to visit for the first time in over a decade, and making headway toward potentially getting divorce-related documents relevant to my ancestors, circa 1947…
However, the most obvious Venus Rx themes in my life this summer definitely orbited around this 44-day posting challenge, which I intentionally initiated on her behalf.
Aside from the anticipated correlations involving visibility, being witnessed and seen as I shared vulnerably from my heart, I also got to explore my creative side in new ways throughout the project, and I reconnected with people I haven’t spoken to for a long time as they responded to my posts.
Was this 44-day challenge a transit remediation?
By being intentional about it, did I get to choose my pain and poison, so to speak?
Of course, there is no way to know. I don’t know what would have happened if I had made different choices, but I definitely wonder about it!
Expressing our natal charts requires intention and work
When I look at a natal chart for the first time, I don’t assume the person is necessarily expressing the fullness of what I’m looking at. I mean, I know I’m not! So I don’t assume that of others.
I approach the natal chart as a map full of clues that can help lead one toward a more fulfilling life, but we may begin with a very different starting point. We all get to go on a journey of self-actualization and individuation.
I’ve expressed my Leo ascendant more comfortably at other times in my life… when I was really involved in acting, in playwriting, in diverse leadership roles… Throughout the majority of my life, however, it has been a challenge to embody it. It’s expression requires the facing of fears.
My difficulty with fully embodying my Leo rising is due to many reasons. Technically we could say that perhaps this is because it is ruled by my Sun in Pisces in the 8th house, which forms a tight quincunx/inconjunct with my ascendant degree (an aspect of disconnection and necessary compromise).
When I put the work and effort into expressing my Leo ascendant, as I did with this 44-day posting project, I’m trusting that astrology works. I’m trusting that breathing life into my rising sign in particular, will enliven the rest of my chart.
Diana Rose wrote a beautiful post about the ascendant last year (and has a whole webinar for sale on the topic) that begins by confronting a common misunderstanding about the rising sign - “your Ascendant isn’t a mask.”
Diana goes on to write:
your Ascendant describes your most fundamental, existential needs, those things that are necessary for you to not just /endure/ incarnate reality, but ENJOY it.
whenever our Ascendants’ needs are unmet,
WE feel unmet,
unsatisfied,
floundering.
when our Ascendant’s needs are well-tended, WE feel well-tended.
and when we feel well-tended, it’s much easier to meet our life with Love.
whenever we are deeply in relationship with the existential, foundational needs of our Ascendant, it makes us better relations to EVERYTHING ELSE in our life.
it’s not selfish to identify and prioritize your deepest needs.
it’s what clarifies your role in the ecosystem.
If you want to more intentionally work with your natal chart and learn how to amplify its full expression, beginning with your ascendant (your rising sign) can be a good place to start.
Are your Ascendant’s needs well-met and well-tended?
Other Venus Rx Correlations
I have a bunch of notes collected from back in July and August when I had hoped to write a post about the beginning of Venus’ retrograde, which launched LOUDLY, with a dose of drama appropriate for a transit in fiery Leo.
The notes are less relevant now, but I thought I’d quickly squeeze them into the end of this blog post.
Venus’ stationing pivot on July 22 occurred simultaneously with the Sun in Cancer opposing Pluto and squaring the nodal axis before entering Leo that same day. Just two days earlier on July 20th, Mars in Virgo opposed Saturn in Pisces and the Sun in Cancer made a water trine with Neptune in Pisces. The day after Venus stationed retrograde, on July 23rd, Pluto squared the nodal axis, Mercury in Leo conjoined Lilith while squaring Uranus, and Chiron stationed retrograde in Aries.
Intense, powerful astrology jam-packed into a few days.
During that weekend I was hired by my friend to assist her with painting a large mural of neon hexagons on the wall of a church’s youth room that she had been hired to complete.
We had Venus in Leo showing up in the bright, youthful, mural we were painting (I also reconnected with my friend through this random job).
Mars in Virgo opposite Saturn in Pisces together were expressed in the painstaking care we took in measuring out a wall grid for the geometric shapes - and through the construction noise that blasted in the space the entire time we were there. Of course, we encountered multiple Saturnian barriers and delays.
Virgo likes the detailed work, Pisces has an affinity to religious spaces.
Sun in Cancer opposite Pluto appeared in the dangerous flash flooding and wild thunder and lightening storm that began as we were driving back, and it was hanging around as we lost power and I went to sleep in my friend’s dark basement.
Venus in Leo popped in again when we spontaneously watched The Greatest Showman, using what battery power remained on my friend’s laptop… and when we played a board game that was all about creating art.
The weekend was full of changes in plans and my province really suffered from the flooding that no one had anticipated.
When I finally got home again, I launched my 44-days of posting project, feeling the pain points of Chiron in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn, but listening to Venus and doing it anyway.
Do you remember how the dramatic astrology of July 20th ~23rd showed up for you?
In global news, this happened:
The cosmos really has a sense of humour sometimes.
I thought it was hilarious, anyway. It’s safe to laugh because (after lots of high drama) it was concluded that it probably had only been a wild boar.
How PERFECT is this for the beginning of Venus’ retrograde (a planet of all things femme) in the sign of the lion?! …with some added stationing chaos.
There was the Hollywood strike:
Venus and Leo both have an affinity with creative arts, Leo is the sign most reflective of Hollywood and celebrities, and as the ruler of Libra, Venus seeks justice and fairness.
When Venus moves retrograde, what was previously smoothed over is now disturbed and the discontent emerges more aggressively.
Although it first erupted almost two weeks prior to Venus stationing retrograde (while she was still in her pre-rx shadow), the Jonah Hill-Sarah Brady text message exchange and all the related debates and discourse it catalyzed, continued to spread for several weeks, bleeding toward Venus’ station.
One of the things I found most interesting about this correlation, is how Jonah Hill’s attempt to control what Sarah wore, was one of the central pieces of his emotional abuse discussed online. Venus pertains directly to clothing, adornment and beauty - and especially so in Leo. And of course, Venus is all about relationships and her retrograde can highlight difficulties surfacing in this arena of life.
The most obvious Venus Rx correlation at a global scale has already been deeply analyzed by numerous astrologers, so there isn’t much more I can add to it.
I’m talking about the Barbie movie, released on July 21st!
There are so many correlations surrounding this movie, on so many levels. I admit I have not yet seen it though, so if you are interested in going deeper into an astrological analysis on this topic, I know Chris Brennan covers it several times on his podcast (see the timestamps for this episode, this one, this one, and this one).
However, for all those speculating about whether or not the Barbie marketing team intentionally timed the release date with the beginning of Venus’ retrograde… I’m curious, what astrologer would actually recommend this timing?
Typically launching something within 24 hours of the relevant planet stationing retrograde, is strongly recommended against.
What I find fascinating though, is how well this worked out for the film.
When Venus is moving forward, everything is just peachy.
When she stations retrograde and begins to move backward, her strength and intensity in the sky increases, while her devotion to peace and harmony falls away. What is more important to her now, is honesty, raw vulnerability… and divergent opinions and debates - which is great for a film’s publicity!
Okay, that’s it from me for now!
Many blessings on your Venus post-rx integration chapter!