Tom JacobsFor days I’ve been meaning to write a post on Venus’s retrograde period, but other priorities have come forward. It’s to be expected with Venus stationing retrograde (appearing from our perspective to come to a halt before the retrograde period), as one of the sides of this planet is our value systems or what we find most important.
Maybe you’ve been revamping to-do lists to reflect new thoughts or insights about what needs to be/get done. It also works within relationship, the other side of Venus. Actually, that other side is how we relate more than the people we relate with – they are reflections of our relating style and issues. It’s how we seek to create fairness, harmony, and balance in all areas of life, with relationships with others being the primary vehicles for all of us to learn how to create those things.
In general, Venus’s retros are good for rethinking what’s important and how fairness and equality are working in your life. When it comes to the latter, it can be easy to see others as causing your relationships to function as they do. This retro period is especially important for seeing the truth about how your relationships function and why because it’s taking place in the sign of openness, curiosity, communication, exploration, and making mental connections. Gemini is the part of the zodiac in which we take in new data and make mental connections that – if we let them – can change us.
Newness is a key for Gemini. As you review what’s important and how equality and fairness function in your world during this retro, keep in mind that new information is critical to solving whatever seems problematic. Talking and asking and answering questions here is huge. Also important is remaining open to finding new info and being willing to be changed by it. As the mutable air sign, we do Gemini best when we leave ourselves open to learn and let our perspectives be shaped by a world that, frankly, is filled to the brim with sensory and intellectual information that we’ve never encountered before.
Saturn is still retrograde in Libra, one of Venus’s signs. For a handful of months we’ve been tasked with getting real about how our relationships and relating styles are working and where they get us. We’ve been challenged to roll up our sleeves and look with open eyes at what we want from and expect of our relationships and partners of all kinds. At times we’ve seen that what we want and expect isn’t quite fair to others and, perhaps, that we need to learn to take care of certain things for ourselves that we’ve been holding out (sometimes impatiently) for others to do for us. Saturn’s retro here is all about taking responsibility for how our relationships are going.
If we’re at a loss to make progress in these arenas now, Venus in Gemini as an adviser to that Saturn retro in Libra offers solutions: new info, new ideas, new experiences, new angles, new perspectives, new data, new awareness, new responses.
Venus stationing retrograde in trine to Saturn retroing in Venus’s sign Libra offers the opportunity to bring to a halt certain patterns of thought and communication. When it comes down to it, how your relationships function (and don’t) has everything to do with your thought processes based in expectations of and desires re others and the communication patterns that arise as a result of you believing your thought processes to be true. Venus’s retro in Gemini is the antidote to beliefs you may carry about relationships in that the Gemini way is to change how things work, open up, see the objective truth, and then plot a course change that can serve the needs of the moment.
Flexibility in thought and communication and a willingness to listen to others and see the truth of what’s happening are important tools for this retro.
Saturn will station direct about two days before Venus. This will keep them not in Ptolemaic aspect but in philosophical collusion about the right ways to address relationship issues and move through them with ease and grace.
For the Taurus side of Venus, there is a note to share about how things appear and feel, sensory-wise. Beauty, attractiveness, comfort, and your general sense of groundedness and stability are also going to be affected by Venus’s retrograde invitations to rethink, review, and revisit. You might find yourself wanting to redecorate yourself or your surroundings and you might have encountered warnings not to get your hair cut or buy clothes during this time. The truth is that your perceptions about attractiveness and comfort might be a bit tweaked during the retro. I don’t advise you avoid Venusian things but recognize that when you are drawn to change something, remember that you are now supposed to try some new expressions and sensations on for size. Whatever you want to change when it comes to the sensory or sensual side of Venus would be good to explore as a way of changing up what you’ve done and experienced so far.
Perhaps you’ll find it best not to make final decisions but to explore them – in the spirit of letting Venus’s retro in the sign of new! new! new! – will be important. If you don’t open to new ideas and versions of your sensory and sensual expression, how can you know what might work better for you than what you’ve been doing for years? Take Venus in Gemini as the kind of adviser who brings back excitement to your world even if you’re not ready to commit to anything in the short term. That’s a classic Gemini thing as well as classic retrograde thing – more information might be needed, so best not to pick one expression and commit.
Tom Jacobs is an Evolutionary Astrologer, Medium, and Channel helping you understand and do what your soul came here to do and give you insights into and tools for healing and making it happen. Ten books, two original natal reports, and numerous astrology and channeled MP3s are available through tdjacobs.com. Join Ascended Master Djehuty for a Full Moon Grounding & Release call for the Sagittarius Full Moon to release beliefs you no longer need so you can be more fully present and in compassionate charge of your life.