For us, Venus retrograde is a descent, and this series offers other ways of reading the retrograde and living through it differently, drawing from material gathered over 20 years. As Venus reaches the next stage of her journey I will release a new post.

But we begin here on 3rd Oct in Scorpio at 8°29′, as Venus changes direction, moving from direct motion to a backward motion, and from outward to inward. She will stay at that degree for 6 days, finally moving to 7 degrees on 9th. She will continue a very slow backwards journey through Scorpio until she slips back into Libra on 25th October.

Her deepest point of descent is 24th October, when she meets with the Sun in with her inferior conjunction, which is also the seeding of a new Venus cycle. On 14 November, she stations direct at 22°52′ Libra, finally clearing the post-retrograde shadow on 15th December, when she returns to the point she began her retrograde on at 8°29′ Scorpio.

Venus goes retrograde roughly once every nineteen months, as part of her larger 584-day cycle with the Earth and Sun. As Venus orbits the Sun faster than we do, there comes a point in her orbit where she catches up with the Earth and passes by. It’s like sitting looking out the window on a moving train and seeing a faster train beside. For a moment, the relative motion makes you feel as though you are travelling backwards. From Earth, the same effect makes Venus appear to slow down and go backwards, even though she’s still travelling forwards around the Sun.

During her 584-day cycle, and from the standpoint of the Earth, Venus spends roughly half the cycle on the evening side of the Sun and half on the morning side around 9.5 months on each, although she is not visible for all of that time. Venus is generally visible as the Evening Star for around 7-8 months, until early October, before disappearing into the Sun’s light as she approaches her inferior conjunction with the Sun.

During the clearest part of the evening star phase there are seven New Moons, running from 19th March to 11th September. The number seven turns up in Inanna’s story too, where she passes through seven gates. Plenty of ancient traditions count creation in sevens, from the seven days of Genesis onwards. Many of us can trace our own turning points at roughly seven-year intervals; where we have begun things, reassessed, developed or ended them.

We will come back to the whole sevenfold cycle later, but for now we are entering it midway through, at the point where it’s hardest to make sense of. At this midway point, as the cycle turns, we can easily become confused because the diminishing energy that got us this far can no longer carry us forward. So we’re joining the cycle at the moment we first notice that a part of life needs our attention.

The myth of Inanna’s descent and return mirrors Venus’ retrograde cycle. According to the Sumerians, Venus is Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, and her journey down into the underworld and back mirrors what Venus does in the sky. For more about this myth, see this earlier article.

Symbolically, the station point on 3rd October marks a point of no return, where things can’t continue in its same form. This point is where we begin to reach an understanding of a limit: in a relationship, a value we hold, a desire we have, a way of earning money, a creative direction, or our sense of our worth.

Less than three weeks before her station, Venus reaches her greatest evening brilliance around 18th September. This is Inanna at her most dazzling, yet this does not necessarily mean better relationships or self-image. Think of it as being at the height of being seen or something at it’s peak visibility. But when something is saturated and exhausted in one direction, its continuation requires it to swing towards its opposite. Venus turns retrograde soon after her greatest brilliance, and as her direction changes, so does the angle from which she sees.

When Venus is retrograde, everything Venus is reversed or backward. That means what’s usual in our way of relating, changes. It brings back past relationships put to bed, seemingly complete, and revives patterns and memories from past relationships. It forces a reevaluation, especially of our values, so we see things differently.

This retrograde turns the mirror around, and back and forth, through every angle. We often ask ourselves “how am I being seen?”; now we ask, “how does this person, relationship or situation reflect back to me who I truly am?” And then: “what does this then make me reassess?”

Venus has always been associated with the mirror, and our sense of self is formed through reflection: through who desires or admires us, approves or chooses us, and validation of the person we believe ourselves to be. Relationships show us a version of ourselves and so when Venus changes direction, we’re shown a different reflection. We also realise how much we depend on others for our own inner sense of who we are and the work is to extricate ourselves from those compelling versions to reach a deeper truth.

For the rest of October, Venus is also moving closer to Earth. At her inferior conjunction with the Sun, she is closer than any other planet. In the same way, what we love and value comes closer too and especially with Venus in Scorpio, it will become harder to not look at these closely. The task in fact is to get intimate with what we see.

Venus stations at 8°29′ Scorpio, which gives us the Sabian symbol for 9° Scorpio, “Dental Work”, which Rudhyar associated with repairing damage. Blain Bovee focuses more on what we take in, what we sink our teeth into, what we say, and what we listen to as feedback. For a Venus retrograde station, this is especially relevant because our own repair work may require us to see things from a different perspective, and notice how much changes when we look from another angle.

The image of dental work puts receiving right into the body. Teeth are central to how we take in life, so this degree invites us to assess what has become so damaged or unsustainable that we live out lower versions of ourselves. Equally assess though what you are putting back out through your words and responses that doesn’t reflect who you truly are. Old habits die hard, and the next six weeks are a good time to definitively receive back aspects of ourselves that we have pushed away, for whatever reason, the next month and a half encourages that.

Before Inanna begins her descent, she foresees the possibility that she may reach such a dark place that she can no longer see clearly herself and cannot call for help. To prevent being lost in the underworld, she tells Ninshubur, her trusted advisor, that if she does not return, she must arrange support. There is so much wisdom in this for us too [We can do the same], as Venus turns retrograde. We can never know exactly what lies ahead, and neither do we need to know. But we can be prepared for change, we can be prepared for needing support, and we can stay with ourselves in that darkness as we journey through our depth.

So this is a good moment to notice who around you knows what is happening in your life, and who might see clearly when you cannot. Inanna does not enter the descent pretending she will need nothing from anyone; Inanna knows she may need someone else to see clearly for her, so she prepares that before she goes.

As Venus turns retrograde, the first thing being asked of us is simply to notice that something in our lives is demanding our attention, or changing. There’s no need to decide anything yet, so just observe. If we’re still pushing ahead, it’s a time for pause. It’s a time to heighten our inner listening, our receptivity to what’s arising inside, so we can meet this changing territory. The Venus station point lets us notice where our normal way of relating, choosing or valuing has reached a limit.

From 3rd October, Venus starts her descent towards the inferior conjunction later in October. So we are just at the beginning, and some time off the deeper layers, but the journey has begun, and it’s a good time to look at what we’ve been leaving out.