Moon – What you need
When it comes to romance and love we have been sold a distorted picture of Venus. We need to crack open our idea of love and see beyond the chocolates, champagne flutes, and cozy fireplaces. We have cheapened love with sugary Hallmark movies. Those are all fine, but they are just a detail. The Moon has much to say about how we tend for another, for ourselves, and for the things we profess to love.
The Moon speaks to what we NEED to feel secure, nourished, nurtured, and belonging. When you fall in love with someone, you may at first connect at a Venus level (what I like is what you also like), but as you move towards more intimacy, knowing your lover’s Moon will let you understand how to make them feel tended to and cared for.
This is where the secret sauce of making one feel that they belong and that you ‘get them’, is knowing their Moon. Plus our own Moon sign is how we tend to take care of another. Are we the sort of friend that brings the chicken soup when a friend has a cold, or do we bring them a good fluffy book to read? That’s your Moon speaking.
Plus when you know your Moon sign, you learn what you really need to do and have to feel nourished. An unfilled Moon is a cranky, crabby, moody Moon – all words related to a dissatisfied Moon. As I often say: DO YOUR MOON, AND YOUR SUN WILL THRIVE.
But this also applies. Honor your lover’s Moon, otherwise, you will struggle to make them see and nourished.
In terms of business, the Moon is your CLIENT RELATIONS rep. It’s how your customers/clients connect with you. The Moon in your business chart represents the emotional needs your clients/customers have and that your service/product can fulfill.
Venus – What you value
When it comes to love we have Venus on our minds. The Goddess of Love has many stories about love in all its permutations. Venus speaks to what we love and like, and these are elements that we value. In the words of astrologer Robert Hand, there are two forces in the Universe that brings things together. One is coercive, trying to bring things together regardless of their individual inclinations or natures. These can be represented by Mars, Saturn, and Pluto.
But the second force comes from WITHIN the entities involved. They come together and bond because of something their intrinsic natures rather than a violation of them. Their union is VOLUNTARY, and their differences are COMPLIMENTARY. For us, this is called: LOVE.
As a force, Love produces a more stable connection, because our differences are complementary. One is allowed to express who they are because in our coming together we are stronger than if we were the same. That’s why love is so creative because our separate elements come together and create a bigger whole.
“Wherever Venus operates, one can clearly see the harmony produced by something moving in accordance with nature and itself. … All Venusian forces are experienced as spontaneous attractions. For this reason, Venus is often associated with attraction itself.”
Robert Hand
However, unless you have been able to establish yourself as a separate entity, Venus cannot function properly in your life. If you can’t express YOURSELF, be what YOU ARE, true love cannot arrive, because for it comes, one needs to be able to have an individuality to express.
As cliche as it may sound, love starts with SELF-LOVE, doing what we value, expressing the Venus within. Venus in your birth chart, wherever she may be and with whomever, she’s dancing with, will play out in your language of self-love, self-expression, and love. In another, their Venus will give you clues to what gives them pleasure, what they value, and much about their love language.
Not to mention BEAUTY. Whenever Venus is around, the desire calls for beauty. Plus remember that the very word DESIRE is related to VENUS – meaning await what the stars will bring,” from the phrase de sidere “from the stars.” To wish upon a star is actually to wish upon VENUS. When we do what we DESIRE, we are fulfilling the needs of our VENUS.
In terms of business, Venus is related to your products and services that make your business attractive to your potential clients. So the old adage of doing what you love, and money will follow is also related to VENUS. Follow your bliss, follow your joy – these are all Venusian concepts. Because to do what we love, we are doing what we value and as such we are SELF-EXPRESSING.
Plus think of this: when we truly have a VENUSIAN relationship, where you are valued for who you are and bring to the table, helps all parties involved become more SELF-REALIZED. It’s more creative and life-affirming. In business, a product improves one’s life. In a romantic relationship, together we become bigger than our individual parts.
So in many of the stories of ‘love’ that we are sold are really not Venusian at all. It’s more about merging and the loss of individuality. While there’s a phase in relationships where we may be joined at the hip, ultimately, that gets very stale and old quickly. In thinking of your relationships, be it with a significant other, your work, yourSelf, think about your Venus and what this archetype desires within you. Look to what sign Venus is in your birth chart and what planets relate to it for clues of where you need to give more room for beauty, self-expression, and pleasure.
Chiron – your pain is your medicine
Chiron is the archetype of the maverick, wounded healer, the mentor who transcends their pain to teach us something about connecting to our Inner Gold. Wherever Chiron is in your birth chart, we have a clue to our deep wound, where the light penetrates to reveal the inner gold of our medicine to the world.
This is where we have the self-consciousness of being different, perhaps unfit, misfit, odd, and unexpectable. Because of our cultural fear of that which hurts, we avoid Chiron, unless it’s inescapable, which it ultimately is. In our more intimate relationships, the true vulnerability is in sharing this deep pain with another and being (hopefully) seen for the first time.
As we know this is where a lot of our romantic ideals fall short because our Chiron reveals that which we struggle within ourselves, where we feel unloved and needs to be seen. Romanticism, as it’s sold to us, abhors the ugliness of our pain. But at a closer look, Chiron is where we can truly be vulnerable with another and in time connect to our own medicine.
Chiron, the wise Centaur, was the mentor of all the major Greek heroes. He was an astrologer, herbalist, martial arts teacher, and many more things. In working through his own abandonment issues, as both his mother, the nymph Philyra, and his father Chronos/Saturn, both left him, he transformed his pain into medicine for others. He was raised by Apollo who taught him all the arts. Here you see the connection between our pain as our solar medicine to the world. Our Chiron needs our Sun and vice-versa.
In business, our Chiron will reveal what is our medicine to the world. Because if you haven’t noticed yet, having your own business is also a healing journey (as is your own career and job), and perhaps your own way to connect with your Chiron. We are all together on this journey beyond livelihood.
Mercury – communication as art
This trickster archetype is much more than traffic and misled communication. Mercury is the process of creating maps of consciousness through language. It is linked to our intelligence, our ability to process information beyond words. It’s also related to our development in consciousness, or how we become (hopefully) wiser as we mature.
In simpler forms, Mercury reveals how we communicate and use language. If the cornerstone of any relationship is communication, you can see how our Mercury needs to vibe together if we hope to establish a lasting relationship. We all have been in situations where we are incapable of understanding another person. Where the style of communication is so distant and different that no matter how we try, it’s impossible to be on the same page.
In short, my Mercury needs to connect with your Mercury, otherwise, it will be hard for our Venus to connect. Sure sexual attraction can carry us for a while, but for anything to really last, we need Mercury.
In business, Mercury handles your communication style. It represents how you connect to your public and transmit your message. As our culture is so deeply Mercurial, we actually place quite a bit of emphasis on communication. But both Venus and Mercury, often so close together in our birth charts, come as a two-ffer. Both of these archetypes are CIVILIZING AGENTS. In their stories, they are inhabitants of the edge, reaching out to others outside of the established circle to bring in new ideas and connections.
Our words matter, our Mercury within because it’s the attractor and translator of the Venusian wish within. But it’s more than just words. Remember that we communicate in a myriad of ways. So when Mercury is traversing the water signs of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, this is even truer. In water signs, Mercury is tasked with translating and sharing our emotional, imaginal needs. Make use of all that is able to translate your feelings: images, art, body, movement, music, dance, etc.
As a culture, we need to expand our vision of Love
Let’s look at the ancients and their many types of love. During this holiday and this Mercury Retrograde in Pisces, notice what you are really trying to express when you say you love this or that. Try to find another way to express this universal. Reflect on all the things you profess to love and reconnect with the originating WHY of your attraction to these things or people.
Nothing like a good old Mercury Retrograde to get us into a reflective mood, especially when it’s in Pisces. Use this time to dive deeper into your imagination and express beyond words all that you find there. Look to a way to connect with your inner Venus, learn the medicine your inner Chiron is trying to teach you, and don’t forget to tend to the needs of your Moon. I’m sure you will come out of this collective liminal phase of the retrograde renewed and ready for more love in your life and business.
