Venus Retrograde: Dancing with the Dark

Greetings friends and neighbors, I haven’t written a blog in a long time but I felt the call with the powerful cosmic influences as of late. It seems this month started out with a heightened level of intensity, as Venus stationed retrograde on October 2nd to begin her underworld journey, when she descends lower and lower in the early evening sky before disappearing completely for nearly 2 months before transforming into a bright morning star. As Venus stationed in our evening sky, last week, I imagine many of us felt the call to action of the goddess of beauty, desire, partnership, and our core values., the call to go deeper, earlier in the week.

There were a number of planetary aspects last week that were a bit jarring, a bit intense, inviting a journey below the surface to truly begin to connect with what we value, what is OK and what is not OK. Mercury entered Scorpio at the beginning of the week, and The Divine Messenger, was not playing around. Information was brought in to the collective consciousness that many of us could not ignore.

I'm not gonna lie, it was incredibly triggering to witness a news cycle filled with stories of women being hurt, violated and betrayed, refusing to die and digging up old stories to re-investigate. I spoke to a number of women throughout the week who really felt a charge from bearing witness to such heavy information. Perhaps their own wounds and triggers came up. I know mine did and while arguably the news is always pretty terrifying and inflammatory, there was something about this messaging that took me down in a number of ways. And so… well… I went with it.

And Venus in Scorpio isn't playing around either. Scorpio wants honesty, intimacy and depth. And honestly, y'all, it felt a little scary as Venus made that station, and it really caused me to honor the power of the planetary station itself as the herald of sorts to what this Venus process is inviting. Venus will continue Dancing with Darkness in other ways as she makes a couple more aspects to Pluto through the rest of the year, inviting us to go through the initiatory process to understand and perhaps even claim our power and own what we truly value and desire.

The Venus retrograde cycle often is correlated with the mythic tale of the ancient Sumerian goddess Inanna or Ishtar. We liken this 40-day perceived retrograde journey of our planet of values, relationships, likes and dislikes to this mythic story, one: because our ancient ancestors did and two: because we often find that a retrograde Venus period gives us the opportunity to strip down and go below the surface, to really honor what we desire and want to partner with, what our authentic values are.

I have really been engaging with the myth in an enlivened and participatory way through this particular Venus retrograde. The underworld theme feels particularly appropriate with Venus in Scorpio forming her last Venus Star Point in Scorpio of our lifetime. Though I am a bit of a novice in some ways with the whole Inanna myth, fascinating though it is,  I have found the stories of “Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth" by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer to be very helpful, classic interpretations of the myth. So I'm going to attempt to share a bit of it here along with what it has awakened and inspired so far.

In the myth of Inanna's descent to the underworld, there's a key starting point where she puts her ear to the ground and hears the call. Her sister, Ereshkigal, is suffering greatly after the loss of her husband, and Inanna tunes in, so to speak, and knows she must travel below to be with her sister.

And if Inanna is the goddess of love and beauty and desire, and also war — we can get to that another time — her sister represents this feminine rage and pain and torment that is the other side of the traditional sweet and pretty or culturally appropriate feminine, Venusian archetype. She's been through some ****. 

And so Inanna listens to the invitation. She knows she can't stay above ground. She knows she has to go below.

She then suits up, so to speak. She adorns herself. She prepares herself for this journey to uncharted territory, to uncertain and scary terrain. She's got her lapis lazuli and her sacred jewelry, and she is ready to dive below the surface and meet what lies before her, to bear witness to the rage of her sister.

 I love how Chani Nicholas spoke of Inanna's sister, Erishkagal,  as this necessary mirror to what Venus is often performing. Because while we acknowledge the gifts and power of beauty, the sexuality of Venus, the desire nature of Venus, the aesthetic pleasantness and the symmetry that Venus invites, we can abandon the ugly and grotesque part of ourselves and each other. The part that bleeds every month for decades of our lives, that endures the pains of childbirth if so called, that offers her body for new life, the part that has suffered and is enraged at how the feminine has been perceived, marginalized or objectified in our culture.

And we can't just play nice all the time.  We can’t just pretend everything is OK when it isn’t.

At the beginning of last week, as Venus was preparing to station retrograde, pause in the sky, and begin her decent to the invisible realm, I don’t know about y’all but I felt a literal buzzing, a call, an invitation to do my own sacred work below the surface.

And I'm not pretending it's been comfortable. At all.

Anyway, back to Inanna.

She suits up. She adorns herself with her Venusian jewels and garments and whatnot but she quickly discovers that once she descends, once she chooses to go to the underworld, she's taken through seven gateways where she is systematically stripped of every protection and adornment. You could consider the stripping of adornments and protections as correlating to the ideas or fantasies or spiritual bypass we construct to avoid what we don’t want to face. The perfect relationship that doesnt exist, "I'm being too sensitive", "if I just lose weight I will be loveable". Inanna is brought naked and lowered to the depths of the Underworld.  Even the Goddess of Heaven and Earth must strip down and bow to her enraged twin self, showing us the way.

Perhaps Erishkagal is triggered by her own opposite, a projection as well and fixes the Eye of Death upon her.  Inanna is strung up and left to hang naked , a corpse, total surrender, death. She is told she cannot return from this death of self.

But, y’all, listen,  Inanna was so clever and powerful. She knew that in order to do this honest, real healing work, she needed to make sure she had the help and support of a friend, right?

So she tells her bestie, Ninshubur, “Listen, I'm going on this journey, and I don't know if I'm going to come back. And I need you to hold the space for me. It’s really heavy, sis and  I need you to be in spirit with me while I'm down there. And if I don't come back, call in the helpers, make those prayers, play the drums, appeal to the gods, and come get me, because we need each other.”

It’s true that when we enter into those dark and scary spaces that sometimes we have to go alone but I pray all of you have that friend or counselor or safe person to support and back you up when you are brought down below. And if you don't, put that on your Venus retrograde list.

So when Inanna did not emerge after three days in the underworld, Ninshubur was like, “Uh-oh. We gotta get my girl.”

She begins to play the drums to call in the helpers.

And what I find quite interesting about this myth is that she appeals to Inanna's fathers, these masculine figures in her life, right? She goes to two of her father figures, so to speak, and she says, “Hey, you know, we gotta help Inanna. She is in the underworld and she can't return without our help.”

But both Enlil and Anu did not have compassion for Inanna's suffering. The myth says they felt she had no business going to the Underworld and getting herself in trouble.

When I feel into this it feels like a victim blaming of sorts. A trauma occurs,and many times these masculine figures we want to support us say, “Well, what was she doing going down there anyway? Why was she walking in a dark street at night? What was she wearing? Why did she put herself in that situation?”

Finally, Ninshubur went to a third Father God, Enki, and he had compassion for both Inanna and Erishkagal.

Enki had a great idea, and this is a really, really important part, I think. This feels like such a sacred healing opportunity for the sacred masculine and feminine wounding. He made these two little figures out of clay called the Kurgarra and Galatur. He spoke and breathed life into them and he said, “Go to Ereshkigal, and when you hear her crying and screaming and wailing and being so vulnerable and so exposed and in such suffering, mirror her. Bear witness to her, and perhaps she will return Inanna.”

And so these little beings, these little clay beings, went down to the underworld, and they see Ereshkigal, and she screams, “Oh, my insides!” 

And they say, “Oh, your insides.” 

She cries, “Oh, my outsides!” 

And they say, “Oh, your outsides.”

She screams, “Oh, my belly!” 

And they say, “Oh, your belly.”

Just pause there. Take that in.

She goes on and on, and she screams of her pain, and they simply validate it. She is listened to.  She is seen.  She is believed.

You know, they simply honor her story and her wound: 

"We see that you are suffering. There's nothing we can do to take this away or change it, but we can hold the space. We can be here for you in this."

And Erishkigal allowed Inanna to return (under some interesting conditions we can discuss another time )

Honestly, there is such powerful energy in receiving this kind of support and validation from the Sacred Masculine and the men in our life. This retrograde period really is an alchemical opportunity to heal with each other if we are I'm just going to have to come back to it but I feel like we made a good start Take this what are you doing What are you doing willing to strip down and go deep. 

I feel like this is the super juice of what this Venus retrograde can really offer in terms of the interpersonal and collective.

Oftentimes, women feel so abandoned, betrayed, violated, abused by the patriarchy, by actual men, by their family, etc. And so often, you know, when we hear of the suffering of a woman, there can be this whole questioning of, “Why did she do it? Why did she walk down that dark street? Why did she go to the underworld?” You know, “Why was she there? OK. What was she wearing? How is this her fault?”

We see this again and again to sort of bypass the deeper piece here: the call to hold space for the feminine that has been abandoned and betrayed and violated for millenia.

And so, for me, I really can see this opportunity for men to mold something, to create a space, an inlivened and divine container, to just acknowledge the pain.

You know, Enki wasn't taking the blame for this suffering. He wasn't making it about him. He wasn't judging Inanna for going down where she shouldn't have been in the first place. He created these beings to literally acknowledge that sometimes there is pain that is so big that all you can do is witness it.

And, you know, I have connected with some amazing men over the past week as there's this real collective trauma, this rape-culture trauma, that has been rising. I am watching how we co-participate with this aspect of the myth as they have been able to hold the space, acknowledge the darker side of the feminine experience. Just being able to listen and acknowledge is really what the transformative, Scorpionic or Plutonian, Venus experience is inviting.

And I really do encourage averyone, regardless of gender to go within at this time. Venus retrograde can be such a powerful time to strip it all down, reflect on our relationships, review how we have partnered in the past, examine our relationship to beauty, what we value and what is real and honest now. This is a sacred opportunity to really engage with some deep, possibly scary and certainly powerful themes as we move through this process and re-emerge.

Venus will be on this retrograde journey below the surface, completing one cycle and initiating a new one through October and into the middle of November.  She will station direct  on November 13.Halfway through this journey, Mercury will join her in their own retrograde journey, and what a gift, as Mercury is the psychopomp that guides souls to and, if we're lucky, from the Underworld.

There's really an opportunity to review and rewrite our relationship narratives with the help of this Divine Messenger.  And it’s time. It’s time to really get naked with what we value and how we live it, what we like, what we don't like, what we will accept and what we won't accept in relationships, what we can give and what we cannot give. May the pedestals that held our relationship fantasies be transformed into rich and juicy altars to true and honest love and beauty.

It’s an alchemical process.

Will you put your ear to the ground? Will you trust the journey?

Venus Readings

I was trying to think of how I might support this process and where I will be at all of these October events and witchy gatherings doing live readings.I thought, “I'm going to offer Venus readings through the Venus retrograde.”

These will be 30-minute sessions where we explore your natal Venus, the areas of the chart it is working with, ways you might engage with Venus in your own life and in your partnerships and in what you love and value.

We will also take a look at where this Venus retrograde and Mercury retrograde will be traveling in your own chart and really come up with some ways to work participate with intention, ritual and openness, because this is a truly sacred process.

I will be offering these Venus readings (at a slightly discounted rate) at all of the live events in October, but I'm also going to post Venus readings bookings on my website so you can sign up and we can do them over Zoom.

So if this is something close to your heart, or you feel like you could use a hand with some astro-insight, consider working with me. I think I can help and would love to support this sacred Venusian alchemical process.

We are magical beings, after all! ✨