Venus's Final Act

10.11.07


Please don't misjudge the title of this article…

Venus isn't departing permanently from our presence, to eternally deprive us of love and beauty and money and art, in some epic refiguration of our entire solar system.

But she is finally (finally!) making her very last moves that'd qualify as part of her crazy last-few-months' retrograde-etc. performance… bringing to an official end her latest lessons on properly and accurately valuing the relative importance of certain relationships (to people, and also to things) in our lives.

On Saturday (Oct 13), Venus makes her third conjunction to Saturn in just over three months—and with it, she expects us to draw the appropriate lines in the sand, indicating we've chosen to take the right relationships even more seriously and shut the wrong ones defiantly out.

Either our dynamics with particular people are beneficial to our overall well-being, or they're toxic distractions. Either our particular financial dealings are boosting our bottom-line, or they're draining us dry. Either we appreciate something or someone, or perhaps we wish we did but, in actuality, don't. The time for reconsideration, reconciliation or other such second-guessing has come and gone.

When Venus first conjoined Saturn in July, the two planets were in Leo… challenging us to stay true to our hearts, our authentic creative selves, and that which fires up our vital signs. Since then, we bore six weeks of Venus retrograde, after which point we (hopefully) reached a clearer understanding as to our preferences in these heart matters once Venus returned to direct motion. Meanwhile, Saturn slipped into Virgo, with added emphasis from a solar eclipse in the same sign, prepping us to make practically-minded choices for greater efficiency, health and categorical neatness.

And now Venus, at last leaving her retrograde shadow behind, returns to meet Saturn again—this time in Virgo, where she feels totally justified in being extra-finicky, fussy and hypercritical about the details. Ordinarily, I caution about this Venus placement (as I did during its brief visit a couple months back) because it can make us too fixated on the small shit to notice the general competence in our modes of relating. However, in light of the Saturn conjunction and Venus's recent history, it's obvious we are now supposed to be ultra-discriminating in where we apply our affections. The small shit does matter. The seemingly minor problems can't be overlooked.

To ignore the list of logical prerequisites and probable real-world problems, for total dependence on some pleasingly romantic (if not dangerously rose-colored) notion of 'love conquers all' or 'do what you love and the money will follow', would be a mistake. At least that's what Venus-conjunct-Saturn-in-Virgo would have to say about it. This pairing demands to test skills, check references, and administer full-body examinations before signing on any dotted lines.

Looking back over the past four months, Venus is taking her final stand for the time being. She's given us every opportunity to learn more about her desires. She's dipped and swerved and bent, allowing us to test her boundaries and confirm her allegiances. Now she means business.

In or out. Yes or no. Allot the suitable amount of energy, and get on with it. But do it wrong, and you're eating up your limited resources with the wrong commitments. Now's your chance. Fix it, or it'll fix you into place—and after a while, the blisters will begin to worsen.

Onto something else…