Idiosyncrasies of Venus

Venus leads our way into relationship, at so many levels, in so many ways. It can be an ultra-sensitive consideration in our behaviors. We address our attitude to life through Venus; our feelings to another person, our idealized concepts involving the world.

Through Venus, we seek reflection back to ourselves of who we are emotionally. If the picture is bare and cool, we may have cause for concerns; the signal may be there for remediation, for improvement. If the reflection is aggrandizing, it magnifies and easily exceeds prudent bounds to define the identity to an extreme.

When Venus is in Gemini, particularly, or Virgo, we can expect a cerebration of the socialization energies. The style of relating is in the mind before it is in the emotions. Often, the person can talk about emotions better than he or she can feel them; the mind manages Venus considerations better than the sensorium. While this may appear efficient, it is very often frustrating, depressing, and empty.

A recent client shows Venus conjunct the Sun and Mars in Gemini in the 7th, squared by Uranus-Pluto at the Midheaven. This is a dominating configuration indeed: five planets focused on the cerebration of emotions, with idealized expectations thrown in! With Venus ruling the 11th, in the midst of all that tension, we know that an anxiety about being lovable is behind the shift from heart to mind, if you will: he will manage Venus issues and needs with his mind for the sake of efficiency.

The young man recognizes this within himself, and much of the consultation was spent exploring these considerations. –The bottom line is that if the anxiety is understood and distance is created through objectification, adjustments to trust and reciprocal attentions with others can enrich the life. Life will smile.

Jacqueline Keendy Onassis! John F. Kennedy! Both had Venus in Gemini.

Martha Stewart is a perfect example of Venus in Virgo, ruling her 7th. One feels the cerebration, the remoteness, dramatically. –So it is with Julie Andrews. Lucille Ball. Sophia Loren.

When Venus is in a fire sign, especially Aries, we can expect a flirtatiousness –for men and women—testing the waters to see if they are seen to be attractive, appealing. Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart –of scandal days past—has Venus in Aries opposed by Mars, the axis squared by Pluto. In extreme development there emerges the attitude of ‘getting away with murder’, so to speak, to ascertain that the world thinks him or her especially appealing.

Television star Rosie O’Donell has Venus in Aries and peregrine, ruling the 11th and 5th!!!

What about Xaviera Hollander! Her Venus in Leo is conjoined with Pluto and rules her Ascendant! And look at George W. Bush; catch his eye after a presumed bon mot; he waits for adoring response. –Johnny Carson. Dwight Eisenhower.

When Venus is in Capricorn, we can expect a curious delay in development of emotional relationship expression. Something makes expression difficult. –One client said to my inquiry about trusting emotional exchange with others, “I always wonder what others want!” She expects the insincere, which is threatening in its unreliability … which means she has been hurt before, routinely. Where? When? How can we re-frame those experiences and get rid of the tentative relating habit?

Broadcaster Howard Stern has Venus in Capricorn –not a surprise. –Katherine Hepburn. Richard Burton.

Is it any wonder when Venus is in Aquarius, more than likely we spot a love-for-the-world, caring-for-others development: philanthropist Jerry Lewis, Mother Teresa, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Noel Tyl,

What about the “let me cry on your shoulder –that’s how we can relate” symbolism of Venus in Cancer? We see that so clearly in the national horoscope of Israel and of Iraq. See Judy Garland! How about Lyndon Johnson, Liberace, Benito Mussolini, Donald Trump.

The Retrograde Venus This is a most difficult occurrence of Venus. It is exceedingly personal, exceedingly individualized. And it is rare: Venus is retrograde for only about 40-47 days every 20 months or so.

The retrogradation adds inscrutability, a lack of clarity; something in the relating department that is not direct, out in the open; there is perhaps a second agenda for dyadic relationships; the emotional center is not readily approachable.

We sense Venus retrograde; we don’t easily describe it.

A very wealthy businessman and personal friend is simply curiously remote, even preoccupied, within his relationships. He can be alone easily. You don’t know “where he’s coming from.” This is not subterfugal or anything like that; it’s just different. –In this case, it is surely a sense of values: is it he who attracts or his wealth?

Condoleezza Rice has Venus in Virgo, ruling her 9th and 11th, and it is squared by Pluto (always a waste of emotions, in the sense that preoccupation about emotional issues gets in their way). One feels this remoteness in her. Her skill as a pianist is offered up almost as a substitute for one-on-one emotional exchange. –Notice how she does not stop talking until interrupted; oblivious to the relationship, give-and-take process.

Business mogul Ted Turner has Venus-retrograde and, similarly, we sense bone dryness in emotional expressivity. Other things speak for those emotions, perhaps: all his acquisitions etc. It is well known that there have been many emotional problems in his marital histories.

Muhammed Ali’s Venus retrograde, squared by Saturn and Uranus, is compounded by the absence of Water accentuation in his horoscope. In this case, the outreach to Islam (not at all atypical, a massed religious outreach instead of one-on-one) has provided a way of relating to the world emotionally. His Venus is in Aquarius.

Saddam Hussein had Venus in Aries retrograde! Think of the ego-energy focus to prove himself the indispensable delight of his world. What a second agenda that was!

Oral Roberts, Julio Iglesias, Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy, Peter Ustinov … all have that one-step-away remoteness about their emotional getting-to-know-you profile.

Then there is the extreme of Adolf Hitler: Venus retrograde, the final dispositor, is exactly conjoined with Mars and the two are squared by Saturn. Venus rules the Ascendant and the 8th. –The stories and documentation of Hitler’s private emotional world reveal enormous sadistic needs and practices; there was the sexuality he felt feared when giving high-emotion speeches(!) to huge audiences; his women friends who committed suicide, etc.

A man with Venus retrograde in Taurus, conjoined with Uranus and opposed by the Moon in Scorpio: he is dominated to exploit sex acts for self-confirmation. He keeps score: over 225 liaisons in a year, for example, controlling his positioning with the opposite sex. –A decided, highly intense second agenda.

When Venus retrograde rules the 3rd or is in the 3rd, we must be aware of the pervasive mindset that will disengage, detach the self, add bewilderment and unfulfilling measures to relationship; a routined frustration almost always follows.

In more everyday occurrence, we sometimes see a conspicuous unusualness in relationships like a dramatic age difference or complicated parameters of commitment, even intrigue and secrecies.

We see that Venus retrograde works through complicated traffic patterns. Disengagement, detachment are the norms, more often than not.

–How sensitive all this is. How sensitive all of us are.