Love inspires the greatest flights of fancy and emotional voyages in our world, hands down. This Venus Retrograde peels back the layers of fantasy to reveal some hard facts. Not to hurt you but to help you. How does the painful truth help, you may ask?
Because there is a delicate balance right now between the last stages of growth and harvest. We rush to decide what something means now and we measure it against the fantasy and it falls short. This may mean it’s not ready to be harvested yet. It doesn’t mean if can’t get there. Time to do an relationship inventory of what you think you have to do to reap the rewards. Neptune and Mercury make it easy to dream the perfect dream this upcoming week. But a hard Mars transit stands in front of Mercury and says, make it real.
Chiron in the gate of Innocence cautions you not to measure your progress before you finish the task at hand. Are your actions purely to drive results or are they the actions that align with your heart and soul? Venus Retrograde insists you stop measuring what you love with a business eye. Shared feelings, mutual trust, individual maturity, and growth are just as important as those visible markers of progress. If your progress report doesn’t have as many of those as it does the tangible evidence of love it’s out of balance.
That said, if you have only the intangibles and non of the tangibles it may be time to release your attachment to what you think it looks like and open up to plug those feelings in to a physical situation. The best love asks you to risk the real. It also asks to be met there in the blend of fantasy come to life. Spend your efforts putting your right blend together for your love story. Personalize it for you, just make it the adult you. This is a week where you get big returns on your investment when you parent the young place in you that hungers for the magic to be real.
The child in each of us wants the perfection of mystical union that we had with mother in the womb. All our needs met without us knowing we needed it. Real life, adult life, says you carve out that mystical union, one adult choice and action at a time. Work on your own stuff rather than project onto others. Let pain points prompt you to be vulnerable and ask for what you need. This week hints at the heights love can take you to when you show up. Saturn says it’s a process. Take it one step at a time. The Cards and Stars will help.
Thank you,
Lisa Greenfield
Card of the Week: Ten of Vessels, Happiness
There’s an old saying, ‘Happiness isn’t have all you want, it’s wanting all you have’. Embrace those words this week and you reap the rewards. Take stock in what you have, what you’ve created. It’s too human to get stuck on what you don’t have, don’t want or what hasn’t happened yet. The key word there is yet. The Astrology supports your ability to imagine into being more of what you love. Then you have to show up and give it a home. You do that with words and actions that take responsibility for your feelings and allow others their own. Watch out for projections as a sign you’ve slipped back into child’s space. Blame and shame beat you or others up for a human moment.
Take a different road. When it happens, back up and and take a mulligan. Do it over again with you in the driver’s seat that also allows for difference with your loved ones. This is adult space and more powerful than hiding, blaming or lamenting the mistakes. We are still in transformational tension that requires you navigate the differences between you and others without demands or self denial. Ten is an empowered one and this one is all heart. Take your love up to a new playing field, it’s where your happiness waits.
Monday: Page of Vessels
The Pages are the inner state that precedes the action of a Knight. Check in with the inner you, today. The child in you was taught about love from those around you. Those examples, good or bad, still color your perspective today. Consciously select what you love about the inherited story and stand the unwanted parts up for you to see. Once those unhappy bits have your full attention, thank them and ask them to take a seat at the rear of vehicle. They don’t get to drive, but they can come along. After all they inform your life, too.
We learn by contrast, night and day, hot and cold, wanted and unwanted. Just don’t give them the wheel simply to please those around you. Belonging is necessary but at what price? This playful page invites you to hold on to the joy of your individual wants even if the community or loved ones want something other than you do. The space between desires can be a playground for exploration rather than a wasteland of disagreement. Explore rather than fight.
Tuesday: Queen of Vessels
Ah, the Queen of Good Fortune makes her appearance today. Moon conjunct Pluto can be your fairy godmother with her magic wand if you let go of expectations and instead delight in what the Universe offers to surprise you today. The more attached you are to the fantasy without effort involved, the harder today will be. The more you can measure the gap between what is and what’s desired and commit to it, the happier you will be. Don’t get too involved with planning. This is not something you can intellectually map out.
Instead feel your way, one authentic choice at a time. Too much mental pressure squeezes all the magic out of the imagined outcome. You can’t one, two, three step something fantastic. Rather you contribute your heartfelt part and then the Universe shows up to dazzle you when you let it. So don’t waste effort attached to the would have, should have, could have. Be open to magic and play your part. This is the path from fantasy to reality.
Wednesday: Eight of Vessels, Rebirth
Ah, the eight is our report card, what you put out to the world comes back to you. This emotional measure is crucial today as the aspects serve up right turns and reroutes. These aren’t denials, they are delays or alternatives that have much to offer you. If you find a tantrum building, look immediately to the stories you tell when you don’t get what you want immediately. Are you holding on tightly to security while expecting to expand? Where can you relax and let progress pull you along rather than pushing things through?
Water flows, so let this expansion today move around and over any obstacles to get you closer to your desires. In the Wildwood Tarot this Eight reminds us to examine our past, learn from our mistakes and do it better. Grace and Harmony, two of Venus’s hallmarks are wrapped into this Eight. Feel where that is and follow it. Or you could just rely on sugar or adrenaline and have emotional crashes throughout the day. Always an option, just not one that gets you closer to the goal. You decide…
Thursday: Nine of Vessels, Generosity
We have the makings of a straight in poker this week with the Eight, Nine and Ten of Vessels in play. The Universe is generous. You can see proof of it all around you when you pause and look. The aspects today highlight intelligently going with the flow, no kidding. This makes it easier to release unhealthy attachment to a specific result and be curious about what’s possible instead. That doesn’t mean abandon a wish. No, it means you can actually get more than you asked for.
Mars in uneasy aspect with Chiron and Neptune helps make sense of where we rush to judgement and action; and what the real cost of that is to us. Step by step, choice by choice, moment by moment you draw a better outcome to you rather than riding out to meet it. Patience, purpose and clarity are helpful. If you struggle with those, ask a friend for support. Effort matters this week and pays off richly. I don’t want you to miss it.
Friday: Ten of Bows, Responsibility
Wow, the aspects today help you get to the bottom of the pattern that has you living in your mind instead of in reality. That’s the good news. The bad news is you can’t miss seeing where you are responsible for more than you realize. Then the better news is that once you accept responsibility you can actually do something about moving out of the imagined future and into the present. Which means more of what you imagine translates into real life. Responsible action does that. When you accept what your part of something is then change happens from you. Watch for the place where you take on too much responsibility as a covert means of trying to change others. They have to do their part – you can’t control them into your desired outcome.
If they can’t or won’t join you by invitation, you are responsible for what you want to do with the connection. These revelations are rarely convenient or particularly welcome. But they are helpful and necessary so you can make progress on what you want out of life. That includes being selective about those you accomplish it with, in equitable relationships. Not equal, but equitable. That means fair. Notice, pay attention and don’t rush to act. Bows are Spirit or intuition. Let the light in from this brave Ten and see where this takes you the next few weeks of Venus Retrograde.
Saturday: Ten of Stones, Home
Ah, this is the third ten when you include the Card of the Week. Three of them highlight exchange, commerce and repayment. The Astrology today has feelings running high in the morning with a dramatic ‘you owe me’ theme connected to a wound. Be careful if you are demanding payment from someone out of proportion to their offense or effort. Your past may color your judgement. Which means you want the person in front of you to pay for a long history of injustices. You may catch yourself doing this or be asked by another to do it for them. This Ten is the empowered one in body. It helps you stand firm and centered to navigate a better, healthier approach to exchanges. What’s true in the present?
Value your own contributions, respect another’s even if you don’t value it as highly as you do your own. Understand differences can be honestly and compassionately dealt with to bring you closer to others through Truth, uncomfortable as it may be. While the words value exchange sounds more like business, it applies to love as well. If someone offers you a demonstration of love but in a language you don’t value, it causes hard feelings. But it doesn’t mean there isn’t love. Drill down, get to genuine respect for each other while you feel your way to a more satisfying cross current between you.
Sunday: Two of Vessels, Attraction
Release of passion is possible after yesterday’s firm foundation exercise. When love is seen, respectfully acknowledged and received, one to another, it releases a wealth of passion. Even if it isn’t equally offered, the flow blesses you. Channel those feelings into love or creativity or both, it’s not limited to one arena or another. This hot little number Two is the attractor factor that glues people, resources and odd bits together to form a whole that exceeds the sum of the parts. Pay attention to what lights you up. The astrology lines up delights with a dance party between the Moon and Venus with Mercury as the DJ. Your favorite songs in life are there to dance to when you tune in to the music.
Wildwood Tarot calls this the ‘exploration of potential’. So no pressure please. Curiosity, openness, trust in yourself all bring delight. Keep questions about where this is going off the table until you know what really is there to be explored. Let today be a joyous adventure of possibilities. That is fuel for the attraction fire, indeed. Nothing like healthy appreciation to satisfy all concerned.
