No doubt about it, this one is going to hurt. It’s the “beau­ty meets the beast” time again. When­ev­er Venus has a “hard” encounter with Sat­urn, you def­i­nite­ly feel less val­ued; you feel the lack of love. There is prob­a­bly some prob­lem that has come to a head in a rela­tion­ship; there is a choice to be made that will change it (or end it). But, of course, the real chal­lenge lies with­in you; with your val­ues and self-worth. It real­ly is all about your love of self.

Venus has been in Can­cer since July 4; bathing in the waters of fam­i­ly, nur­tur­ing and doing what feels right. Sat­urn throws down the chal­lenge from Libra; you just can­not do what feels right to you with­out (equal­ly) tak­ing the oth­er into con­sid­er­a­tion. Yes, you should fol­low your feel­ings, but you have to be guid­ed by prin­ci­ples of fair­ness and reci­procity too.

So the prob­lem will appear as if some­one is being too self­ish; they are clam­or­ing for and get­ting their needs met while not acknowl­edg­ing the legit­i­mate needs of the oth­er. Or some­one is just being too rigid about main­tain­ing “the bal­ance” in the rela­tion­ship; they are not being respon­sive enough (spon­ta­neous) when the sit­u­a­tion requires that.

It comes down to a seem­ing strug­gle between emo­tion and rea­son, feel­ings and prin­ci­ples, and nei­ther side is going to be hap­py, and, of course, both are right! So what do you do? The strug­gle and answer, of course, is with­in you. You must strike the right bal­ance, a dynam­ic ever-adjust­ing bal­ance, between your caring/cared for self and your principled/reasoning self. The prob­lem appears “out there” (and it is there in them, most cer­tain­ly), but it is out there so you can face it with­in yourself.

The les­son comes from Sat­urn, he is the shaper here, and so Venus must let go of that less­er, pos­ses­sive, demand­ing and need­ing way of lov­ing so that it can evolve into its truer, high­er expres­sion. If you stay too attached to your famil­iar ways you will not be able to love your­self or anoth­er as you must…uncon­di­tion­al­ly. For that is the only way you can cre­ate the con­di­tions for true love; because then you will con­sid­er and treat your­self equal­ly as you do the oth­er, (because you under­stand “the mys­tery”, that in the oth­er I meet myself). And you will like­wise cre­ate the con­di­tions for the oth­er to return the same uncon­di­tion­al love to you. 

The answer, as always, is to look with­in, to your soul and heart and see the won­der there…It is your shin­ing, star­born self, who is love, and is the guar­an­tor of your ever­last­ing, unfold­ing val­ue in this universe.

And, you are nev­er alone. You are accom­pa­nied on this jour­ney of self-real­iza­tion through rela­tion­ship by a great host of shin­ing ones who seek as do you the answer to that ques­tion, “Do you love me?”

In your heart you will find your answer, and so speak the words of under­stand­ing: “I am that, I am.” (I and thou, we are one).

Love your­self, love anoth­er. Shine on!