This blogpost is a transcript from a YouTube video that I released on 8/17/25. If you would like to support your reading with some audio or visual stimulation, here's the video for your enjoyment.

This Video is a part of a series I did going through each of the planets in Astrology in depth. Find the rest of the videos here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3QrEsVm6s

*I will often refer to a Zodiac Wheel through the video which includes the Zodiac signs, their planetary rulers, element assignment, quadruplicity, and gender. This is extremely helpful as you begin your studies in Astrology. If you would like to download a free, high quality version of this graphic, click here.

Intro

If you are ready to go deep and harness the full power and potential of astrology to shape change in your own life and the world around you, stay with me. My name is Aleena and I am the astrologer for creatives and change makers with a Physics B.S. from Yale. Today we're talking about Venus!

Venus is the planet of love, beauty, romance, harmony, sensuality, and all of the fine, beautiful, feminine things. She is the second closest to the sun and one of the two benefics in astrology—the planets that want to do good, lovely things for us. What I'm going to do in this video is get into the essential nature of who Venus is on the deepest, most archetypal, fundamental level. I will not be going through "this is what Venus in Aquarius means" or "this is what Venus in Scorpio means." Instead, I'm going to try to get abstract and dive into the most ancient, original, and core essence of who Venus is.

Why just Venus?

This way, I hope that you will be able to connect more personally and deeply to the symbols. It will never be as effective or transformative for you to simply listen to astrologers talk about "this is what Venus means for you." It will be much more powerful for you to have a direct relationship with the symbol and be able to identify it in your own life. You can say, "Oh, here's Venus showing up. Here's that aspect to my Venus. Here's this manifestation of what Venus wants to do for me in this moment." It would be as if you were rather than having a translator in a foreign land able to converse with people directly there. You'll just be able to have a more profound experience as you interact in this new system when you can relate deeply to the symbols in their essence.

And you're also able to avoid the projections of other people when we go this route. Sometimes astrologers might have their own preconceived notions about what this sign is like, thinking "I've had this experience with this type of person and this is what it means that you have this." But when you can just get into the most abstract, essential nature of these symbols in astrology, then you can sort of sidestep the cultural perceptions that our current moment in time applies to these symbols. Throughout the course of human history, people have had different ideas about what is good, what is bad, what's acceptable, and what's unacceptable—different ways of behaving that are celebrated or demonized.

So when you get into the most core nature of these archetypal, astronomical, and astrological symbols, then you can decide for yourself and see for yourself and avoid any current individual or cultural projections that people have about these different aspects of human nature and of human life. Because ultimately nothing is just good and nothing is just bad. And so much of the cultural weight that is carried will have those projections onto it. But everything has two sides. There's two sides to every coin.

Venus’s Significations

Venus's significations in general—what Venus means—Venus is your style of love and romance, your aesthetic. She is relational love; this could be friendship or also romantic. She is sensuality, sexuality, all of the finer things in life and earthly pleasure: dance, music, art, architecture. Anything that is meant to be experientially pleasing is something that Venus would rule over. This could also be relationships with other humans.

Venus is associated with desire, attraction, and magnetism. That feeling that intense beauty has that can just call you in and grip you. Venus does not go forth boldly and take what she wants. No, Venus is simply radiating beauty and desire that pulls in what she is looking for. Venus is receptive and magnetic.

Venus is also harmony and peace, balance, relaxation, and softness. Venus is also associated with money and can represent in her placement and aspects what your relationship to money might be like as another sort of embodiment of earthly material pleasures that can afford you these finer things in life. In the Greek pantheon, Venus would be Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, romance, desire, and procreation. Venus can also be associated with fertility.

Venus’s Beneficence

It could be helpful to understand what it means that Venus is a benefic in astrology. In traditional astrology, they talk about benefics and malefics. These are the planets that either want to do more helpful, constructive things for you or represent more challenges and hardship in your life. Mars and Saturn are the two malefics that want to do hard, challenging things. You can watch my videos about those planets if you're interested.

And then we have Venus and Jupiter, which are the two benefics. It could be helpful to contrast Venus and Jupiter in the nature that they have of being benefic. What is the difference? They both want to do good things, but they want to do different styles of good things. Venus is all of these earthly, sensual, feminine pleasures—the feminine planet Aphrodite. Jupiter, on the other hand, is a masculine planet and has more to do with good fortune, abundance, good luck, justice, joy, and optimism. In a way, Jupiter is more abstract as a masculine planet. He has more to do with these kind of higher ideals, these heady concepts of justice and God, and also judgment and luck and fortune. These things are not so tangible. Venus, as a feminine benefic, is very much relating to the tangible world, the earthly pleasures, things that feel good in your body.

Venus’s Synodic Cycle

As far as Venus's astronomy, Venus is the second closest planet to the sun, starting with Mercury, then Venus, then Earth. Venus is our closest neighbor. So, when you look out into the sky, Venus looks like the brightest star in the sky. But she's not always visible. Because Venus is closer to the sun than we are and quite close to the sun in general, she can never be more than 48° away from the sun in the zodiac. This is just the way the astronomy and the orbital positions work out.

That would mean that your Venus sign is always going to be either the same as your sun sign, one sign away from your sun sign on either side, or maximally two signs away on either side. I talked about this concept of being "under the beams of the sun" in one of my previous videos on Mercury that I will link here, because Mercury being the closest to the sun can actually never be more than one sign away. So Mercury will always be either the same sign as your sun sign or one sign away. But Venus can be up to two signs away because she's a little bit further from the sun.

When you are quite close to the sun as a planet in the sky, the sun is extremely bright—the brightest thing out there. So when a planet becomes within 15° of the sun, this is called "under the beams of the sun." Then you can no longer see that planet because it is washed out by the brightness of the sun. In astronomy or astrology, we call Venus being up to 46–48° away from the sun her maximum elongation period. This will be when she is the brightest, most visible star in the sky.

And Venus can either be a morning star or an evening star in this way. If Venus is maximally on one side of the sun, she's a morning star; if Venus is maximally on the other side of the sun, then she'll be an evening star. When she gets very close to the sun, then this would be when she is sort of washed out under the beams of the sun. And then Venus directly conjunct the sun would be a Venus Kazimi.

If Venus is ahead of the sun, then you will see her in the morning before the sunrise while it's still dark in the early morning because she can never be too far from the sun. Or if Venus is after the sun, then she will come out after sunset and be an evening star. This has to do with which side of the sun in zodiacal order Venus is on at any given point. In very ancient times, people actually did not realize that Venus was one star. They thought that she was two different stars: a morning star (this was a different star) or an evening star (not the same Venus). I believe the Babylonians and the Mesopotamians worked out that actually Venus is the same star. This is kind of difficult to do if you can imagine ancient times without all of the technology that we have, just through observation—realizing that this is actually the same star all along would be kind of confusing to figure out.

Venus as Inanna

There is a very ancient myth of Inanna. This is a 4,000-year-old myth where people had this story of Venus. At this point she was not called Venus; she was called Inanna. The goddess Inanna. By the time the Greeks came around and assigned Venus to be Aphrodite, she was just the goddess of love, romance, beauty, and harmony. But back one or two thousand years prior to this, Venus as Inanna was actually not only the goddess of love and peace and beauty, but also the goddess of war.

And whether or not she was more of the war goddess or the love goddess depended on whether or not she was a morning or evening star. The mythology that goes along with this is called the myth of Inanna. This is a very interesting mythology that you can look at your birth chart with and start to see where your Venus is in this cycle to sort of apply what style of Venus might be integrated into the fabric of who you are.

The way the story goes is that Inanna, goddess in the sky, descends into the underworld. She's going to her sister's husband's funeral. This would be the evening star version of Inanna, of Venus. So if you were born when Venus is an evening star, when she comes out after sunset, when she is behind the sun, then you would have this more innocent, pure, young, uninitiated, almost childlike love of beauty and harmony and romance that has this almost naive tinge to it. It's a purity. It's a Venus that has not seen darkness yet, that has not been initiated. That is the brightest light in the night sky before she's seen death in the underworld.

This would be if you were born with Venus in the maximum elongation period. If your Venus is about over 40°—between 40 and maximally 48°—away from your sun, then you were born when Venus was at her peak power. This could be on either side of the sun. But if she was an evening star, then it would be this beginning of the myth phase of Venus where she is in her goddess realm and has not yet been to the underworld, has not yet been initiated. But either way, if you're born with this maximum elongation period, then you do have peak Venusian power. You might be particularly beautiful. You might have a particular gift or talent for the arts—visual, music, dancing, something like this. When Venus is very far from the sun, then she is the brightest, the strongest, peak power.

Then the myth goes, she decides to go to the underworld. As she gets closer to the sun, the sun is sort of the symbolic representation of the underworld here because as she gets closer to the sun, you can no longer see her in the night sky. In the mythology, this would be Inanna descending into the underworld and essentially losing power. The story goes that she had to pass through these seven gates and at each gate, she had to relinquish a piece of clothing or jewelry. She ends up in the underworld naked and essentially powerless.

She does in fact die here. And this would be if you were born with Venus under the beams of the sun or in this Kazimi place where Venus is in the heart of the sun. That would be a version of Venus that is in the darkness. A Venus that is not scared of the taboo, the occult, the underworld. A Venus that is up against those more challenging things in this mythology. But Inanna in the mythology did have a plan for when she got to the underworld. If she were to die and not make it back, she had a plan for someone to come save her and replace her with someone else so that she could return back to the earth and the other godly realms.

This transpires and she does make it back out, and this would be when Venus is emerging on the other side of the sun. After this Kazimi, after this conjunction, after Venus emerges from under the beams of the sun like this, she becomes instead a morning star. Now Venus is coming up before sunrise. So if you have the morning star version of Venus, then this would be the Venus who has been through it, who has died and been reborn, who has seen the dark, deep underworld and come back in this more mature, but also empowered, but also a little bit darker way. Now we have more of the war goddess version of Inanna on this morning star side of things.

Inanna emerges and finds her husband completely unbothered, living it up happily on her throne, living large, not even concerned that his wife has been gone, not trying to find her, not seemingly missing her. And this makes Inanna very angry. She comes back and she sees her husband like this and condemns him to be her replacement in the underworld and the demons drag him down and he's then stuck in the underworld where she is now able to ascend back to her throne and she becomes the goddess of war.

This would be a different version of the maximum elongation period of Venus as a morning star. If you check that out in your birth chart, this would be a very different type of still maximally strong Venusian energy where you still probably have all of that beauty and gift and aesthetic, but it's this more mature, integrated, but also somewhat dark, potentially even vengeful style of Venus.

Eventually in the mythology, Inanna does come around and gets lonely, starts to miss partnership and her husband. In this astronomy, that would be when Venus is returning back towards the sun again. Essentially the myth starts over again and Venus goes through this cycle. This is the story, the mythology, the 4,000-year-old myth that maps onto the Venus cycle and the way that you can interpret it in your birth chart by looking at how close is Venus to your sun. Is she on the left or right side of your sun? This is how you can work out which stage of Venus is integrated into your being through this mythology.

Many astrologers do not actually really look into mythology or even think about this too much. You can also just take Venus sort of at face value without mapping the myths on. You can play around. See if it works for you. See if it seems resonant. You can look at the charts of other people as well and their phases and talk to them and see does this really work? Is this mythology still relevant 4,000 years later?

Light and Shadow sides of Venus

As far as the light and shadow sides of Venus, we've already sort of gotten into that a little bit with this myth of Inanna. We see Venus as the goddess of war or peace. Although in modern times, Venus is not associated with war; that would be more like Mars. But even looking at Aphrodite, we can see that as a benefic, Venus is all of these things that are subjectively very pleasant and lovely to encounter—to experience love and beauty and peace and relaxation and harmony and all of the sensual earthly pleasures. This is such a lovely thing to encounter, but too much of a good thing can be tricky.

Aphrodite, we can see, could sometimes be vain, could sometimes be manipulative, could sometimes be a little bit vengeful when slighted. We see this in Inanna as well. Venus is extremely powerful—this love, this beauty, this harmony, this sensuality—but that doesn't necessarily need to be used for good or evil. In modern-day culture in America, we actually sort of demonize these things. Christianity, for instance, considers most Venusian qualities to be sinful—things like earthly pleasures and lust. These are things that supposedly take you off the spiritual path.

It depends on how you look at Venus. Venus's quality in its own nature is not intrinsically good or bad. As a benefic, she is going to indicate parts of your life and personality that are where you experience more ease and good fortune or gifts, and nothing is just good and nothing is just bad. The shadow side of Venus can be a little bit manipulative, a little bit shallow, a little bit vain.

Venus in the Zodiac

Let's look at Venus in the zodiac. I have a zodiac graphic that includes all of the signs on the outer edge. Here we see the name of each sign and then we see the symbol, the glyph, the planetary rulership and the name of the planet, whether or not each sign is cardinal, fixed or mutable, the element, and whether or not the sign is feminine or masculine. This is a super helpful, super powerful graphic that I highly recommend that you download. It's available on my website for free and will be very useful for your astrological learning. The amount of symbolism that is laden in the geometry of this framework is incredible. It will take a very long time to fully and deeply understand all of the symbolism that is integrated into this symbol.

Venus rules Taurus and also rules Libra. What does that mean? What does it mean for a planet to rule a zodiac sign? In ancient times—I'm a Hellenistic astrologer—I like to look back at the ancient understandings, and I find that their conceptualizations are just much more coherent and intuitive to understand. The way that ancient astrologers understood the zodiac and the night sky was that it was like its own world. Each of the zodiac signs is like its own kingdom. Different kingdoms have their own cultures, their own ways of being, and their own borders. They have their own kings or queens.

Each of the planets in astrology are like the wandering characters that traverse around the sky world. Each of them is ruler of one or two of these different kingdoms. Venus is a feminine planet. The planetary ruler of a sign is essentially the more abstract core essence of who that sign is. Each sign is essentially an embodiment of its planetary ruler. Libra is the cardinal air version of Venus and Taurus is the fixed earth version of Venus. Each in their nature is an embodiment of Venus but one masculine (Libra) and one feminine (Taurus). Each planet has both a masculine and feminine sign that it is ruler of and they will have different elemental qualities as well.

Venus Rules Taurus

Let's get into these two different sides of Venus in the zodiac, starting with Taurus. I think Taurus is a little bit easier to understand as an embodiment of Venus because Taurus is the feminine version of Venus and Venus is a very feminine planet. Fixed earth. Taurus tends to be very much into earthly sensual pleasures. Taurus loves being cozy. Taurus loves food. Taurus loves the finer things in life. Taurus can be a little bit bougie as well. Taurus is the bull; we can think of the relationship with food in this way where you think of cows grazing. You think of cows as food and producing food. And also this kind of slow steady nature of the bull or the cow.

As a fixed earth sign, Taurus can sometimes be a little bit stubborn. This is also the nature of the bull being the most grounded slowest moving of all the signs. Earth is going to be the slowest element and "fixed" is going to be the most stable and slow as well. That's sort of where sometimes people talk about Taurus being a little bit stubborn. There also is an association with money and Taurus. People love to talk about Taurus and their spending habits, maybe liking to spend a lot sometimes on things that are maybe not super necessary, but it's Venus—we need the finer things. You need the nice food. It's worth it to have the more comfort. As an earth sign, Taurus can also be very into gardening and enjoying the pleasure of being outdoors in nature surrounded by flowers or food and beauty.

Venus Rules Libra

Then on the other side we have Libra ruled by Venus. This is a very different version of Venus. Masculine version. Cardinal air—an air sign. Libra is the scales and has more of this association of the social component of Venus. Venus is not only material pleasure but also relational pleasure. Libra has this superpower of really being able to induce peace and ease in their social interactions. Libra is very skilled at navigating social situations to make everyone feel at ease. Libra knows how to not rock the boat too much, how to keep the peace.

Libra tends to be very concerned with justice and fairness as well as the scales as the more masculine version of Venus, and also has sort of an aesthetic intelligence. Air signs are more mental, social, and playful, and I think of Libra as sort of the archetype of the interior designer. They tend to have very strong sense of lighting specifically, but also just the general environment that they're in—interior design, architecture, and art. They tend to have an aesthetic, and that's important to them.

On the shadow side of Libra, sometimes this ability to really sense what would be the most harmonious and having this very strong orientation towards relational peace means it can be hard for Libra to say a hard thing, to set a boundary, or to assert themselves in situations. Sometimes they might even find themselves sort of getting a little bit walked all over because they are trying to be so nice and so kind that sometimes people can take advantage of them and they may not have the inclination or fortitude to stick up for themselves in a moment. It's also very hard for Libra to make a decision. Sometimes being the scales and having this intense inclination towards fairness can make it difficult for them to just make a decision, because they can be weighing the pros and cons. They just really like to think and make sure that they've considered all of the pros and cons.

Venus vs. Mars

It can also be extremely insightful to understand the planets through their opposites. If you look at the zodiac wheel, you'll notice that Venus is always opposite to Mars in the Aries-Libra axis and in the Taurus-Scorpio axis. Scorpio feminine, Taurus feminine. Aries Libra is the masculine axis of Venus Mars. Aries masculine, Libra masculine. This is true for all of the planets. Jupiter is always opposite to Mercury. Saturn is always opposite to a luminary, either the sun or moon.

This is meaningful. They are always opposite because they have opposite energy. They want to do opposite things. Venus is a benefic—harmony, romance, aesthetics, all of these lovely things. Mars is a malefic. Mars wants to split, sever, destroy, explode, pierce, separate, inflammation, anger, aggression, violence. Mars is also probably our manliest man of the zodiac planets and Venus is our most feminine of the planets. They are very opposite in this gendered way.

Aries-Libra Axis

Let's start with the Libra Aries axis. I think of this axis as the axis of war and peace. Aries is the most archetypal warrior of the zodiac—very much an embodiment of Mars. Mars is fiery and this is a fire sign. Aries is masculine. Aries is very much the energy that Mars wants to be in. Cardinal fire. I think of Aries as like a machine gun, the hero. And then Venus over here with Libra—the scales, justice, harmony, peace, social relating. This is really the axis of war and peace, which is not to say that just because Libra is ruled by Venus all Libras are great, or because Aries is ruled by Mars all Aries people are going to be violent and suck.

Both Mars and Venus are extremely important energies to have integrated and to not demonize because they both get demonized for different reasons. As lovely as it is to encounter Venusian qualities—this social harmony, peace, relaxation, beauty—the opposite end of that is Aries in their bravery and ability to set boundaries, speak their mind, say no, get out there and do a hard thing, or endure discomfort. This is also a very important quality for people to have integrated.

On the shadow side of Libra, you can think about Mars as being sort of the archetype of bravery, and in this opposite sense for Venus, there's sort of a lack of bravery. It can be very difficult for Libra to socially do a hard thing, to have that social bravery, whereas for Aries it is much easier for them to speak up even if you don't like what they have to say. That's important for them to be able to do and puts them in situations where they're around people that are aligned because they're able to just say how they really feel.

On the flip side, sometimes Aries might rush to be a little bit rash, might tend towards a little bit of anger, or might come off a little bit stronger than they need to, maybe lacking some of this social harmony ability. It's not that it's just good or just bad. Sometimes Aries really do need to chill. Sometimes they do need to think about the social situation and how they can sort of be at ease with that.

Taurus-Scorpio Axis

Then the other axis, the feminine axis: Scorpio and Taurus. This is a very different version of Mars. Fixed water version of Mars. Water is more oriented towards emotions, feeling, intuition—not so much the qualities that Mars on his own is really more inclined towards. The way this works out is Scorpio is sort of more like the archetype of the sniper where, as a fixed water sign, this version of Mars is much more patient. Scorpio can really just wait for the exact right moment to strike. It's still that warrior energy of Mars, but it's much more calculated and strategic. Not so front lines blasting forward. More like "they have wronged me, that will never happen again, and I will wait as long as I need to wait for the exact right moment to take them down."

Sometimes this ends up being a little bit more in the emotional realm where Scorpio people can maybe hold on to grudges, as a fixed water sign—kind of like holding fixed emotions. They also tend to really like to go deep. Water has this inclination towards depth and really wanting to get underneath the surface. For Scorpio, this can sometimes be psychological—really liking to go deep in relationships—but it can also be going deep into their interests, unafraid of the occult and the taboo. They're not afraid to look at any of that and really can kind of go down a rabbit hole for a long time. They also tend to be a little bit more pessimistic sometimes, a little bit darker, really not a fan of small talk or anything shallow.

And on the other side, Taurus just wants to feel good, just wants to have a nice time. I think of this axis as: whereas Aries Libra is kind of war and peace, this is sort of the axis of depth versus shallow. Scorpio wants to get super deep. Taurus likes the comfort and safety of the familiar. "Let's just feel good, relax. We don't need to get into all of that." No one is just one thing. If you have a Scorpio sun or a Taurus sun, that doesn't mean you are just that. Every person has all seven traditional planets in different places. You're going to have more than just one archetypal energy.

On the shadow side of the Taurus Scorpio axis, Taurus and Venus could be someone who is a little bit shallow, a little bit basic, could even be a tiny bit vain, maybe doesn't really have the bravery to try new things or go into uncharted territory. Whereas those are all things that Scorpio is going to be very strong at. Scorpio is like, "Let's get into it. Let's get uncomfortable." And then on the more positive side of this for Taurus, Taurus is going to just have a beautiful, lovely time and be enjoying their life. They know what they like. Whereas Scorpio sometimes could maybe need to chill a little bit.

Venus exalted in Pisces

We can also look at Venus's exaltation in Pisces. What exaltation means essentially is that Venus has an especially good time here. Venus really enjoys Pisces energy and can kind of reach her highest point—elevated to the highest degree. Pisces is ruled by Jupiter—another benefic. Benefics sort of get along. So it makes sense that Venus would be very happy in Jupiter's sign of Pisces.

Pisces is sort of the archetype of the artist, also the mystic. Pisces is also very concerned with beauty, creativity, harmony, peace, justice, and also love—even in this more kind of divine love as it's a watery sign that has more of this kind of mystical intuitive nature to it. All of these qualities are things that Venus also enjoys.

Venus Detriment in Virgo

The detriment of Venus is going to be opposite to Pisces, in Virgo. This is a place where she does not have a great time. Virgo, being ruled by Mercury, is more about what makes sense, what is rational, "how do we make this just work," which Venus is like, "No, we need to make it pretty." But Mercury is like, "It doesn't matter what it looks like, let's just analyze, figure out what makes sense, put it together, and boom." Which is a very important energy, but just not really the style that Venus wants to take for things. So, a Venus in Virgo just has this more analytical, potentially even critical nature that is a little bit antithetical to what Venus wants to do. Which is not to say that if you have Venus in Virgo then you will not be an artist or something. It's just a little bit of a different style.

Venus’s Joy in the 5th House

Venus also has her joy in the 5th house. The 5th house has to do with creativity, fertility, children, sensuality, and these are all things that Venus really loves. In traditional astrology, this is called the place of good spirit. This is just an excellent place for Venus to be in your chart. It will probably just give you more of that superpower creative energy because Venus is in a place that she is really enjoying and is supportive to her nature.

These are just different ways that we can sort of look at the condition of Venus in your chart. If she's in her domicile in Taurus or Libra or if she's exalted in Pisces, these are called conditions of bonification or things that are going to support and sort of make Venus stronger. Also like at the beginning when I talked about Venus being in her maximum elongation, this is another supportive quality. Versus Venus being under the beams of the sun—this would be a condition of maltreatment or a more difficult place for Venus to be because she is being sort of washed out.

Interpreting Venus in a birth chart

Getting into how to interpret Venus in a birth chart, you can look at all of these different things that I just said in terms of the quality and strength that you have in regards to aesthetics, beauty, creativity, romance, relating things like that. You can look at the sign that she's in to sort of look at not only your style of relating, your aesthetic. If you had Venus in Pisces, for instance, you might be inclined towards an artistic ideal and aesthetic that is related to these more mystical deep justice-oriented types of qualities. Or if you had a Venus in Aries, then you might have a style of relating to people or aesthetic that is much more fiery and passionate or even assertive or aggressive. You might embody that in your relationships. Or it could also be what you are attracted to in other people.

Each of the zodiac signs actually corresponds to a different body part.

Aries: the head
Taurus: the mouth, the throat
Gemini: the shoulders, arms, hands
Cancer: the breasts
Leo: the heart
Virgo: the stomach
Libra: the hips
Scorpio: the genitals
Sagittarius: the thighs
Capricorn: the knees, the joints, the bones
Aquarius: the legs
Pisces: the feet

Sometimes you might notice that people tend to actually have physical attraction to these different body parts depending on what sign their Venus is in. For instance, a person who has a Taurus Venus might be attracted to people's mouths particularly or the lips. This is some more spicy astrology that you can look into if you're interested in that.

You can also look at how you relate to money through your Venus sign. Depending on the aspects in the sign, what your relationship to money might be like, your artistic aesthetic, your style of romance and relating and again even sexual attraction here. Also, the house placement that Venus is in could be a place that you have particular gifts in, especially if you have a night chart. In a night chart, Venus is the more benefic of the two planets. That is the sect that Venus prefers. So she's just stronger at night. During the day, Jupiter is the stronger of the two benefics. So especially if you have a night chart, then where Venus is placed could be an area of life that you have gifts in with regard to the house topics relating to that area. If you have Venus in the 11th house—the place of friendship—maybe you might be someone who has an easier time making friends.

Venus Transits

Lastly, to talk about transits a little bit: because Venus is closer to the sun than the Earth, she travels through each sign pretty quickly. So when we're looking at Venus transits—where Venus is in the sky right now and how it relates to your birth chart—we often as astrologers don't really look at which sign she's passing through because it's only for maybe 18 days. The conjunctions as she moves around are not as significant as when Venus goes retrograde.

Every year or two, Venus will start to walk backwards in the sky. This is very significant. Oftentimes during a Venus retrograde period, you might experience people from your past—like your exes—coming back into your life. It can also be friendships, but oftentimes because Venus is very much relating to romance and relationships in this way, it can bring up people from the past that you've had relationships with. Sometimes the Venus retrograde periods also can sort of spur both in the collective and in your own life sort of taboo or risky, generally less acceptable, socially romantic sexual behaviors.

When Venus is retrograde, she's spending much longer periods of time in whatever part of the zodiac it is that she is retrograding through. Oftentimes, this will also be times that are more difficult in people's relationships. When a planet starts to move backwards, that is sort of doing counterproductive or opposite things to what that planet would normally be doing if it was moving forward. So we get this kind of more both backwards-looking—going into the past—and also working in opposite or antithetical ways to their nature.

Each time she goes retrograde, it happens in roughly the same exact places. It does shift a little bit each time, but she goes retrograde in the shape of this five-pointed star—this pentagram shape that happens and it just repeats. About every 8 years, Venus will be retrograde in the exact same spot that she was in 8 years prior. This is a super fascinating cycle to look at. Oftentimes people will break up when they reach the return of Venus in this 8-year cycle. A lot of times 8 years in a relationship will be sort of a breaking point because we are returning to that original point from the origin of the relationship in the relationship planet's cycle.

It's not even necessarily just relationships. You could also look at this with regard to your artistic or creative endeavors. How maybe there could be sometimes these 8-year cycles that we experience creatively and maybe at that point we either renew our commitment to that aesthetic or maybe we break away from that and start a new sort of creative endeavor or style. This is often a make or break point in anything related to Venus's topics of rulership.

If you have a Venus retrograde in your birth chart, then you will probably be especially impacted by Venus retrogrades. Sometimes if you're born in a retrograde period, that can actually be a more constructive time period for you. Whereas for most people if you're born with Venus direct, then a Venus retrograde period could be working opposite to your own nature. But if you were born with a Venus retrograde, then the Venus retrograde periods might be more in alignment with your nature.

I already talked about the synodic cycle relating to the Venus Cazimi and being under the beams with the myth of Inanna. You can go back to that section to look at that version of interpreting Venus transits within your own chart and in the world around you. Venus under her maximum elongation period is the strongest point for Venus to be because that is when she is the brightest in the sky. Astrology is symbolic interpretation from our visual experience here on Earth. When we're looking at the planet Venus and seeing that she is the brightest in the sky, this is the maximum elongation period that symbolically hopefully intuitively you can see would indicate that she is sort of at her peak.

If you were an artist or a creative or something and you are looking to maybe have an exhibition or an event or make a work of art and you want that full maximum Venus power energy, you might look at her cycle and see when is she going to be in her maximum elongation period. This could be something useful to look into if you were trying to plan your life around Venus's cycles and strength.

Offerings

Definitely drop your comments below. If you have any questions about anything that I have talked about or if you want to drop a little interpretation if you were born under Venus retrograde, let us know how that worked out for you. We can start learning from each other how we can interpret these different aspects of Venus's nature. Maybe if you were born under a maximum elongation period—if you calculate the number of degrees between your sun and Venus—let us know.

I actually am an artist and a jeweler and I made these earrings. So I'll link below if you want to buy these earrings or other earrings from me. Love Venus, love adornment. And of course I am an astrologer. I offer astrology consultations either 60 minutes or 90 minutes. I would love to help facilitate your relationship with these symbols, some guidance and conversation around what might be your purpose, the strengths and weaknesses, challenges and triumphs that you might experience.

The 60-minute reading is more getting into the symbol of who you are, strengths, challenges, purpose, things like that. And then the 90-minute consultation is more about timing where I start applying lots of these ancient time lord techniques to get into when you might experience career peaks, what transits are going to be affecting you the most in the coming year, when you might encounter or have encountered what will become the focus of your life's work, things like that.

So, if any of that sounds interesting, book a consultation with me below. And of course, download my zodiac graphic if you would like. That's super useful for learning astrology. And you can check out the other videos that I have in this series if you would like to keep going on this journey. I have a video out for each of the planets. And I'm also going to be going through each of the zodiac signs, the elements, the gender, the houses, the aspects. If you would like to follow along with me on this journey or just support my work, please subscribe to my channel, like this video. It really helps me. And share with a friend if there's something you think that someone you know might get out of this.

Wishing you peace and health. Thank you for being here.

Venus in Astrology: Everything you need to know (and more)

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