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.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com/. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. The I Am Fabulous archives can now be found at http://fabcentral.blogspot.com/. All material ©2009 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author.

Creative Obstacles

If you feel like you’ve signed up for the hurdle race in life right about now, what if you realised that actually could be the case? The very talented intuitive astrologer, Robert Ohotto, is currently doing promos for his book, Transforming Fate Into Destiny, including posting interviews on YouTube that shed a little light on all sorts of subjects, including creative obstacles and how to discern them from what he calls fated redirections.

Basically, when you run up against problem after problem, how do you know if that’s just par for the course in the grand scheme of things or if each block is a sign trying to redirect you to a path that’s better for you? Thankfully, we now have the Ohotto take on that question, which makes rather good sense. He speaks from a soul perspective, assuming that we sign up for certain fated experiences in our lives to develop the character traits to bring forth our destinies. As he puts it, some people start off in life, hit hurdle after hurdle and begin to give up, thinking they’re on the wrong path, but those hurdles could be exactly what’s required for them. Ohotto imagines that from a higher perspective “God says ‘ You signed up for the hurdle race – what do you think is going to happen? There’s hurdles on the race!’ Hurdles like that are about ‘you’re on the right path’ – it’s part of the race and the journey of life – but you’re going to have to develop the stamina and agility you need to get over that hurdle and keep going.”

He adds, “Creative obstacles aren’t there to stop you, but are there to say you’ve got to buoy up your soul and really work hard to get different character traits ready for the next aspect of your purpose. Fated redirections, however, come up when people are maybe on a path that isn’t intrinsically authentic to them, but believe it is because of a cultural spell or a wound in themselves”.

This is explains one of life’s greater questions – why do so many people go on American Idol if they can’t sing? For Ohotto, the answer is clear – they are acting from an inner wound that perhaps feels like they’ve never been seen, so they chase a larger audience, or they fall under a cultural spell which convinces them that fame is the only answer to the validation they seek.

That rather reminds me of the gloriously vacuous character Suzanne, played by Nicole Kidman in Gus Van Sant’s wonderfully dark film, ‘To Die For’. One of her teenage coterie of admirers remarks “Suzanne used to say that you’re not really anybody in America unless you’re on TV … cause what’s the point of doing anything worthwhile if there's nobody watching? So when people are watching, it makes you a better person. So if everybody was on TV all the time, everybody would be better people. But, if everybody was on TV all the time, there wouldn't be anybody left to watch, and that's where I get confused”. I hear you sister – with that set of values, who wouldn’t be a little mixed up?

In Ohotto’s terms, you get sent fated redirections – rather than life’s usual hurdle race – when you’re chasing a purpose that “really isn’t authentic to the design that you contracted to from the level of your soul”. If it’s a fated redirection, he says “You’ll know because if you get honest with yourself you don’t really have a passion for it – rather you’re going through the shadow, wounded part of yourself to try to get something to make your ego feel healed and better.” The way to discern between the two is whether or not you have a genuine passion for the path you’re on and the life you’re living.

He stresses that life is cyclical and “as we move through life, different creative forces awaken and different passions show up that maybe we never thought we had before. Passion to me is when you connect to something that energises you that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose that makes you want to get out of bed to do, and that somehow allows you to expand yourself and bring something unique about yourself forward.”

Ohotto concludes, “Destiny is born out of honouring the most unique aspects of who you are and serving others through them. Destiny is ultimately about the service we were born to fulfil to other people through the unique aspects of who we are and embodying those unique aspects of who we are in the most satisfying way … Destiny is exploring the mystery of who you are, exploring what you don’t know about yourself, it’s being open to the unseen forces within yourself and allowing them to come out and transform you and other people at the same time. Destiny is never really fully done – just because you’re on a path that seems keeps bringing you obstacles, doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong path necessarily, what it requires you to do is discern what motivates you to do what you do … If you start to go within, that inner pilgrimage, and do the work of sourcing some uniqueness out of yourself into the world that’s when the universe rises to meet you, synchronicities happen right left and centre and the dream becomes much bigger than you thought it would”. Amen to that.

So, this week, take a good look at the hurdles cropping up in your life. Do they feel like road-blocks trying to divert your path or creative obstacles bringing you an opportunity to develop new or stronger character traits? Are you behaving like a classic American Idol contestant in some part of your life, trying to pursue something you have no real talent for? Or are you giving up too soon on something you feel really passionate about? Would you be on the path you’re on if there were no discernible reward in the outside world, ie would you do it without the money or applause? If the answer’s no, what are you genuinely passionate about? These are not times to resign yourself to taking the money – if you want all the synchronicity and help the universe can give, you’d better be engaged in something you really love. Passion is the word this week. Use it wisely.

If you want to see Robert Ohotto talk this concept through, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX7Ty1-ymw4.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com/. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. The I Am Fabulous archives can now be found at http://fabcentral.blogspot.com/. All material ©2009 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author.

State Of The Nation

When you have to talk just about everyone down off the ceiling, you know things aren’t good. We appear to be in a collective mental spin about the state of the economy, due in large part to the prevalent media hype that’s the communications equivalent of putting out the fire with gasoline. Yes, it’s tough out there and in all probability we’re not in for the easiest of times, but dwelling constantly on the worst that could possibly happen is not a healthy approach. Fear drives recession – that’s how runs on banks start, which can throw even prosperous institutions into terminal decline. By all means protect your position, but don’t live in a perpetual cloud of gloom. Well-known millionaires and billionaires have made money in recessions and depressions. For every person who takes a loss, there’s someone out there profiting from it. Don’t assume the worst – it won’t help. And, actually, you’d be missing the point of the turmoil we’re currently experiencing.

On a timely note, an email newsletter from the rather prescient intuitive astrologer, Robert Ohotto, dropped into my inbox today, in which he notes “as the US/world economy crashes and the Earth’s climate changes, it’s becoming painfully obvious that we are at a Fate/Destiny point collectively and individually; which means we are in a Dark Night Of The Ego together at this time and must therefore tend to our collective soul.” If we cannot change the circumstances we are exposed to, we must then seek to discover what changes those circumstances might be trying to provoke.

Discussing the movement of Pluto – the planet of transformation – into Capricorn as an indicator of massive change in our cultural structures as it highlights their murky underbelly, he interprets this as a marker for the need to make a reconciliation with the “shadow of capitalism, corporate business structures, governments, policies and bureaucracies – especially as more earthly resources become limited … Now we must urgently adopt a new approach infused with ethics, holistic thinking and a new model of economy based on renewable resources.” Collectively we’re burning down the house so we can build a better one.

It’s not all bad news as Jupiter, the great benefic, is acting “as an intuitive guiding grace”. However, to take advantage of that grace, we need to be not only receptive to the intuitive inklings we are given, but to take action upon them. He asks “But as with all intuitive guidance, are we ready to listen and take action based on its promptings – which demand risking change – or will we once again become seduced by the cultural spells we’ve been fed and become vulnerable because of our fear?”

For all of our sakes, I hope it’s the former. My deepest intuitive hit on the difficulties we are facing has been for, some time, that those of us who will negotiate them most comfortably will be those who become inner-directed and willing to ignore the prevailing hysteria to live by their own inner wisdom. And by ‘live’, I mean put it into practice and refuse to be swayed by other people’s opinions and be open to allowing your life to be re-shaped in ways you might never have expected. Those of us who hold on tight to the way things used to be could be in for a very rocky ride.

As Ohotto explains, the planets are not causing this economic downturn, they are simply reflections of the archetypal experiences affecting us all. To take it to an individual level, he explains how these archetypes are likely to express themselves in our personal lives, saying “Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn asks us to re-evaluate all of our ambitions in the world and connect them with the concept of service to the whole – the ultimate expression of Capricorn achievement and duty which requires a more meaningful reason to commit our life force to the goals we pursue.”

“I’ve seen many people having to look to developing more confidence (Jupiter) and stamina (Capricorn) to pursue the next phase of their destiny. This includes the development of better boundaries (Capricorn) so that they can expand the possibilities of what they could be meaningfully doing in this life (Jupiter). It also means being willing to face our Fate and call on inner strength to persevere up our mountains. As the old saying goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. Nor was your destiny.”

“I’ve also seen a lot of businesses collapse (as have we all with the economy) because they were based on faulty, worn-out ideas or corrupt ethics … And I’m sure there’s more to come, which will absolutely affect us all. But we must not get caught up in the hype and mistake the symptoms for the cause. It’s our shadow that has brought us to this point and needs more interrogation and subsequent integration. To resent and focus on the teacher is to lose the lesson.”

This week, if you’re in danger of losing the lesson due to generalised anxiety and panic, your first step is simply to calm down. Secondly, be very honest with yourself about changes that you need to make and insights or intuitive hunches you might have been ignoring. Be willing to let go of what no longer fits or is preventing future growth. Comfort zones are an endangered species, so be prepared for change. It needn’t be difficult if you’re not holding on for dear life to something you’ve probably already outgrown.

Engage your intuition as much as possible. That means calming mental panic and stormy emotions by allowing yourself as much peaceful, unstimulated time as you can make available to yourself. Do simple things that make you feel uplifted – buy fresh flowers, take a walk by the river, soak in a hot bath. Water is great for facilitating intuitive thought – it’s instantly calming, whether you’re walking by it or soaking in it.

Kick the addiction to fretting about the worst that could happen. Do all you need to do on a practical level and then have some faith in yourself and your future. If you spent as much time thinking creatively about what you want to happen as you do fretting about things that might never come to pass, you’d be amazed at what you could achieve.

Learn to rest comfortably in not knowing. Yes, times are tricky, but you have a better chance of having them work out for you if you can learn to have faith in a positive future. You might not know exactly how that’s going to come about, but you don’t need to. Trust, follow your intuition and pay serious attention to where your soul is guiding you – not where your personality wants to stay stuck – and you’ll be excited by change, not terrified by it. Let this week be the one where you get in touch with the deeper impulses in your life, not just the superficial ones.

To read the full newsletter by Robert Ohotto, go to http://www.ohotto.com/.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. The I Am Fabulous archives can be found at http://journals.aol.co.uk/iamfabulousco/IAmFabulous. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author.