VENUS GOES DIRECT!
April 17, 2009, 12:24 pm PT/3:24 pm ET
The goddess of love and cosmic conduit of the Law of Attraction goes direct today. The Sabian Symbol for her turnaround is:
“A Majestic Rock Formation Resembling a Face is Idealized By a Boy Who Takes it as His Ideal of Greatness; As He Grows Up, He Begins to Look Like it. ”
This symbol is best interpreted by having a look at what my colleague Sabian Symbol expert Lynda Hill had to say in her most recent newsletter:
“This is a wonderful degree of self actualization and realisation. There is little doubt that Nathanial Hawthorne’s story of “The Great Stone Face” was what inspired this Sabian Symbol. In this story, a boy, Ernest, grows up under a wonderful rock formation that resembles a face. The people in the valley where he lives are inspired by this wonderful figure who looks so grand, wise and kind.
“For generations, going back to Indian lore, the people believed that one day someone would come that looks just like that face – someone big, successful, someone to be admired and respected. Over the years, people come into the valley, people who’ve somehow “made it” in life and the villagers would faun over them. Ernest, as he grows up, can see through these people who come by with their big successes and egos.
“It appears he doesn’t so much judge them, more that he sees through their facades. The prophecy of someone manifesting themselves to be just like The Great Stone face appears to be just an empty promise until Ernest, now grown into an older man, is seen by a visiting poet to be the embodiment of those wonderful ideals. The man has grown into those ideals through holding them close to his heart and mind.”
I’m also reminded of the Oscar Wilde story, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” You remember — the handsome man who is vain and cruel is forced to encounter his true self because a painting of him begins to take on the character of ugliness that reflects the true state of his soul.
Venus, among many other things, is aligned with the way in which we define our personal values. Our core system of beliefs is reflected in what we hold most dear and how we project that truth outward into our world. If we believe that success is predicated on the money and objects we possess, our social standing and our looks, we may be in for a rude awakening when confronting reality — the fact that all physical things are subject to the transitory light of human existence.
Fortune rises and falls (look at where the USA economy is now/meditate on the Tarot Card “The Wheel of Fortune”). Because of the natural aging process our looks fade. Over time “things” lose their luster or are outmoded by the arrival of new fashions, fads and trends. Today’s treasures become tomorrow’s trash.
The love goddess shifted to retrograde on March 6, 2009. She’s spent 40 days in retrograde and, like my friend and colleague astrologer Lynda Hill says, this 40 days [of Venus retrograde] is like the holy sage’s wandering in the wilderness to overcome his/her flirtation with temptation.
I’m not talking about the kind of temptations centered around bingeing on peanut butter cookies or splurging on a new pair of earrings. I’m referring to the kinds of temptation that could lead us to sell out our souls for worldly goods; to compromsing our principles just to make him/her “happy”; or into manipulating circumstances dishonestly so that we can get what we desire from people, places or things.
Christ wandered for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and confronted his own shadow (Satan) and was victorious over the lower parts of his nature.
Noah battled floods (unconscious, unintegrated contents) for 40 days and 40 nights and saved earth’s species — the manifestation of life’s diversity — from the darker forces of human greed.
40 is also the number of days Noah’s spies explored the promised land before the settlers were psychologically prepared to enter that new level of consciousness.
40 years is the time it takes for a new generation to grow, mature and step into political and personal power.
So, what was the turning point for us during our time in the wilderness when Venus walked her 40 days of retrograde? What were our encounters with Soul about? What did we confront? What did we learn? Did we regain our perspective on possessions vs. Self-possession? Meaning, if we feel lacking in any way, have we reconciled our inner selves with the truth that the completion of soul isn’t “out there.” It’s an INSIDE JOB.
On a practical level did we take time to redo the budget, renegotiate credit, payment plans, and get our taxes done on time? Did we donate babbles and practicals to our favorite thift store? Donate to our local pet adoption center or walk for our favorite charity? Retrogrades are a time of introspection, but also a time for giving out, letting go, recycling, repurposing, reusing and rehashing!
As we step onto the threshold of re-turning to ourselves alongside Venus, have we given thought to new definitions of beauty, love, elegance, loyalty, magnificence, esthetics*, friendship, social graces, manners, money, magnetism and material manifestation? Have these concepts transformed for you in any new ways?
As we step into late spring, new energy patterns will create opportunities for us to manifest what’s right, beautiful and possible. Right, because who and what our “new” is reflects our soul development. Beautiful because the universal truth is that we are magnificent right where we stand. Possible, because all things are contained in the implicate and explicate order. The ultimate outpicturing of form and substance on the earth plane reflects eternal truth and time as existing simultaneously in the universe.
We all belong and we are needed.
Take some time today to reflect and share on what your experiences and evaluations have led you to conclude from dates of March 6 to April 17th. Then open intuitively and watch what more is revealed from now until May 21-22. That’s the time frame Venus needs to roll back over the same degrees she crossed during her retrograde phase.
By May 22, we’ll be out of what astro wonks call “the shadow period” — past 15-16 degrees of Aries. (The Goddess moves into Taurus, one of her two signs of rulership on May 5-6).
Venus’s retrograde degree (15-16 Aries) Sabian Symbol is:
“Nature Spirits Are Seen At Work In The Light Of Sunset”
The true inner spirit works in concert with natural instinct and inner spirit. The soul flows into a golden sunset where dreams and reflections take comfort so that the psyche can be born anew at sunrise.
Peace and Venus’s blessings to all!
April 17, 2009 – Claudia Starcats
*esthetics – (art) the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty and taste (emphasizing the evaluative criteria that are applied to art); “traditional aesthetics assumed the existence of universal and timeless criteria of artistic value”
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Starcatsastrology's Blog 
Thank you, Claudia. This is a very sensitively written and illustrated article about the Venus Retrograde. What I find most interesting, and may have nothing to do with the Venus retrograde, are the discoveries being brought into harsh light about the torture done in our name and with our tax dollars and justified in some of the most contrived and sickening ways by lawyers in the former administration. Just go to emptywheel’s recent spate of articles to try and fully grasp this repulsive situation. It is contrary to one of our finest hours–at Nuremberg–to the Geneva Conventions, and treaties and understanding to which we are signatories. And yet the torture and lawyerly “justification” if it was done and Obama now wants to “move along” and not prosecute. He’d also told us we do not torture now, but why should I believe that? We’ve been told that before and the results? Torture was done.
Closer to what long ago was home, was this equally horrifying revelation that we may see resolved soon (let us hope so):
http://tinyurl.com/dc7b5t
In summary, while this may be attributable to other transits and so forth in my chart (and I’m an astro dummy, though I try to learn), so far the ending of the Venus Retrograde period has, literally, sickened me. Let’s hope by May 22nd, investigations will have begun and, thus, the horrors revealed with truly be on the way to genuine resolution and healing.
Again, wonderful article you composed, together with the art work that fits perfectly. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for May 22nd. Many thanks.
By: shylurker on April 19, 2009
at 10:01 pm
Thank you for commenting, Shylurker. It is critical that the information you posted gets out there, so I hope that others reading my blog will pick up on your comments and make sure that those in their circle are informed.
The mechanisms of government, institutions and the torture issue are far beyond the scope of my Venus-direct offering. Venus, being one of the personal planets, certainly has a great bearing on a reflection of values as they relate to the USA and international issues.
Keep in mind that Pluto of stealth is opposing the USA’s Venus at 3 Cancer; transit Venus will move back to 0 Aries and square the USA Venus; Mars by transit hooks in as well creating a cardinal T-Square where transiting Mars-Venus up to 4 degrees cardinal will be the release valves. Venus and Mars in Square to Pluto is surely brutal.
Transit Mercury is at 17 degrees Taurus presentlyand by the time it reaches 26 Taurus (new Moon of 4/24 at 6 Taurus) the planet of “knowledge, tricks, information and dissemination” will roll over the Pleiades, or the grouping of Medusa-like fixed stars containing Caput Algol (heads will roll) and Alcyone (grief/something to cry about). The news will be of terror and terrible-ness world wide. But is this surprising?
The nation of Pakistan is set to fall and the USA would like nothing more than to see that take place. Then our forces can rush in, bomb, and use the whole country as a platform from which to control/bomb and otherwise annihilate Afghanistan. So much for Bush getting Bin Laden, eh?
That part of the world is where empires since Alexander the Great go to die, but more on that subject later.
I think the week of April 13 through 17 was a rough one because of Mars’s conjunction with Uranus and Moon conjoined to Pluto on the 15th. There’s a lot of offloading of those aspects still unfolding.
Again, thank you for your comments. Please keep visiting and opining. My blog articles will run from the most personal to the universal and will include a lot of political astrology updates.
Love,
Claudia
By: starcatsastrology on April 19, 2009
at 10:18 pm
Your “Keep in mind . . . ” and “Transit Mercury . . . ” paragraphs just zero right in on what many of us are feeling right now with the revelations about torture assaulting us each day. I guess we are like tiny mirrors reflecting and signaling to each other the pain we all feel has been done to our country by those recently in power and the current appalling lack of interest in rectifying those wrongs, cleaning the slate and then going forward. Thank you ever so much for your brilliant and caring analyses, as always.
By: shylurker on April 19, 2009
at 11:21 pm
Hi Shylurker — I blogged on http://www.rawstory.com re torture, “Then why did we even bother with Nuremberg?” [held from 21 November 1945, to 1 October 1946. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials.%5D
If the proceedings opened at 9:00 am, transiting moon was 22 Gemini, conjunct the USA’s Mars setting off the square to USA Neptune in Virgo. The aforementioned doesn’t mean much w/o consideration of several other charts. Oh, so much astro! So little time!
That being said, it seems that hits to the USA’s Mars bring up very nasty stuff. Transit Saturn is retrograde now, but by the time it reaches 21 Virgo again (and conjoins USA’s Neptune), that Mars will be “upset” again. Uranus by transit has passed the USA Mars degree, but the recent Mars-Uranus transiting conjunction “resonated.”
The USA Mars is actually retrograde by progression for the next 72 years, and sadly I think that’s one of the damage issues for the USA in terms of “the will” to fight for the rule of Law. Transit Saturn will enter Libra late this year (then a brief retro back to Virgo) and eventually hit the USA’s Saturn (another Saturn Return!) then square the USA’s Mars. Harsh, harsh, harsh and Uranus, Pluto moving into square (Aries to Capricorn) means we’ve got a long, dogged slog ahead of us.
We The People are indeed suffering. Our collective psyche has taken up the nation’s Chiron wound (@20 Aries!!).
By: starcatsastrology on April 19, 2009
at 11:50 pm
Very very Nice site. Hello from leotarot.com and congratulations from Spain. I do like your site
By: Tarot on April 21, 2009
at 7:28 pm
¡Gracias y délo la bienvenida a la astrología de Starcats! Visite por favor en cualquier momento.
Thank you and welcome to Starcats Astrology! Please visit anytime. I visited your tarot site and it’s beautiful!
Warm wishes, Claudia Starcats
By: starcatsastrology on April 21, 2009
at 7:54 pm
Very great read. Truely..
By: Harlan Perkins on May 28, 2010
at 12:15 am
Haha am I honestly the only reply to this awesome post?!
By: Myra Richard on May 30, 2010
at 6:24 am