• ✰• Venus Retrograde - Passionate Compassion • ✰•

For 40 days and 40 nights, the seductive Goddess of Love and all things beautiful, Venus, is Retrograde from 4th March – 15th April, activating the 5-pointed star she makes in the heavens every eight years.
Currently in fiery, go-getting Aries, Venus is set to return to the more sensitive and bewitching Pisces, the sign of forfeit, forgiveness and the out-of-this-world phantasmagorical. 

This is a challenging retrograde for Venus, due to being in her ‘fall’ in ardent, self-orientated Aries (always a bit tricky in relationship where good connections generally require thinking of others as well). But while Venus is just now in hot pursuit of passionate love, she is also set to return to her finest exaltation, in the more universally aware Pisces, to discover a compassionate, kinder heart. 

This Venus retrograde, with her burden of competitive ego, reveals a not-so-secret addiction to the kind of love where ‘self’ is abandoned into the overwhelming feeling of oneness and unity consciousness a Piscean Venus generates. Reviewing the interconnection with universe, and surrounding oneself by the all-consuming power of unconditional Divine love, with Venus at her exalted degree of 27Pisces, shows how this cosmic kind of love really switches on the illumination button: enlightenment, but without getting seduced by glamour or fooled by illusion which we would call 'spiritual materialism'.

To put this transit into the context of your own personal life-cycle count back eight years, to March 2009. As then, this is another inferior conjunction of Venus with the Sun on March 25th, just days after Spring Equinox, and only one day after a dynamic New Aries Moon! A new day dawns for Venus in her Piscean exaltation, as she lies between Earth and Sun, when cosmic love reigns supreme in all relations – even if it means making a personal sacrifice for the greater good of the whole. 

With ℒℴѵℯ _/✿\_ & thanks to Tashi Mannox for his beautiful ‘PaniStar’_/\_ Within his five-pointed star is painted a mantra of Vajrapani, a powerful Bodhisattva, protector and remover of obstacles, inner and outer. 

We may well need all the help we can get to remove certain stubborn obstacles, specifically those that prevent us seeing the value of self-Love, as Mercury also goes retrograde for the last five days of Venus retrograde to challenge a variety of value systems, of which unconditional Love is the highest. 

Slaying the Ego at the Spring Equinox 2009

The radiant light of the Sun energises the northern hemisphere as from midday Friday the 20^th, with the Spring Equinox, a time of equal day and equal night. The Sun represents one’s identity and is exalted in the sign Aries, a symbol of courage, daring and enterprise. The Sun is also in hard aspect to Pluto, ruthless planet of transformation and renewal. So the challenge of being a true warrior, in the spiritual sense, is sparked wherever you are.

For Plutonic regeneration to take place we must defeat negative forces, and let go of unhelpful habits such as holding onto a wrong view; by doing so we discover previously hidden strengths. With Manjushri’s double-edged sword of truth and logic at the ready, be prepared to slay the ego at the same time appraising self-worth. Admittedly, this is a serious test for anyone. Yet now is the time to raise self-esteem by cutting through the veil of illusion with a fierce kind of grace and separate ourselves from anger, fear, resentment, addictions or anything else holding us back. To stop measuring oneself against others will also bring certain relief. And, besides, there is great bliss to be found in allowing the important aspects of life to flourish, such as personal relationships and creative activities that replenish the soul.