Venus Approaches Her Underworld Gate

The Moon was new on September 9 at 17 degrees Virgo, which happened in conjunction with the Sun's annual opposition to Neptune, currently in Pisces, its home sign. This continued the theme of the last Full Moon in Pisces.

To review: Virgo is the energy of dedicated focused and efficient work on the earth plane in order to better and improve things, to make everything function as optimally as possible. Virgo is the archetype of human intervention, as a part of God's plan. Neptune/Pisces represents God, nature and anything from our primordial beginnings, including where we came from and where we will return to when we shed our human skins and return to the cosmic womb.

The combination of the Virgo and Pisces archetypes balances work with inspiration, and develops immunity through being exposed to raw, untamed, dirt (vs the problems of over-sterility). It needs emotional stability, a healthy lifestyle and a proper diet to avoid anxiety, poor sleep and allergies. This has been the theme for the last few weeks.

Saturn, our great Taskmaster stationed direct on September 6, and will leave its station degree on October 1. As a result there is a marked Saturnian flavor to things right now. It may feel like a big squeeze of limitations, or perhaps like you are shouldering a heavy load, or are lacking confidence and optimism. It's a deep stirring of Saturn's Capricornian cauldron that has been cooking since Winter Solstice of last year. It's a reality check that shows you where you are. If you're not happy with the reflection, use it as a springboard for greater alignment in your life as that will promote more success.

Saturn made it as far as 9 degrees before turning retrograde in mid-April, then retraced its steps back to 2 degrees Cap. This reconnects us to what was going on in our lives in the first couple weeks of January of this year. Soon we will move forward and shake off the sluggishness and heaviness of the station, and then Saturn will join Mars and Mercury as freshly cleansed planets with shiny new agendas for us. That combo means that its time to be impeccable with our actions and our words. So mote it be.

This week starts out with the Moon in Capricorn which immediately conjuncts Saturn on Monday morning on the west coast. As Saturn rules Capricorn, this is a double signature that may make Monday feel even more Mondayish. The tactical approach is to go for the hardest things on your to-do list. Crossing things off the list, or at least making progress will help relieve some of this pressure. With the Moon in Capricorn, there is a need for healthy emotional boundaries and balance between processing your emotions and putting that process aside in order to face life's challenges. There can be themes of natural timing and maturity vs immaturity under this signature. Ultimately, this combination is fostering emotional strength and fortitude, and good timing.

By Tuesday morning (west coast), the Moon is approaching Pluto, always a noteworthy day each month as emotions can become Turbocharged and anything under pressure could potentially blow. Do your best to stay grounded and if you need an emotional release to rebalance your emotional body, don't resist, just try and not take it out on anyone.

The focus is now on Venus who entered Scorpio just before the New Moon. She has entered her retrograde shadow and is in the sign in which she will begin retrograding.

Like Mars, Venus only goes retrograde once every couple of years. and in its full 8 year cycle, creates an incredible star pattern. The loops are created by the retrogrades and progrades.

It turns out that the planet of love and beauty makes a perfect star shape! This brings to mind things that are associated with Venus, such as apples, each one containing a magical star shape within, determined by the seed pattern created from the 5 petaled flowers. Because of this, apples are considered to be ruled by Venus and are used in love magic.

Venus entering Scorpio has formed an opposition to Uranus in Taurus, both squaring the Nodal Axis and warrior Mars.

Themes abound around body, sexuality, passion, emotions, and freedom.

Uranus in Taurus is teaching us to elevate our self-worth and self-love. The primary function of Venus in Scorpio is emotional union that is composed of two individuals. How healthy the self-esteem of each individual tells you what kind of an emotional union will result. Good self-esteem creates healthy unions, low-self-esteem creates codependency and manipulation. This is a powerful opposition. It is introducing themes that will be revisited during Venus's retrograde just before Halloween. The current squaring of the nodal axis tells us that it's deep emotional work that is a collective assignment. During the Mars retrograde this summer, we contacted our own needs and got to find out where we needed space and possibly felt conflict in our dealings with others. There may have been separations, which are very natural to Mars. Now we turn to the theme of relating in the deepest ways.

Venus in Scorpio is a profound encounter with emotional evolution, growth, and change through relationship. The mechanism is that you come together, emotionally and sexually and for a time it's great, the attraction is strong, and there is growth. Then it begins to wane; someone is growing more than the other, there is something now lacking. This is painful because it means that the magnet holding the relationship together has weakened. There now needs to be soul searching and more growth and change to find where and what the blocks are to allow the intensity and the free flow of emotional fusion to return. Sometimes the fuel has been consumed, and we cannot strengthen the magnet, in which case the relationship will likely end. There is no room for illusion with Venus in Scorpio, the reality of where the relationship is at must be faced. This is painful, but it promotes growth like no other signature.

The typical path for Venus in Scorpio is to go down into the underworld to confront the lack and then to return to a higher level than the place of origin. The intensity of the descent depends on the individual. This all applies to a standard, non-retrograde Venus in Scorpio passage, but this one will be an official journey into the underworld. This will be a big time for all emotional and sexual relationships. The masculine Mars retrograde laid certain things bare, and now the feminine Venus retrograde will take us into the very center of our emotions. If things aren't feeling right, if the magnet has weakened, then its time to do a deep dive, soul-retrieval to regain our power to choose who and what we want. Skin shedding will be required. Venus enters the retrograde station on September 29 and officially flips direction on October 5. Between now and then we are in preparation mode. More to come on this soon.

This is our last week of Virgo as we approach the autumnal equinox. Get all that solitary deep cleaning out of the way to make way for incoming, social, Libra.

Sending love and light,

Paetra Tauchert, Astrologer

PaetraTauchertAstrology.com