Venus Retrograde

Due to a rather busy schedule and a slightly over-enthusiastic appreciation of Stoli and cranberry all-too-recently, this week’s I Am Fabulous will be necessarily brief. To wit, I am shamelessly plagiarising the work of Robert Ohotto, the rather fabulous (and rather hot) intuitive astrologer. Well, I say plagiarising, but quite frankly I’m just going to pass on some sage insights from his newsletter, duly credited. Can’t be too naughty, even when it’s late and I’m on deadline …

For those not up with the astro-lingo, Venus retrograde is the period when the planet that symbolises self-worth, money, relationships and values appears to move backwards in the sky. It’s not actually happening that way – it just looks like it from our viewpoint on earth. When that happens, symbolically we experience what the planet represents through a kind of filter where things seem to be less clear in the outer world and we become more reflective about those issues. It’s a collective experience where we all get a chance to have a re-think and re-focus about who we are and what we value.

Ohotto sets out what’s required of us during this period, saying that this time “demands that you 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 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; or keep valuing your purpose as equating your job though you just lost yours.”

He adds, “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 Aries, 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 inspirations of our soul. It's time to risk for new beginnings and take courage.”

The good news is that this cycle started in early March and will be over by the end of this week, so if you feel like your self-worth has taken a beating during this period you can relax because the finishing-line is in your sights. What would be a total waste, however, is if you experienced all the pain without finding the gift hidden in the dark. So here are a few questions that Ohotto suggests you take the time to reflect upon to gain insight on the issues this period was meant to highlight.

Do your relationships allow you to keep your own individuality to participate in interdependent dynamics of loving yourself and others?

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 kind of experiences do you tend to attract in love relationships? How do you like to be affirmed in relationships? What is your ideal mate like? What archetype would that be defined as and do you play the opposite role in your relationship myths (Like the Knight and the Damsel?)

What do you value most in friendships? Are you finding yourself 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? Have you been scapegoating others with your issues or have others been doing the same to you?

How do you respond to being ignored? Are you currently discovering that 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? What will you sell yourself for? What can buy you? What defines your honor code?

Before Venus starts heading direct again on Friday (which, interestingly enough, is traditionally known as her very own day of the week), make sure you take a few moments to reflect on your experiences with others over the past six weeks and how you’ve dealt with that in terms of your own self-worth. Those experiences – for good or for ill – should also have shown up what’s important to you and how much your life is in alignment with those values. Where it’s out of kilter, get on it – make those changes you know you need to do. Mythologically speaking, Venus is one hot babe, with a pretty clear understanding of her own beauty and worth. A rather fabulous approach worthy of emulation, I’d have thought.

For a little extra inspiration, here’s a translation of the Hafiz poem, Venus Just Asked Me, by Daniel Ladinsky …

Perhaps
For just one minute out of the day
It may be of value to torture yourself
With thoughts like,
"I should be doing
A hell of a lot more with my life than I am
Cause I'm so damn talented."
But remember,
For just one minute out of the day.
With all the rest of your time,
It would be best
To try
Looking upon your self more as God does.
For He knows
Your true royal nature.
God is never confused
And can see Only Himself in you.
My dear,
Venus just leaned down and asked me
To tell you a secret, to confess
She's just a mirror who has been stealing
Your light and music for centuries.
She knows as does Hafiz,
You are the sole heir to
The King.

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