Before talking about Venus, I propose an exercise. Think of October 2018. Not the whole year: in those weeks from early October to mid-November. Who were you with? What did you like, what hurt, what were you choosing or letting go? Was there someone who wasn’t leaving, or someone who had just arrived? Were you satisfied with what you earned, with how you looked, with how you spent your time? Keep those answers. Later you’ll understand why.
First things first: who is Venus?
For the Romans, Venus was the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and desire. For the Greeks, she was Aphrodite, born from the foam of the sea, a symbol of both passionate romance and the flourishing of nature.
Astrology inherited that symbolism, but the banner “the planet of love” is too small. Venus speaks to what you desire, what you’re attracted to, how you enjoy yourself, and how you value yourself. And here comes the surprise for many: it’s also the planet of money, of how you earn and how you manage what’s yours. If you had to sum it up in one sentence, Venus is your way of choosing. Whom, what, and at what price.
It has two signs where it feels at home: Taurus and Libra. In Taurus it becomes sensory and concrete: the body, pleasure, what you have that gives you security. In Libra it becomes relational: agreements, partnerships, the beauty of what you build with others. In the opposite signs, Scorpio and Aries, it goes the other way. It’s like sleeping in a stranger’s house: you can stay, of course, but you won’t find what you’re looking for and everything costs a little more. Keep this in mind, because this time Venus begins its retrograde precisely in Scorpio.
How can a planet go backwards?
Actually, no planet truly retrogrades. It’s an optical illusion: viewed from Earth, Venus seems to slow down and backtrack. But in astrology that illusion makes sense. It’s a period of review, in which what you had been choosing on autopilot is laid bare and asks whether it still works.
It happens roughly every year and a half and lasts about forty days. And yes, you feel it.
The dates for this year
On Saturday, October 3, Venus begins to retrograde in Scorpio. On October 25 it re-enters Libra and on November 13 it resumes its normal pace. But the full process is longer: it began in late August and only settles again by mid-December, because Venus traces that same arc of the sky before slowing and again after resuming.
Think of it as a series. What you experienced since the end of August was the trailer: the protagonists and the conflicts appeared, even though you still didn’t know what role they would play. During the retrograde, that plot unfolds, and you have another chance to look at it, try other options, and understand what you only sensed in September. So if you want to know what your Venus retrograde will be about, look at what happened to you since the end of August. You’ve already seen the trailer.
In the middle something nice happens: Venus comes so close to the Sun that it disappears from the sky for a few weeks. It leaves like an evening star and returns as a morning star. The ancients read there a descent and a return. Not a bad image for what you’re going through.
From Scorpio to Libra: first the diagnosis, then the negotiation
This retrograde has two phases. In Scorpio, the review is deep and even a little uncomfortable. You may ask yourself what you truly desire (not what you say you desire), what you share and with whom, what you cling to even if it no longer serves you. It’s the moment when jealousy can appear without warning, when the money conversation you had been avoiding comes up, and when you realize that what you called loyalty was more fear of letting go.
When Venus returns to Libra, everything becomes lighter and more practical. The focus shifts from what you feel to what you do with it: agreements, balance, what you give and what you receive in your relationships. First the diagnosis, then the negotiation.
The spice of this year
This time Venus isn’t traveling alone. Pluto, the planet of the hidden, of power, and of transformation because there’s no other option, crosses paths with it three times in tension.
Imagine two ingredients stuck together in a pressure cooker. Either they fuse and come out transformed, or they fail to mix and power games begin. In love, in relationships, or with money, dynamics of control may appear, secrets that come to light, or manipulations that are exposed. And on the other hand, a much deeper intimacy can emerge with someone who dares to go to the bottom with you.
The first crossing was on September 15, in the middle of the trailer: there you asked for what you wanted, even though you hadn’t yet gotten it. The second arrives around October 19 and is the hottest zone of the entire process. Somewhere between October 10 and 25, things can get volatile, and it becomes clear what can accompany you forward and what cannot. The third arrives around December 9: what was defined in October is no longer reviewed; it’s set in motion.
Why 2018
Here lies the key to the opening exercise. Venus has a habit that distinguishes it from the rest of the planets: it repeats its retrogradations almost in the same spot in the sky every eight years. Not exactly the same, because each time it shifts a little, like a song returning in a different version. Between October and November 2018, Venus traced almost the same path that it will now, from Scorpio to Libra. In 2010 as well, though that seems more distant, like an echo fading away.
Don’t expect the story to repeat identically; time doesn’t like to be so obvious. What returns is the question. Maybe in 2018 you started a relationship that today asks for a different arrangement. Maybe that year you left something that now comes back to knock on the door. Maybe nothing visible happened, but something began to change inside. You, better than anyone, have the answer.
How much of it is yours?
Venus retrograde moves us all, but not everyone equally. If you’re Libra or Scorpio, and especially if your birthday falls between October 15 and 31, you’re likely to feel it personally: Venus crosses your Sun three times, going forward, backward, and forward again. If you’re Taurus, you’re also on the list, because Venus is your ruling planet and anything that happens to it touches you closely.
And if you’re Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius and you were born in the first days of your sign, pay attention to mid-October: it’s very likely that that pressure cooker with Pluto is simmering in your kitchen.
If you know your Ascendant, read that too: often it weighs as much as your Sun sign.
In closing
Venus retrograde doesn’t come to break you. It comes to review your choices. And the question it leaves is simple, even if not easy to answer: do you still value what you chose? How much, and how?
Source: @astro_bydummies.
