The astrology has been like a highlight reel lately. There were eclipses. There was a Mercury retrograde. Jupiter wound up more than a year in Virgo and moved on to Libra. Then the Sun followed Jupiter into Libra to precipitate a new season. After all of that and more, one might think Venus changing signs would not be very special. Think again.
Earlier today, Venus embarked upon a cruise through Scorpio’s fixed water. The tour will last until Oct. 18, when Venus will move on to Sagittarius. It’s not rare for Venus to visit Scorpio. Roughly speaking, it happens once a year.
Neither is Venus considered to be powerfully expressed in Scorpio. That’s because Scorpio is on the opposite side of the zodiac from Taurus. Along with Libra, Taurus is where Venus is said to be in its ‘domicile’. For astrologers, any planet opposed to its domicile (the sign it rules) is considered to be in ‘detriment’. Anything happening in Scorpio, however, is intrinsically going to defy simple interpretation.
Scorpio is complex. Water signs tend towards the enigmatic. Fixed signs can be resistant. The combination is often mysterious. With Scorpio being a feminine sign ruled by assertive Mars, there is an explicit polarity as well. Include a historical association between Scorpio and not only scorpions, but also eagles and snakes (to name just the most prominent corresponding animal totems) and the assertive nature of Mars is further emphasized.
Add on Pluto as Scorpio’s modern co-ruler and there is an implicit layering of meaning, which adds depth to the fixed quality while also provoking ambivalence and representing the counter-intuitive.
This particular traversal of Scorpio will feature Venus symbolically merging with both Black Moon Lilith (a calculated point in the Moon’s orbit) and the asteroid Juno — both of which represent powerfully independent facets of the feminine.
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The implied consequence is that Venus opposed to its domicile this year will express as anything but domestic. Depending on your point of view, that lack of domestication for Venus may not be a detriment at all.
A larger context, which takes the entire zodiac into account, only furthers the impression that Venus in Scorpio this year will correspond with the feminine defying any confirmation with traditional expectations. To cite just two examples, consider the other signs where Mars is considered to be strong: Aries and Capricorn.
Aries, the other sign ruled by Mars, is currently hosting the background aspect against which the rest of the astrology is playing out: revolutionary Uranus sharing the same degree with disruptive Eris. Implicit in that conjunction is a symbolic indication of some rather big changes regarding everybody’s place in the order of things.
In addition, Mars itself will be moving on to its exaltation in Capricorn (and, ultimately, a conjunction with Pluto) early next week. Almost as if Mars is trying to add fuel to what’s going on in Scorpio.
In sum, don’t expect the 2016 tenure of Venus in Scorpio to correspond with sugar, spice and everything nice. Rather, look forward to a very special time, which can also be a very good time — so long as you do not limit yourself to traditional expectations.
Offered In Service
Ah, yes. Scorpio is complex, & Venus in Scorpio is that & more. I live with her there, as she’s located in my natal 5th, & her trine to rising retrograde Saturn in Cancer is the only flowing aspect my poor Saturn receives. I am accustomed to her sometimes obsessive notions, & occasionally we got into misadventures – learning experiences? – the rest of me may not have thought entirely wise. But she also knows how to do the Phoenix thing, & I hope some of that energy, together with what may flow via my excellent (Saturn?) capacity for memory, may assist in my present recovery/healing work.
She seems to lie at the heart of my creative nature, aided, I expect, by my Jupiter-Chiron conj. in Libra also in my 5th. Apparently among my first articulated sentences as a toddler was “Mummy, I want to make something!” Been at it ever since.
When in this tour she trines the transiting Neptune/Chiron conjunction, perhaps there too something healing may emerge.
In my experience, there IS something very much undomesticated about Venus in Scorpio, & although our world doesn’t seem to have a place for us “wild children” who’ve grown into “wild crones”, we’re out here.
Thanks, Len, for reminding us that there are so many factors in the current picture besides the traditional “in detriment” label. Some old books practically write Venus in Scorpio off as disastrous if not unredeemable. Happily, we know better.
Venus in Scorpio always makes me think of Venus in Furs, Sacher-Masoch’s literary exploration of sado-masochism which spawned one of the Velvet Underground’s most iconic tracks. She is beauty wrapped in power, power created from death, her wealth emanating from other people. She didn’t kill the original owner of that pelt, her lover bought it for her.
Desire, sexuality, power. As the submissive Severin says of Wanda, his dominatrix, at the end of Sacher-Masoch’s novella: “She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he and is his equal in education and work.”
Hahahaha I’m Venus in Scorpio rising! Got me a fine education and a career, and it’s impressive how many men cannot tolerate that.