Venus Retrograding Through Aries
Art: Crying Woman by Gustav Klimpt
Not attracting the hullabaloo of her mercurial neighbour, it is easier to overlook the obvious, significant effect of Venus Retrograde on our lives and loves. Our Lady Venus has been in retreat since early March - following a scented heads up late January - and mid April sees her official re-emergence.
Retrogrades always beg deep consideration and eventual revisioning of what we thought we knew. They follow a necessary trajectory of dip and then rise, confusion that leads to clarity. Venus was retro in Aries first, an energy that can seek conquest over connection. Our need to temper our desire to win or to dominate or to just get our way was sorely tested (and then magnified by the ongoing Jupiter Pluto Fight Club). Barriers to connection were all lit up. It is far easier to sit in righteous anger and ignore the sea of sadness whose tides ever pull at us from below. Our challenge was to seek the deeper understanding that can be borne of conflict, a rocky path whose soft shoulders too easily gave way to the abyss.
Venus pushed through this fiery gate to the surreal and the serene once she entered Pisces only days ago, effectively bringing two distinct energies to her retrograde: dual arms for the revolution of our heaving hearts. Exalted in these shimmering waters, Venus in Pisces is visionary and tender, bringing with her a desire for peace, evolution and deep true love.
Snuggling up to Chiron here, our wounds cry out to be released. We have arrived here battered and bleeding, with little hope of miracles or happy endings. And yet it is now that the tears can flow freely as we first hold ourselves here, safe in a lattice of understanding and compassion.
Now is the time to tear up the ancient scripts and kiss goodbye the old ways that have never proven themselves to you anyway. Let them spill from your eyes, pour from your trembling hands and heart. These tears will leave traces of gold in their wake, showing the way to a deeper, truer love in every sense.
Obey their flow.
Tears are a river that takes you somewhere. Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Words c. Kerrie Basha 2017