posted November 05, 2010 07:33 AM         

Venus and the Art of Self-Referencing Your Needs!

Our Cycles of Fate and Destiny - Venus Retrograde

If you've been feeling emotionally confused, unsure of some friendships, wanting to leave a relationship, feeling disconnected from your sexuality, or like others don't seem to care about your needs - well I've got news for you! Don't worry, you're not crazy...it's simply time to re-evaluate your needs and values in your relationships, and look at how your relationships mirror the way you value yourself...yes folks, Venus is Retrograde!

For those of you who tuned into my radio show last week you already got a healthy dose of my Venus Retrograde medicine and here's some more! To get us all on the same page let's first start with what Venus Retrograde is and a refresher regarding my philosophy with Astrology.

Astrology as a Tool - Keeping it Real

Imagine that before you were born your cosmic soul decides that, out of the numerous planets in the universe available, it wants to experience a creative journey on planet Earth. (Think about that for a minute-have you ever considered that this may not me the only planet you can come to? Or have you always just assumed that you only keep coming back here? It's a massive universe folks!)

Having decided that Earth school looks good this time around necessitates that your soul first meet with what I call 'Earth Guardians.' These Beings tell you that if you are going to incarnate onto this planet, your soul must fuse with certain creative patterns and cycles that are already managing creation down here as part of your journey.

Said another way, you incarnate into a certain historical context and time's march forward by birthing at a precise moment on Earth's timeline of evolution and creation. Yet, how have we come to understand and determine time on Earth as human beings?

The determination and creation of our modern concept of time began with ancient cultures, most notably the Babylonians, observing celestial and solar movements, the lunation cycle, and the seasons. Eventually this evolved and consolidated into a rich and elaborate way of seeing time as a cyclical, divinely designed, and archetypal process.

Yet, as the rational mind took hold thousands of years later causing a divorce between astrology and astronomy, as well as a separation of the archetypal, intuitive, mythic mind and literal/logical mind, we lost touch with seeing the cycles of the planets and stars as being imbued rich meaning; a communication of sorts from the Gods that elucidates a divine plan and our role within that plan.

So though many may now only see time via calendar years, seasons, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds; esoterically there exists a deeper soul beneath time's passage that archetypal astrology, properly understood, speaks to; especially when it comes to discerning the unfolding of our purpose here on Earth.
That said, as we look together at this moment in time, astronomically we can observe that the planet Venus appears to be going backward in the sky because of her orbit and the Earth's orbit around the Sun creating the phenomenon of retrogression-which is the apparent backward movement of Venus in the sky. Venus isn't really going backwards, it just looks that way, but if we understand astrology as a way to interpret synchronicity then this means something! First let's look at Venus as an archetype to find out what this means.

The Archetypal Venus

Understanding Venus as an archetype is essential to intuiting what her cycles of retrogression mean for us. Furthermore, we must also take a look at her mythic origins, and to do this we must go back to her predecessor, the Greek Aphrodite, which gave rise to this Roman Goddess.

If you study the Greek myths of Aphrodite, you will begin to discover that, as the Goddess of love, she was not interested in loving others through a victim or savior mentality. She wasn't interested in mothering or rescuing anyone, rather she was most desirous of partners who allowed her to experience her own pleasure and beauty through them. Similarly the Venus in us seeks affirmation by having our reflection mirrored back to us by another--through relationships.

Relationships are the means of self-discovery for Venus -- in terms of her essential worth. So, there is a healthy narcissistic element to our beloved Venus; after all, she was a vain Goddess (I'm just sayin'!). The darker aspects of this archetype, which manifest when it is blocked, are quite noticeable in our current culture ethos.

If we can't affirm ourselves and live congruent to an internalized sense of our true value, we are more prone to leaving our center and soul to attain more surface levels of affirmation; while identifying with surface values.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what do we do when the eyes of our beholder do not see our beauty? What if our own eyes do not see our beauty? How do we affirm ourselves? How do we define what beauty is? These are some questions this Venus Retrograde brings up in very specific ways via the archetypes of Scorpio and Libra (more on that later.)

Beauty is itself an archetype, and is often found in what we value the most in life. Yet, Venus doesn't operate in alignment to a social or religious ethic in terms of values and beauty, her ethics and aesthetic can only be truly grasped when one has found the lover within.

Venus acts as a vessel for our life force that translates the raw power of our spirit into a fundamental life affirming value set that guides how we love ourselves and others. Still, there are many people who seem to align themselves with a false Venus, one that is not intrinsically connected to their authentic values, but is, instead, a religious and/or socio-culturally conditioned and adopted response to life masquerading as values. How many of us can really differentiate between what we've been told we should value vs. what we authentically do value?

In that regard, I must reiterate that we live in a cultural ethos bereft of an authentic feminine Goddess energy. Most notably, we have lost touch with Venus, this beautiful Goddess of self-affirmation through sensuality, embodiment, relationships, and pleasure; you sure don't see that in The Virgin Mary! How many people do you know that can really articulate and own what turns them on? Can you? Why not?

Sexuality indeed falls under the province of Venus, though not as a procreative act (the Moon) or need to dominate another (Mars) per se, rather a way to experience our own embodiment and pleasure. In becoming integrated in mind, body, and spirit we must connect to our senses, bodies, and the Earth. As a culture we have barely grasped the deeper spiritual elements of sexuality, let alone let ourselves openly experience how it can affirm our lives, something the Kama Sutra sought to elucidate.

Venus is the archetypal force that urges us to discover and identify what we value and give form to that through personal choices, thus laying the foundation of our authenticity. Our choices in love, beauty, and life are often the real evidence of what we value most and least in life--values are what we live, not necessarily what say we believe. So, do you value yourself? Does it show in your choices every day? How?

With these questions, and some of archetypal principles outlined, we are now moving toward the themes of this Venus retrograde, and the questions that we should be asking ourselves during this time.

Venus Retrograde in Scorpio/Libra
October 8th-November 18th

Venus goes retrograde about every 564 days - which is about every year and a half, and then stays retrograde for approximately forty days. That said, on October 8th Venus appeared to stand still in the sky, and then began to move backwards in the early degrees of the zodical sign Scorpio.

Take a moment and think about what was going on in your life then, and what has transpired since then that is relative to the archetypal energy of Venus that I've already mentioned. What issues surfaced two weeks or so ago that dealt with love, affirmation, money, emotional resources, values, and expression of your sexuality?

As she went retrograde, Venus was wearing a Scorpio garment which means she first began her retrograde alchemy by instructing us to begin a deep process of going into our shadow to discover the unconscious emotional terrain (Scorpio) that sabotages our essential sense of worth in the area of relationship models, values, and inner integrity.

Scorpio is an archetype that in part deals with the ways in which we try to control life and others to defend against our emotional vulnerability. It also relates to the esoteric understanding of psycho-spiritual-emotional fusion that one can experience via sex. When sex is looked at through the eyes of Scorpio it is anything but casual and has to power to unleash your hidden ego fears that keep you from truly connecting with another.

Scorpio also has much to do with our shared sense of integration with another's psyche which means we must look at how we are integrated to someone's unfinished business, fears, control/power issues, self-sabotage, subconscious programming...all that good shadow stuff!

That said, this Venus Retrograde in Scorpio means that YOU must look at how being connected to someone else's psychic energy affects you. Furthermore, you must identify what fears and unconscious motives keep you anchored in another's psychic patterns and resources. Then to emancipate yourself from this toxic connection, you must learn how to 'self-reference' what your needs internally are...

Self-Referencing

Check this out: When we are born initially our parents (most notably our mother) are our entire world. We know that if mom's happy then we're going to be fed, hugged, clothed, and loved - we are going to survive! The reality is that most of us are wired to 'feel' our parents from the time we arrive on Earth as a survival skill.

And if we felt they weren't too happy most of the time we internalized it as our fault because we lacked awareness and skills to help us understand that whatever was going on with our parents had nothing to do with us. So as a survival strategy we were constantly 'referencing' their needs so we could get ours met!

Yet, unconsciously we were saying to ourselves, "If mommy and daddy are happy, then I will be taken care of, so I better be 'good' so that I make them happy. Then they will love me and I will be ok."

Now then, we eventually become adults right? And guess what happens? We end up transplanting the same pattern onto the rest of the world, most notably our most significant relationships. Check yourself, do you still constantly ask others if it's ok to have your needs met, if it's ok to have needs at all? Are you really able to go out into the world and say, "Hey everyone, these are my authentic needs in intimacy, sexuality, boundaries, relationships, and self-care?"

The truth is few among us have mastered this and even for those who got it down to a greater degree; it's forever a work in progress, why? Because our needs and values are meant to evolve and change as we grow! This means that advocating for our needs and boundaries is always done day to day in the moment.

You must come to know what is personally right and wrong for you as you continue to mature into your authenticity and how that is measured against the values that society and culture feeds you daily. Thus, this retrograde period brings with it a time during which we all must reassess where in our lives our values are in need of refreshing.

I think it's important to recognize the ways we are continually told by our media and culture that we should continue to find value in the same thing for the whole of our lives. For example, we are told to keep valuing our youth and fight aging; keep valuing your affiliation with a political party-even if they prove themselves unworthy of your allegiance via corrupted values; keep valuing your wedding vows, though they were taken by an older version of yourself that has grown beyond them; keep valuing the stability of your job though it has become claustrophobic.

If only the psyche were that static! The soul is here for experience, not security. And our values should change as we age and mature, no? What one held in esteem in their 20's hopefully isn't the same when they are in their 50's.

Each Venus Retrograde asks us to take forty days and deeply look at our values and their relevance to our soul's current needs in a certain area of our life. And with Venus currently retrograding back in Scorpio and soon Libra, the discord we may be feeling signifies the amount of distance that has formed between our ego and the fundamental core passions, values, and higher creative aspirations of our soul.

That said, I want to help you ascertain where this retrograde might most apply to you. What follows are some questions to help you work with the energy of this cycle productively.

Questions to help identify your Venus Retrograde in Scorpio/Libra themes:

What affirms your life and gives you a sense of personal value, fulfillment, beauty, and pleasure? What do you find attractive? What turns you on? Are these things being challenged for review?

What are the ways in which you adorn yourself to feel beautiful? How do you feel about your body? Do you take time for your looks? What is your style of dress reflect about you?

What kind of experiences do you tend to attract in love relationships? How do you like to be affirmed in relationships?

Are you constantly asking others if your needs are ok to have instead of self-referencing your needs? Do you even know what your authentic needs are? Do you manipulate others to get your needs met? Do others manipulate you to accomplish their agendas?

What would it mean to be in your power and own your needs? Can you be honest with yourself about the folks in your life and their inability to meet your needs? Instead of trying to make them change, can you simply and silently walk away?

What do you value most in friendships? Do your current friendships empower and reciprocate you? Do you feel your friends value your needs?

Are you competitive and jealous of others that seem to possess what you feel you lack or would like to have? How do you manifest that urge? How do you respond to being ignored? Do you need a lot of external attention to validate your own worth?

Are the choices you make in life in alignment with your values? Or do they betray what you say you value and reveal something else?

What do you consider to be your worth? How do your choices reflect your self-esteem?