CORRESPONDENCES: VENUS IN LEO
For this month's correspondences, we're looking at things ruled by Venus and Leo. In newsletter #1, I talk more about what correspondences (or rulerships) are, so check that out if you want to know more (or ask me if you didn't get #1!).
Briefly, every object, subject, and concept in the universe is "ruled" by a planet or a sign. Based on the idea of "cosmic sympathy," each of these things can be conceived as discontinuous parts of the same body/process/cluster of meanings, on all different scales (from the tiniest bug to the planet itself). This list combines something ruled by Venus with something ruled by Leo:
pompous analogies
a hot almond cake
politicians with syphilis
the smell of amateur’s making gin
melodramatic picnics
a consensual love affair between gold miners
arrogant porn stars
a feverish bride in a rom-com
caressing a composer’s spinal cord
a diamond xylophone
deer playing poker in lingerie
VENUS RETROGRADE IN LEO: July 23rd - Sept 4th
Though the retrograde doesn’t begin for over a month, I’m focusing on it for this newsletter because tomorrow Venus enters its “shadow phase” before the retrograde. Venus will go forward to 28 degrees Leo before turning back and retracing its steps to 12 degrees of Leo, then making a final pass over those same degrees. The shadow phase is the first time the planet passes over the degrees to which it will return later. Things that happen in this time foreshadow the events of the retrograde cycle.
If you have any planets between 12-28 degrees of any fixed sign—Leo, Aquarius, Taurus, or Scorpio— you will be impacted the most by this Venus retrograde cycle. The timing of those events depends on which degree the planets are at in your natal chart, and the content & quality of the experience depends on what planet is affected.
So what are Venus retrogrades like? The things that belong to Venus— beauty, pleasure, connection, relationship—will become erratic, inverted, slowed, or disordered. Yes, sometimes this is literal and exes crawl out of the woodwork & drag up old romantic storylines you thought you’d moved past. Sometimes the characters are different but old patterns of how we behave or feel in relationship resurface; we’re possessed by some old narrative or instinctual response, zombie versions of venusian selves, that we get to see with different eyes. Sometimes, it’s being confronted by loneliness (whether or not you’re alone). It’s not just about romantic love, but pleasure & desire. For some, Venus retrogrades suppress these experiences; for others they are on hyperdrive. Some of us will have encounters where we discover that pleasures we thought were important have lost their meaning, while others will find new pleasures that they were afraid of or didn’t allow themselves before, and will recognize the power there.
Venus is also very much about taste & value, and Venus in Leo—the sign fixed on individuality & uniqueness—even more so. Taste isn’t something superficial: we define ourselves & identify with others based on aesthetics & sensual desires. At their worst, our tastes can be unconscious sources of social division or constraints that keep us fixed in an identity that limits our behaviors, our experiences, our worlds. During Venus retrograde, allow yourself to experience desire and craving, but also observe how you’re contained or defined by the beliefs you have around who you are, what you like, what you would wear, who you would be seen with. The myth that we each have a fixed, individual identity, is especially dangerous in a sociopolitical moment in which our tastes are used to track us, and then that data is sold to corporations who use tactics of social manipulation to implant desires & patterns of behavior in us that serve them (at our expense). In what ways are our tastes & desires stripping us of our freedom? What are truly liberating pleasures, ones that are surprising, unfamiliar, forbidden? What does your body tell you, in a state of slowness, defamiliarization, and disruption?
Finally, because Leo is the realm where Venus is retrograding, it’s likely that issues of pride, appreciation, and visibility will come to the forefront. Consider your personal tendencies when it comes to pride, to being praised or noticed, to being seen or demanding attention. If you usually hide from recognition, maybe you’re being challenged to understand why or to assert your need to be celebrated. If you’re the opposite, and rely too much on others' validation, Venus retrograde could strip you of that and see how you can still be a luminary without an external spotlight. Ultimately your natal chart tells the story of your personal Venus and what other deities get pulled into her Leonine show. Either way it’s gonna be hot & sticky & yes, at times dramatic; if you’re messy or you fuck up, or if you can't be your usual social self, maybe that’s exactly what you need to be doing now to reconstruct your pleasure, your self, your values.