If you would like to have a more personal interpretation of the Venus Retrograde, I offer readings and classes at starhearthastrology.com
I have to admit, I am wary of personal “goals.” I am all for the pursuit of self-development, I balk at the external quantification. Parsing out the future in attempting measurable external achievement feels too abstract and presupposes a predictable world, and as it often shows up in the practice of behavioral health, there is a clinical sterility to managed care. There is a fine line between self-development and narcissistic perfectionism injected into the psyche by a witty copywriter in service to late-stage capitalism.
Recently though, I have softened my suspicious stance toward goals. I now think of goals as guidelines to keep ourselves in alignment, and mantras to help us remember where we’re trying to go. Goals that emanate from within, rather than something external pursued. These goals revolve around the crux of the person I would like to be, rather than how my achievements might reflect on me.
Maybe the kind of goals I am writing about are more akin to personal values, only these are not abstract virtues, but actionable road signs for what makes a meaningful life and the building blocks of personal integrity. These are the things we care about on a personal level and are willing to change ourselves for.
In the language of astrology, whenever we talk about “values,” we are talking about Venus. Venus is everything soft and sweet and comforting and alluring. She is the cosmic attractor and the principle of pleasure. She is personal taste and style. She is value and cooperation.
Venus is about to go retrograde. She is reflecting on what she cares about and is entering a roughly 40-day period of confronting her ambivalence. During the course of her retrograde she will get to decide what she values and what cares she has outgrown.
There is a Death Cab for Cutie lyric: “When you find yourself the villain in the story you have written, it’s plain to see — sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemption, don’t you agree?” The song is about how we can be led astray by our own commitments, and find ourselves foreigners in our lives. It’s the problem of our values shifting as our actions remain the same, and Venus Retrograde is here to poke the bear.
During the course of Venus’ retrograde, from July 22 through Sept. 3, the glue that holds things together fails. These things might be a specific relationship that hits some bumps and cannot continue in its current form. It might be unsustainable ways that money is being spent or earned. It might be the social fabric — cue the strikes and protests.
Whatever it ends up being, because it’s in the sign of Leo, it’s personal. For the sign most concerned with how they are perceived, the way that we are likely to understand the issues that arise is in the context of how we view ourselves and how we would prefer others view us as well.
When things come undone in the sign of Leo, questions of identity arise. Who am I now, that this relationship is changing, I can’t do my job in the same way I used to, I need to move somewhere else?
Venus goes retrograde every 19 months, providing the opportunity to shift what we’re putting energy to in accordance with how circumstances have changed. There is likely some area of your life you’ve grown deeply ambivalent toward. Now is the time to change it. There’s something you long for, now is the time to take that longing seriously, not merely as a pipe dream, but as the next part of your story beckoning.
Though the retrograde may prompt disequilibrium, it is well supported by Jupiter, the most exuberant planet in the sky. The next six weeks will be a bumpy road to a better place. Lean on those goals to guide you.