Venus Turns Ret­ro­grade, July 22 to Sep­tem­ber 3

It seems quite time­ly for our solar jour­ney through Leo this year that we also begin today to expe­ri­ence a won­der-filled oppor­tu­ni­ty to realign our expe­ri­ence of val­ue, beau­ty, and love. Venus turns ret­ro­grade today, turn­ing direct on Sep­tem­ber 3, and mov­ing from the 29^th to the 12^th degree of Leo. Venus ret­ro­grades once every 18 months for around 40 days, so it is one of the rar­er oppor­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed by the “dance of the planets”.

Of course, no plan­et “goes back­ward”, and for an inner plan­et like Venus it is formed by Venus pass­ing Earth, like a rac­er over­tak­ing anoth­er rac­er on the inside track, in her orbit around the Sun. But of course, what you and I need to under­stand is what does this means for us here on Earth; what can we learn or under­stand about our jour­ney from this sto­ry of Venus now?

Venus is the avatar of our expe­ri­ence of val­ue, the ves­sel for your appre­ci­a­tion for the hier­ar­chy of val­ues in your life, hold­ing your expe­ri­ence of all the many forms of beau­ty, and it equal­ly shapes the embod­i­ment for your per­son­al forms of love too. In your own chart, what­ev­er sign Venus is in will hold your expe­ri­ence of your per­son­al val­ues and love.

But for all of us, when­ev­er Venus is mov­ing through Leo as it is now, we are made more aware and sen­si­tive about the Leo expe­ri­ence of and approach to val­ue, beau­ty, and love. Venus in Leo cen­ters our expe­ri­ence of val­ue as being root­ed in our need to love and cre­ate with the divine light of self-ful­fill­ment. We are here to be true to our­selves, and this authen­tic­i­ty is forged and pre­served by your uncon­di­tion­al love for your­self and in your uncon­di­tion­al love for one another.

The ques­tion you are being asked with Venus ret­ro­grade is are you being true and authen­tic? Are you being true to your deep­est nature, so that your per­for­mances, your cre­ations, and your love for anoth­er is gen­uine and anchored in your love of your­self and equal­ly by your respect for one another.

But if your cre­ations and actions are cir­cum­scribed and cal­i­brat­ed so as to gain the approval of oth­ers, when you seek to get the love that you believe you lack, so that you must get it from anoth­er, then you will hear the applause but know it is not for you, and no mat­ter how much they seem to love you, it will not heal your heart.

Venus ret­ro­grade in Leo is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go with­in and see your­self more tru­ly, to love and respect who you are. And then with this under­stand­ing of truth and beau­ty, you will go out and show a greater love and respect to those with whom you share this life. You will stretch your­self to become more of your true self, you will free your spir­it to soar into the as yet unknown heights, and by this you will reveal the love that shines at the heart of one and all. And when you do this, you will be seen and loved for who you are, a spark of the Divine.

What this means is that you will spend the next few weeks reex­am­in­ing your own val­ues, con­sid­er­ing your own means of self-real­iza­tion, of cre­ativ­i­ty and lead­er­ship. And by this you will find that you will equal­ly need to con­sid­er the val­ues you share with oth­ers, the val­ues that you make, share, and live through one anoth­er. The prin­ci­pal ques­tion will be the one of respect, respect for your­self, respect for one another.

From this gift of Venus ret­ro­grade, good rela­tion­ships will get bet­ter, dif­fi­cult rela­tion­ships may be repaired and healed. And for those rela­tion­ships where the bridge of shared val­ues has been erod­ed or bro­ken, it may sig­nal a time for each of you to let go of that form of rela­tion­ship altogether.