Following Venus to the Underworld
by Dana Gerhardt

I haven't been feeling like myself lately. This isn't a bad thing. Two nights ago, when my street had its first "rolling blackout" during California's energy crisis, that didn't seem like a bad thing either. With a quick sizzle and pop, the electricity was gone. It was twilight. The house, relieved of its humming kilowatts, was richly silent, except for the moment my son ran in, "The power's out! The power's out!" Outside, the kids were making a game of it. Then, from my living room window, I saw a bright light -- Venus -- through the trees. For the next hour, I watched as she sank slowly to the horizon. 

I remembered Venus was retrograde. Was that why I'd been feeling so unlike myself? I couldn't remember a time when sitting quietly in the dark felt so satisfying. Venus would be having her own rendezvous with darkness soon. In another week, she'd disappear from the night sky altogether, to reappear a few days later, as morning star. Astronomers describe the mystery of her going without much poetry. They say her smaller, faster orbit takes her behind the earth at retrograde, getting between the earth and sun. She dissolves into the sun's light much as a new moon does, reappearing on earth's eastern horizon, as she goes ahead of the sun's position. 

I like how the ancients saw it, as Venus entering the underworld when she disappeared from view. Many astrologers warn of global calamities during this time: international politics can destabilize, diplomatic agreements can unravel, leaders might be insecure and make mistakes. Of course, these possibilities seem all too common at any time! More personally, as Venus retrogrades, we're warned against making our own bad decisions. We might buy things we later hate. We might make unwise financial investments. We might foolishly fall in or out of love. In other words: we may be quite unlike ourselves! 

That night, sitting in my darkened living room, watching Venus descend, I wondered if the astrologers' warnings, though well meant, were wrong. It is true that I had been thinking uncharacteristically since the retrograde began. But Venus going from evening star to morning star is a transformation story after all. If we want to come into harmony with the workings of the outer world, won't we find that there's something in us now that wants to transform as well? 

The astrological Venus works by way of longing. When we warn against our retrograde desires, we're like the parent saying no to a child who wants candy. "It's not healthy, you might get a belly ache, or cavities" -- so we forbid the candy. Even at those moments we know a piece of candy wouldn't be the end of the world; we're committed to the habit of "No." We never address the child's desire. And that's what comes up during the retrograde: what we haven't addressed. So if we want to paint the bathroom purple, or long to feel the embrace of someone new, or want to win the lottery so bad we buy a hundred tickets, we might do better to allow the longing -- so we can look underneath it, to see who or what is really there. 

During Venus retrograde we should enter our fantasies, rather than holding back from them. Going into the underworld, we find what has been unattended in our natures. Our deepest longings come closer to us. They tell us more about ourselves. We can emerge from this period, like Venus as the morning star, renewed. During the hour of the "rolling blackout," watching Venus in the sky, I was surprised at what I found within me. Then, just as Venus dipped below the horizon, the house lights came back on. The refrigerator hummed. My son began to blow out the candles. But I decided not to forget that quiet hour that I spent alone with my desires. 

(Venus turned retrograde March 8, appearing progressively lower in the evening sky at sunset, until it conjoins the Sun on March 30. A few days later, the planet will appear in the morning sky. She goes direct April 19.)