Venus, Eros and Mars in the Via Combusta and Karmic Love Cleansing Through the Alchemical Fires

And it burns, burns, burns...

Venus, Eros and Mars are currently travelling conjunct through an area of the zodiac called the Via Combusta, also known as the burning path or fiery way.

The combination of Venus, Eros and Mars travelling in tight conjunction through this area of the zodiac makes for a potent force starting a final strip-down in areas pertaining to love, sex, attraction, beauty, money and partnership - all the spicy stuff - as we end the astrological Piscean era.

There is an intense charge building here that will not be fully discharged until Venus enters Sagittarius January 7, 2011 designed to purge us of our baggage, our unhealthy attachments, and our sabotaging patterns and reactions in relationship so that we can truly move on, be propelled, even, into a new era.

The Via Combusta is the degrees of the zodiac from 15 Libra to 15 Scorpio, except for 23 through 24 degrees Libra, which are considered safe degrees due to the fixed stars Spica and Arcturus residing there. This area generally relates to running the gauntlet in certain areas of life - pushing through seemingly insurmountable odds, heavy collective karma, booby traps and weapons wielded, often in relationship dynamics (Libra and Scorpio territory). There is a fire with the Via Combusta (and within people with natal planets in the Via Combusta) that, when brought strongly into the cosmic mix, keeps us burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling that you have to keep going, no matter what - that the only way past it is through it, and this is how we hit our marks.

Our evolutionary marks here relate, in part, to the release of mass collective love karma from the astrological Piscean era - processing and purging for the whole through our personal lives so as to bust through no-longer-vital collective dynamics and programming reinforced for millenia.

This Venus retrograde in Scorpio is the last Venus retrograde of the astrological Piscean era. How's that for a tall order? Layer upon layer of etheric unfinished business through time and space, coalescing with us at this time on this planet.

This is the vibe as we leave the cardinal t-square-dominated summer and enter the final quarter of 2010. We've parted the curtain and stepped inside. When we exit in the New Year, our relationships and we within those relationships will be forever changed. After an earnest and honest effort here, we can truly say: no more.

The Venus retrograde in Scorpio (October 8 - November 18) takes place within the Via Combusta, and Venus enters the degrees of its retrograde shadow September 5 at 27 degrees Libra. This marks our first real taste of Venus retro themes.

As Venus goes retrograde in Scorpio, our hearts go back - to love-related soul work we need to complete and connections we need to either make or let go of. We can trigger the release of younger versions of ourselves, other time-and-space versions of ourselves, from the aftermath of not-quite-right love dynamics we previously constructed, releasing others from the same. We can retrieve soul-bits of ourselves left behind with loves past and reintegrate after the bitter, hard-earned lessons we learned. Fusing the old wounds once and for all, healing them with a sweet and tender kiss. Blazing a trail out of tricky, sticky, entrapping karmic relationship dynamics for ourselves and for anyone who desires to do the same...

Venus enters Scorpio September 8 and stations retrograde October 8 at 13 Scorpio. Interesting numbers, aren't they? Eight and 13 showing up generally mean...this ain't play time. And I must say, it really isn't. Highly karmic energy dynamics and scenarios, especially in relationship, with root causes going far beyond these individual lifetimes. Grandscale collective karmic love clean-up, aisle Planet Earth!

Bring the mop bucket, Al. This is a messy one.

Purification through the alchemical fires is putting it mildly. Deep initiations through relationship, love, sex are possible.

The sexual element is strongly involved here, and sexual expression gets the same purifying treatment in an attempt to bring it back to a fully loving, respectful and energetically-responsible merger and exchange.

A process of deepening emotional authenticity and layer-peeling, resulting in a new honesty around sex, money, and relationship dynamics.

The intimacy of sharing the raw truth about our experience of being human on Planet Earth in relation to another and receiving the same.

Squirmy territory, but exciting.

At this point of tail-end Pisces, it's not just two individuals in relationship. We've got imprints involved of lovers through the ages in every possible circumstance and every possible combination - with separations, cruel twists of fate, ill timings, and disappointments all adding up to a collective haunting by heartbreak, longing, and a faded soul-memory of a love we are not even sure ever existed on this planet.

Scorpio is a sign that does not like sharing its bed or its partner, including with the ghosts of loves past. Venus in Scorpio, in particular, needs to be the only one. She's loyal, devoted, passionate, sexy, committed, but she requires the same in return. And all this tail-end Piscean era layering is energetically disturbing and irritating as hell for Venus-Eros-Mars in Scorpio. It can't continue. We can't do what we need to do within relationship under these clouded, noisy circumstances, so with this retro process, we kick the ghosts out of bed, out of our partnerships, and get back to one-on-one.

Liberation of the soul. That's the real goal of the sign of Scorpio.

Burning away crystallized layers that keep us stultified, constricted, unsatisfied in old, ingrained patterns, dynamics, habits, reactions. With old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.

With the Venus in Scorpio retrograde, the first of the Saturn transit of Libra, we're liberating our love, our hearts, each other, ourselves by restructuring and transforming the ways in which we relate, how we show our love, how we receive love. Digging through the sticky tar wrapped around our hearts - regret, anger, resentment, disappointment, pain, sadness. Dropping them in a heap of ash. To get to that person and that feeling and that love that holds you, all of you, the way you need to be held.

In Scorpio, it's never easy, though. Scorpio asks us: how badly do you want it, this liberation? Show me. Yeah? You think you want it badly enough? Enough to be dragged through the muck and the betrayals and the pits of hell to get to it? Yes? All right then.

Do you want it enough to let go of every single non-essential thing, person, place, self? To be stripped to the absolute bone? To the point that it will terrify you at times because you do not recognize the person you see in the mirror?

Do you want it enough to admit you may not even get it in your lifetime on this planet? To break your own heart by accepting that the entire process might exist for a goal and an end that is beyond this physical life? An energy more than a someone. Will you keep going even then? For your liberation?

Because to go all the way, that is what's asked.

And you just know we're going all the way this time.

Let's be honest. There's some sadism with this sign Scorpio. It'll fool you and trip you and then once you're down on the ground, it'll grind your face into the dirt to reinforce the point. It'll laugh in your face that you thought it was going to be that easy, that you were going to get away with carrying that much illusion and baggage and non-essential desire and want and human will through the checkpoints. That you would be allowed through while that out of line with what is demanded of you by transformational collective progress, by God's will, the universe's will, the will of life itself.

But the vision. The beauty. The highest spiritual highs. The memory of that which truly feels right. The quiet of the eagle soaring over beautiful, idyllic settings. The peace. The other side of the coin. The soul memory of how it once was and how it maybe can be again. The liberation. That's what keeps you moving through it. Even when all you want to do is stop and rest or give up and spontaneously combust. When you would do almost anything to get out of it. When you're a trapped animal about to gnaw its own leg off to get out. When the desire to not experience what you are experiencing is the strongest thing - except for that. Except for the desire to get it just right - the merger and alignment of personal will with what is willed for you. And to experience the results of that, especially with another.

Venus and Eros trine Neptune and Chiron as they enter the retrograde shadow, and the wounding of our shattered hopes and dreams, the innocence that opened us to scalding hurt, is a big part of the retrograde process. If we have the inner resources and the courage to really look, we can peel illusion from reality here and release an older Piscean version of love, especially spiritual love, which then liberates us.

But it's sticky, tricky, highly karmic territory demanding our full commitment.

Venus, Eros and soon Mars in Scorpio are here as our friends: the ones who will tell you the truth about your new amour when you are too love-blinded to see the major faults or red flags.

You might hate it with a passion that this friend is telling you these things, but in the end, it saves a world of hurt - not to mention time.

Saturn's in Libra, and we don't have time to waste within the maturing and restructuring process relationships are going through. A sober eye is a beautiful thing now, and with the planets in Scorpio along with the Sun and Mercury retrograde in practically analytical, no-nonsense Virgo, we've got just that - as long as we are willing to listen.