Venus Retrograde – Sometimes its okay to stop breathing!

Psilocybin is the active chemical in ‘magic’ mushrooms, after a friend was diagnosed with advanced cancer I watched the videos of terminal patients who had been given doses of psilocybin as part of a treatment to help them come to terms with their death.  Each experience was personal, one felt as though she had been walking / talking with ‘Buddhist teacher’, one ‘an atheist’ said he saw nothing and felt reassured that there was no life after death.  Depending on their own religious beliefs they all had experiences that comforted them and helped them accept their mortality.  One stuck out and that was the person who had the experience of stopping breathing and realised it was okay for her just to stop breathing, this person had been fighting for her family and felt guilty about leaving them.

Whatever those individuals own personal beliefs were their experiences were all equally valid, how I see the question of life after death.  If you don’t believe in life after death then I believe that will be true for you, you will cease to exist and you will be at peace with that.  If you believe in an after life then I believe that will also be true for you and you will go on to the afterlife and be at peace.  For everybody it will also be true that there will come a time when it is simply okay to stop breathing, for each of us that time will be different.  There will also be a time when we simply have to let go of those we love.

Venus in retrograde is much like this process, when a planet goes into retrograde it reverses back over the issues that have not been dealt with, once in reverse and once moving forward.  In reverse issues tend to come out into the open to be dealt with, how we really feel about letting go. When the planet begins to move forward we begin to resolve these issues we understand that sometimes it is okay just to stop breathing.

Venus is about to go retrograde in just over a week, at 0 degrees Virgo conjunct Regulus the heart of the Lion, and one of the Royal stars of Persia. From this point onwards Venus will appear to be in the same exact place in the sky although moving very slowly it will appear to be stationary.  Of course the speed of the planet is not changing or direction it is just what this appears to look like from earth. From earth Venus will appear to conjunct Regulus until it goes into retrograde.

This is our starting point, Venus conjunct Regulus the Lion heart, Braveheart, Warrior, national hero, symbol of courage, Religious leader and Prophet.  Venus is our intuitive emotional responses how we feel about our national heroes, religious Icons & Political icons. Many of us have a subconscious belief in facing these heroes after death, what will we say when we look Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, or William Wallace in the face after death.  As a representation of our values and ideals and how we have lived up to them or have failed to live up to them.  Regulus is larger than life the ideal we cannot achieve as mortals but is only achieved in the mythology of the heroic. This mythology inspires us, gives us the courage to attempt things against the odds, to sacrifice even our lives for our ideals.  This mythology is powerful and it has always been used to inspire good and to justify evil acts.

This is the starting point of Venus retrograde it is from this point our heroes and ideals and how they can be used powerfully in both positive and negative ways that we must re-examine. At the beginning of retrograde it is square Saturn our emotions about our present reality come to the fore, conjunct Jupiter our faith and beliefs and how we feel and express them.

It then conjuncts the Sun how we see our part in the wider story of living in this place and time and it forms a trine to Uranus how we feel about our individual freedoms and rights, before conjunction with Mars our drives and survival needs.  It is at this point that Venus becomes direct again. Venus then forms a sextile with Mercury enabling us to be able to talk through our emotions rationally but with the ability to express them clearly. It once again forms a trine with Uranus when we will sort of what we want in terms of individual rights and freedom, Before returning to the 0 degree Virgo conjunction with Regulus and forming a square yet again with Saturn, where we will put our emotions about ideals in perspective with emotions about our current reality. This period may involve challenging authority figures in order to be able to change current reality and to express our ideals and visions for the future.