Venus in Libra & Reconciling Hidden Power: October 2022

Venus enters Libra on September 29, 2022 at 12:49 AM PDT and will stay here until October 23.

Venus enters her home sign here, though she will be hidden in the rays of the Sun throughout the transit, until around October 19 where she will draw close enough to the Sun to be cazimi (within one degree of a conjunction). They will travel together on each of their way out of Libra and into Scorpio. October 19-23 may offer some kind of reveal or development that will be less visible until then.

In traditional astrology, Venus is well-resourced in Libra, but the condition of being hidden in the rays of the Sun is more challenging – mitigated here some by Venus being in her home sign. Later in the transit, Venus will also form a grand air trine with Mars in Gemini and Saturn in Aquarius, which are also considered difficult planets in traditional astrology, with the trine being a more graceful or easeful aspect. Symbolically, Venus in domicile (at home) engaging with Mars and Saturn feels like there is support for deeper clarity, sobriety, and realism/reality checks in our relationships. Venus is coming prepared for some deeper workings.

I come from an Evolutionary Astrology background, but have in the last few years begun studying and integrating traditional astrology, which is why I make the distinction – because I relate to Mars and Saturn mystically and outside of the context of calling them ‘malefic’ as much as I now also recognize the challenges those two planets represent. So today, I want to invite a kind of soul-searching that is a synthesis of both approaches.

This Venus in Libra transit is a unique and potentially fruitful time to become more aware of the particular dynamics that personally overshadow our greater potential for harmony. Venus in Libra is gifted at understanding social dynamics and taking the differing needs of others into account, and creating agreements based on this understanding. It is possible that with her under the beams of the Sun, we are gaining more clarity on our own blindspots in relationship that spring from a haziness in our own self-recognition. We are gaining awareness of how we are contributing to the dynamics of discord, or disconnection, where it is possible for there to be more love and more connection.

In more complex dynamics that are not as positive-spirited, it may also be a revisioning of how we navigate relationship to the people we have conflict with, and navigating the boundaries that are the most loving for all involved.

For this write-up, I’m focusing more on the possibility of reconciliation, than I am on the arts of separation. This is in the spirit that there are mysterious reservoirs of harmony that can be drawn upon that genuinely create healing in ourselves and in the relational web around us. 

It can be appropriate to disconnect from particular relationships, but I will not be focusing on that here. I will just offer the caveat that even attempts to reconcile or create relationship can be out of balance, such as when we over-invest energy where there is not reciprocity. 

However, we can also dig deeper into where WE are not participating in reciprocity ourselves, because we are not acknowledging all that we have to give or be responsible for. That is what I’m focusing on below, after a few announcements.

Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the zeitgeist feels like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive my writing to your inbox and be notified of upcoming educational opportunities and opportunities to work together, sign up for my mailing list here.

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Some thoughts on what the transit of Venus in Libra could look like for us in more detail:

• There is a phenomenon around being well-resourced in a particular way but not being fully aware of it or not feeling fully seen for it, or not fully integrated/realized here. Well-resourced could look like talent, skill, beauty, connections, money and other resources, negotiation leverage, etc. We want to be mindful of this over the course of the month.
• Becoming more aware of our resources and accounting for them properly allows us to be more ethical, responsible, just, and creative/fruitful in how we lead our lives. To be abundant in something and to not acknowledge it can create a unique kind of discord in our lives. Let’s consider a few examples, but I encourage you to consider the unique way this may be at play personally.
• Example: an extremely talented and competent person is attracting envy and competition relationally. Feeling victimized or distraught by this, the person just works harder at being excellent, which only increases the amount of intimidation and envy in their field. It is not at all that this person should dim themselves, but a different strategy may be called for in the situation. This person might consider how they are resourced to be an inspiration, to offer other people a place in the spotlight of their strength – i.e. intentionally drawing attention to and enlisting the unique genius of others. This person may need to contend with the dynamic that they are indeed, impressive, and mostly everyone already knows it. More proof is not needed. A different strategy to relate to the social complexity of attracting envy & transforming that to create more teamwork is needed. While this may feel like a burden, a hidden resource in the situation is one’s leadership skills that draw out the best in others, and it’s being overshadowed by a performer who keeps trying to receive validation but receives envy instead.
• Example: a person has resources they are ignoring or understating in their own mind, due to complexes or traumas that are overshadowing what is actually available. While living in the complex of scarcity, this person neglects to take part in opportunities that involve spending or circulating resources, and this is creating stagnancy in their lives and potentially in the communal web they are a part of since they have taken themselves out of the equation of exchange.
• Example: a person who has a look/beauty, some kind of “it factor” receives a lot of attention they do not feel they are asking for, and potentially this is paired with a kind of nervous/anxious condition around that and one feels victimized by the abundant attention they receive. As a consequence, this person feels like people are always trying to get to them, be in proximity with them, and it doesn’t feel good. Having this particular struggle does not often draw sympathy/empathy, as it’s kind of a strange feeling to complain about being too beautiful or too magnetic or too alluring – so there is shame here also. A reframe or a potential meaningful arc for an individual in this situation is to claim that yes, they have an affect on people, and what social skills do they need to learn to effectively de-escalate unwanted attention, deflect unwanted attention, and what opportunities related to said ‘it factor’ is this person willing to engage, to accept that it is not necessarily wrong or shameful to be in relationship with having an it factor?
• Within these examples, it is still fair to have discernment around who has access to our time, energy, personal life! These were sticky examples. It is possible to have this discernment without excess drama, perpetration, shaming, villainization, etc. and simply be as sober, self-respecting and compassionate as possible.
• By now, you can get my drift around these types of dynamics in which relational discord is set in motion due to how people are holding/relating to their own resources, feeling it is unfair that they have them in the first place, or unfair that people treat them as they do. Compensation-based behaviors emerge in avoidance of owning or claiming the resources. Guilt and shame are present in relationship to the resources. 
• This might be a real soul-search in terms of navigating how to be in relationship to social politics and power dynamics from a place of owning where we truly do have power in the situation, and to abdicate that power is not necessarily more virtuous/enlightened than to learn how to own it and to be deeply initiated by it. To learn how to own power that constellates envy or discord, is to claim a deeper level of sovereignty and creative agency, and it may require the development of deeper relational nuance. This deeper relational nuance will help us navigate the complexities that will naturally arise from saying yes to the resources we have been given.
• In a state of deeper realization, saying yes to what we have been given does include distributing those resources back into community from a place of power (as opposed to refusing the journey in the first place and leaving those resources dormant and un-actualized). There are many different ways this distribution can manifest. It can take time for this realization to manifest and develop.
• We can contend with the ways in which not owning the resources (aka power) that we have creates other complexes or stagnancies which arise in consequence. There are consequences either way (Libra knows this well) so we also learn how to act from a place of being in relationship to our values.
• Owning our gifts/resources does not always imply abusing them. That discernment is a vulnerable personal discovery, an edge, confronting.
• We can also consider the dynamic that if we are having a struggle that is in relationship to having something that others would covet, we may be selective in who we talk to about it in relationship to how actually vulnerable or sensitive it is for us. We might consider if we are on the other hand, unintentionally inviting another person’s secrecy, because we relate to them more with jealousy than we do with humanity. 
• I was once told a story about a recent widow who could not relate to her friend’s struggle with the friend’s husband. The widow says, “at least your husband is alive. I would love to be having fights with my husband right now.” The window’s friend’s heart closed in response, as they both contracted. This created a divide in their relationship and the widow apologized, and the two of them cried together and reconciled. We might consider the ways that we lack empathy for others because we envy the good fortune that is implied in their problems, and thus we other them. When we are envious, judgmental, and othering to the people close to us, we create conditions where they likely feel less safe and less inclined to open to us.
• These places where we cease to be friends, teammates, lovers, because of our own jealousy, are places of deep alchemical transformation as well should we open to choose love. We also have the choice of taking intentional time to digest, be with ourselves, and make space for that love. We have the choice of creating agreements or boundaries that we might need, internally and relationally, to deal with the disparities that challenge connection. This theme also shows up in how we navigate connection while one person is on the up and in a winning cycle, where another person is on the down and experiencing losses, and the ways these contrasts inspire and challenge us.

Thank you for meditating on the transits with me! If you would like further guidance, I have been increasingly focused on longer-term experiences in the form of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive and my higher level course METEORITE for alumni – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to be in their power, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. I would love to support you in building your relationship with astrology. The intensive is currently open for applications and METEORITE 2022 is currently in session.

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With love,

Sabrina Monarch