In spiritual astrology, I often describe Venus as a body in a dream state. Think of yourself when you are sleeping – how your body is gently and continuously moving to put itself into balance to feel more comfortably in your bed. In other words, Venus is the energy that puts into balance all that which is not currently in balance and in harmony. This reminds us that balance is not static, it is dynamic and ever moving, to adjust – it is not extreme, it is the meeting place of trust and faith, it is the point of time of both sunrise and sunset, when the sun kisses the arms of dawn and the moon kisses the arms of dusk. Love too is a continuous flowing and moving.
There is a gentleness to Venus, a grace and kindness of rhythm, a sacredness of her vulnerability and tenderness that our world has forgotten. Because it is precisely through her vulnerability and in her sensitivity, where true power lives and thrives; and breathes us into life and deeper love. It is the feminine energy that is related to receiving; and it is a devotional pathway that it follows.
Venus gets her full realization in formlessness, in the complete dissolution of everything – to show us that true beauty is the internal beauty, that true wealth is the wealth of devotion, and that once the inner wild lands are in harmony all else external inevitably will be also. This also refers to relationships – as deep love and deep intimacy happen through the merging of souls and paths, in the complete dissolution of boundaries, where we peel the false layers of ourselves, to become more authentic with one another and more selfless in our love. This is the moment where love becomes unconditional, and we begin to give to our partner based on what they need rather than we want to be given in turn through our “giving”.
Venus is a feminine sphere – meaning that it is focused towards emotional and intuitive development. It represents love and is the karaka of the forth house, which is the home of the heart. When we express ourselves through the house and sign of our natal Venus, we open our heart and touch the heart of others because we are naturally flowing through that energy.
For example, if your natal Venus is in the third house, then it is through words that you will bring more love into this world and change humanity for the better; there is perhaps something really beautiful in the way you express yourself and especially if it is in a water sign, that creative expression through both the written and spoken word would be activating the heart’s of others.
Some people may have debilitated or afflicted Venus in their charts, but no matter how difficult it is for them to do, they should try; they should try to learn and to push themselves to express their love and feelings towards others in an open and gentle way. If you find yourself in that position where this is hard for you do, just try little by little: say you appreciate someone, compliment them, give to them, focus on the positive and find something beautiful in each person rather than criticising or judging, and when you love someone, say you love them despite it being difficult or uncomfortable to say – because this will open your heart, allowing more love to flow in, and this will also open your Venus consciousness. Love gently with small gestures, until you can love with broader strokes.
Compassion, tenderness, joy, forgiveness, and openness, are all just different shapes of love, different movements of love, different speeds of love. When we express them through our actions, we become fully embodied in love, rather than only ideas and thoughts about love, like clouds flowing the sky. We have to be able to build love, contain love and emit love.
Essentially, Venus is a world inspired and motivated by the inner language of emotion, intuition, harmony, beauty, and raw creativity.
Often times in our life, the highest knowledge is learned in silence not in books. It is in our tending, caring, nurturing. Like the way we tenderly care for another person, or to grow a rose in our garden. Devotion is the veil through which awareness shows its beautiful face.
The feminine is the keeper of secrets and mystical wisdom, and with that always comes a responsibility – a woman needs to know herself. Unfortunately in our world today, as women we are rarely given the opportunity or even support to the have the space in which we can come into our knowing. We are constantly being taught the masculine aspects of attaining knowledge, which is about initiation and do-do-do, rather than the quiet times in which we can connect to our heart and inner wisdom and intuition.
When a woman doesn’t have that space to re-connect to herself, she begins to feel lost and confused. When a woman isn’t with the right partner who provides her with the space in which she can feel fully supported and loved to be in her true expression of self, she begins to tighten the reigns, over-controls all and everything, carrying the world on her shoulders, and she eventually begins to feel resentment, hardens her heart and becomes over-burdened with things that are not even hers to carry.
In some cultures today still, particularly some Indigenous, there is the understanding that if a woman isn’t connected to herself, the whole community will suffer. This is because feminine energy is in a way transmutation – it absorbs all negativity from others and then cleanses it, purifies it and transforms it. But then – she needs to have some me-time in which she can reconnect to herself, recharge and release all from her energy. So in these cultures, this is well understood, and men would often even encourage the women to take daily time off, even if for an hour, to spend in nature or wherever else they needed, while the men would take care of things. This is how both the intimate relationships and the community as a whole would be more prosperous. In fact, we often see that in our world today, in the places where this feminine energy is lacking or suppressed in some way, there are more troubles and ailments.
The Sleeping Venus by Giorgione, 1508-1510
There is a beautiful portrayal of these esoteric concepts of Venus in the painting The Sleeping Venus by Giorgione. The image of the sleeping Goddess is delicate, gentle and yet powerful. Her pose is one described as “pudica” showing a sense of modesty in her classical sleeping recline. She sleeps alone, and is not part of a discovery scene. Throughout history, many representations of sleeping women, such as sleeping nymphs, were in a sexual context, where other people and men would surround them to look at them. Not Venus. Even in her sleep, she is not under the power of anyone else. She is not only beautiful, she is beauty itself. Instead of sexual beauty, despite her nakedness of skin, she is a symbolic representation of the powerful spiritual love that is embodied in sleep also.
In Venetian culture which was the time period of Giorgione, sleep represented that idea of vacatio, a space in which one comes into an awakening, inner integration, connection to heart and a receiving of messages from the divine. The painting shows the beautiful harmony between Venus’ inner and outer peace and a love marriage that is one based on a pure spiritual love. The Sleeping Venus is essentially a representation of a sacred marriage – within and without; because sleep is esoterically about awakening. This also reminds us of the secrets of marriage to keep partners connected and in harmony – how sometimes love is a little quiet, yet still shapes and shifts and forms in the formlessness. Patience is the mark of truest love. Patience opens the soul of matter.
When the “feminine sleeps” – it is not inaction, it is not passivity – it is a needed time to listen within, to balance what is not yet in balance, and to integrate all that is needed to for greater self-fulfillment to occur.
In every relationship, within and without, there is a time to pause – to turn inward, self-reflect, and to just feel into the formless waters that our unique inner emotional wild lands are. There is a time let go of the whatifs, the shoulds and the musts; a time to let go of the “intellect” and the constant rationalizing of feelings as feelings are not to be thought – they are meant to be felt; a time to release the need to know and to control, as we learn the importance of the immaterial and the unspoken. It is a time to trust that nothing is not as it should, and that there is a power greater than all of us. We were never meant to know it all, and the humility in this deserves to be treasured. Allow the possibility for a blank page, so that God writes you a love letter. Allow the possibility that perhaps there is a dreamer bigger than us, dreaming us into an even more beautiful dream that we could have ever imagined.
So calm the mind, put body in bed, side by side to your beloved, let go of the daily worries. Let your body awaken you into the remembering, and into the love that already is, always was, and always will be.
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