Venus Enters Scorpio: An Energetic Discharge of Venus Retro 2010

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes. - William Gibson, sci fi novelist and Scorpio South Node  

Venus in Scorpio - October 9 to November 2 

From October 6 to 19, Venus moves through the degrees of its previous retrograde in Via Combusta Libra and Scorpio (27 Libra to 13 Scorpio). This kicks up any unfinished business from the fall of 2010 (with roots to fall 2002, fall 1994, fall 1986, fall 1978, fall 1970, fall 1962...), allowing us to complete some things and to energetically reconstitute ahead of the upcoming Venus Transit and Venus retrograde in Gemini in May/June 2012. 

As Venus moves through this area, we're given a status report on how far we've come in relationship since last fall and on what points might still require a little alchemical pouring-of-the-coal-to-it to move beyond. 

It's possible, if one has very responsibly dealt with his or her relationships in the past year(s), to get a free pass here. Nothing left to examine, resolve, or purge. No etheric tendrils left to disconnect from at all. 

However, this is a fairly charged little stretch of the zodiac at the best of times, intricately connected to collective dynamics, and this is even more the case due to the previous Venus retrograde through this zone. Things can flare up in unpredictable ways with little provocation, especially if transiting Venus is making aspects to the natal chart. 

Love planet Venus is in detriment in Scorpio, the sign of all things socially uncomfortable and hidden. It's difficult. (Venus in Virgo hears what I'm sayin'.) 

Communication planet Mercury conjuncts responsibility planet Saturn in the sign of balance, justice, and equality Libra today (5:01 p.m. CDT). The Sun is also moving to a conjunction to Saturn in Libra October 13 just as Venus in Scorpio sextiles Pluto in Capricorn, and the key is to responsibly deal with any flares. (Keep a box of baking soda at the ready.) This includes staying out of other people's relationships and steering well clear of associated Plutonic detritus. Scorpionic relationship issues can sometimes be tempting to get involved in, but, for the most part, it's best to let the dramz move on past without our involvement. 

We're moving through a time frame when a lot can be energetically laid to rest. The focus is on allowing things to resolve themselves and moving onto new ground, not getting deeper into relational muck. Things shift, and new foundational steps gain traction here, but it won't necessarily be easy. 

Just before Venus enters Scorpio, it trines Neptune Rx in Aquarius from late Libra on October 7, bringing in the ghosts of relationships past and tempting us with mirages. Over the next month, don't be alarmed if you have a cringe-worthy "Not this again!" relational experience or two involving patterns, dynamics, or people you thought you had put behind you. This includes receiving poorer treatment than you warrant from people around you - Scorpio is a sign that deals with abuse and mistreatment, however subtle. Draw on the primal anger and strength of your lineage, hold your value, and respectfully demand better - for all of you. 

Work through the Scorpy paranoia and fears, stay conscious, and show unwanted dynamics to the door - firmly. Don't give them anything to attach to. Unravel from participation in the hyper-charged figure eight dynamics, ground them, and walk away. Make no bones about it. 

Consciously move out of reach of old attractions to people and situations that are not in your best interests, and keep moving. This is not the time to let things slide that really and truly need to be eliminated from your life and from your relationships. Scorpio relates to reading and heeding red flags and disentangling before you get sucked into an enervating black hole Plutonic vortex. Eventually, we get so good that we see the red flags a mile away, avoiding vortex territory altogether. Venus in Scorpio will lay out the path: we just need the trust, the grit and the courage to follow it all the way through the exit ramp. Easier said than done. 

There are things that need to be resolved amidst insecure and fairly dicey conditions on many fronts, creating a truly new energetic balance in relationship before we can move on, and this process takes longer than we think. 

With Saturn currently in Via Combusta Libra, soon to be disposited by Venus in Scorpio, we're challenged to responsibly bring to a close connections, dynamics, residual emotion, and entanglements from the past ahead of the whole new relationship ballgame indicated by next spring's Venus Transit. 

Until November 3, Saturn transits, in one pass, new degrees of the zodiac (17 to 22 Libra) that it will not be returning to. 

Until November 2, Venus transits Scorpio as the dispositor of Saturn in Libra. 

There is a lot of long-term relationship progress possible here, and masterfully working with tricky, sticky Venus in Scorpio is the key. Getting a solid foot-hold is more complex and challenging than most will realize. Under Saturn in Libra, we're building a new framework of relationships to sustain us over the difficult years ahead, applying lessons we've learned from previous partnerships. Simultaneously, we're required to responsibly extricate ourselves from past connections tying up our emotional, physical, psychological, and psychic resources. 

As we head into full-on Sun in Scorpio season October 23, we're working to shift deeply ingrained energetic dynamics while setting new standards for relationship (Saturn in Libra). Personal efforts to get down to core reality on this front shift things on broader, collective levels in ways that desperately need to see some movement. Every little flicker of 'intolerable' that enters our personal relationships has a long, dark, deep root to a broader collective issue. This especially relates to the piss-poor ways in which many women (Venus) are treated on this planet: domestic violence and mistreatment of all varieties, sexual and energetic control and exploitation, rape, devalued work, domination, financial dependence, poverty, invisibility, under-representation in positions of power, lack of access to resources, being shunned and stigmatized for not fitting traditional feminine moulds. 

Each individual who refuses to let things slide and digs in to set things right in personal relationships helps get things moving in a more beneficial direction on a larger scale. 

Scorpio asks us to go as deeply as we can into ourselves, to be truer to the actual experiences and emotional, psychological, and psychic realities of our souls in these human bodies. And with Venus transiting Scorpio, testing us on all the retrograde points, it's also about sharing this, responsibly sharing our process, with another person or people. 

With Venus in Scorpio, especially Via Combusta Scorpio, we have an access point where we can burn through artificial, socially conditioned ideas of what relationship is, what love is, what beauty is, what value is, what a healthy sexual relationship is. 

This transit is a time for a final energetic house cleaning, getting to all the nooks and crannies you might have been held off on during Venus Retro 2010. 

If you still have people and dynamics in your life that just don't do it for you, this transit is the time to gently shed them while coming together more fully with those that do. (It's also a time to work through the difficult emotions if you're one of the ones being shed.) 

This is about future success in relationship and releasing anything that would hold us back from that, but it isn't emotionally easy territory. 

Venus in Scorpio is a good time to forgive ourselves for getting involved with people in the past who hurt us, burned us, did us wrong, and did not have our best interests at heart. It's a time to forgive ourselves for allowing people into our lives who did not have the character to be there, and it's a time to make a strong commitment to ourselves that no one with those character flaws gets through the gates again. 

With the sign of Scorpio, there are themes related to the difference between meaningful, reciprocal, mutually-supportive and empowering relationship dynamics and relationship dynamics that just end up with someone getting used and burned. 

 Getting out from under relationship dynamics that drain our energy and resources is of especial importance now as we head closer to Saturn's ingress of Scorpio in October 2012, when it will be in mutual reception to Pluto in Capricorn. 

This Scorpio season is about putting ourselves in good position ahead of the Saturn in Scorpio transit. Make your choices with cold, hard Scorpionic resolve now to avoid being dragged through the Plutonic muck later by those who have not been so energetically responsible. 

Venus in Scorpio - October 9 to November 2 

Mercury in Scorpio - October 13 to November 2 

Sun in Scorpio - October 23 to November 22 

New Moon in Scorpio conjunct Juno - October 26