Venus, Oh Venus!

Venus went direct on September 3 after 40 days in retrograde motion. The Goddess of Love and Beauty still occupies the romantic sign Leo so the terrain is the same, but more future oriented. Venus zips around the zodiac pretty quickly, so sign changes or changes in her motion are pretty common. BUT this year is different.

The differences center on the nodes of the Moon - the place where our emotional memories and aspirations touch the plane of human existence. The South Node of the Moon represents a place where we have experience, but are not satisfied with our performance of that experience. It may have hurt, we may not have performed up to our expectations or just hit a brick wall we couldn't get past. The North Node represents an aspirational place we could not reach through our previous experience and it represents a cure for the yearning or ills of the South Node..

From December 20, 2021 to July 13, 2023, Venus ruled the aspirational North Node in Taurus. She was the cure for the longing of the Scorpio South Node. She lit the way to peace and balance after the storm and complexity of Scorpio. On July 13, the Nodes shifted to South Node in Venus-ruled Libra and the North Node to the sign Aries. In other words, Venus went from being the solution to being something that needs a re-boot! It seems that the cure represented by Venus when it was in Taurus was only a partial solution. We may be finding that the Peace of Venue in Taurus had a price that was too high or too unrealistic.

Ten days after the Nodes changed signs, Venus turned retrograde in Leo - going over old ground in the romantic sign of Leo. Maybe old relationship issues surfaced or an old flame came back. Usually, that is unfinished business, and the flame often leaves as quickly as the retrograde does.

Venus will travel through each of the 12 zodiac signs - sometimes twice - while she governs the South Node. Venus will take on the "flavor" of each sign she passes through. While the Venus terrain is relationship, the changing signs are "how" this energy will manifest. The area Venus touch in your own chart is often where you are dissatisfied with the status quo. On October 10, Venus moves into the discerning sign of Virgo. Where Virgo falls in your chart will be the focus ofVenus' need for a "do-over."

Old habits die hard, but die they must, so we can move to the Aries ground of standing up for who we are. Courage, not compromise. Assertion, not passive aggression. We cannot enter a partnership fully until we know who we are - Aries.

The rulers of the Nodes, Mars and Venus, are the love planets. The next 16 months will help us know who we have allied ourselves with and where we are unwilling to compromise who we are for the sake of that alliance.