0:01 CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and you're listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, I'm going to be talking with my friends Nick Dagan Best and Patrick Watson about Venus retrograde as a phenomenon in astrology. And we're going to be explaining how to interpret it and what it will mean for you when Venus goes retrograde at different points in your life based on your birth chart. So hey, welcome, Nick and Patrick. NICK DAGAN BEST: Thanks for having us. PATRICK WATSON: Thanks for having us. CB: Yeah, thanks for joining me. The genesis of this episode is that we have a Venus retrograde that's getting ready to happen this summer in Leo between July 22nd and September 3rd, so I wanted to use this as an opportunity to create a tutorial for people to understand what Venus retrograde means and to do a full deep dive on the topic. Nick and I, of course,
0:49 famously did a very early episode of The Astrology Podcast, episode 39 on Venus retrogrades which you can still find by Googling “Venus Retrograde: Challenging Consensus”. And that was a nice little concise hour-and-a-half episode or something like that, but today I wanted to do a deeper dive into this topic and especially go through a lot of example charts in order to show people how Venus retrograde works out in different ways, both in mundane as well as natal astrology. So that is our focus today, especially telling people how to figure out what Venus retrograde means for you and how to interpret it especially since this one is coming up, and then people can take some of those principles and apply them in the future in other contexts. So yeah, that's the plan. You both have
1:39 been doing lots of work on Venus retrograde for many years, especially you Nick, right? NDB: Yeah, well over 20 years. PW: And everything I know about Venus comes from Nick. [laughs] NDB: That's not true. You've done quite a bit of work yourself. PW: Yeah, I have. [crosstalk] I didn't mean to shortchange myself but I've always looked up to Nick's work on Venus and that's definitely informed a lot of my approach to those cycles of the planets. CB: Nice. Okay. Good. All right. Well, we'll get into all that during the course of this. Why don't we go ahead and jump right into it? First things first, let's set the stage
2:24 by talking a little bit about the planet Venus and what Venus signifies in astrology in general because that helps set a foundation for what Venus actually means when it goes retrograde. So some of the basic significations of Venus is it signifies in astrology topics like love, relationships, unions or the concept of union in general, as well as unifying and reconciling things. Venus also represents art, harmony, and beauty. So those are some basic things. What are some other significations of Venus that come to mind for each of you? NDB: Well, sort of a consensus that the social contract, the norms that we all accept as a society. The unwritten rules, if you will. Not the law, but the unwritten rules
3:15 that we all know we're supposed to follow. And if anyone sort of veers off that course, it catches everyone's attention one way or the other. PW: Yeah, I think it's the social dimension of the world. And that actually is more profound, I think, than we typically assume at first. I think that way of looking at Venus as the social planet allows us to see how it's not just about interpersonal relationships between people, but as you'll see, also has a broader significance for entire groups of people and our social relations with each other as groups of people. NDB: I think a great sort of buzzword and counter buzzword is tasteful and distasteful. And to remember that both those words fall under the purview of Venus. So it's not just about what
4:04 is beautiful and loving and pretty and attractive and symmetrical, but also our reaction to that which is not or that which repels us. PW: And that kind of comes from the way its cycle operates, right? It's a very symmetrical even kind of cycle. NDB: Yeah. Yeah, I think the symmetry is a big part of why it's significations are what they are in astrology. CB: Right. It forms a really beautiful pattern over time as it goes through the Zodiac and we'll show some of that later on as we get into Venus's astronomical movements. For more about the basic meaning of Venus, check out the episode I did previously with Becca Tarnas in my planet series, which was episode 315 which was titled ‘Venus in Astrology: Meaning and Significations’. All right, moving on. Venus normally in terms of
4:56 its orbital cycle usually takes about a year or so to do a complete orbit through the zodiac. And normally Venus moves forward through the zodiac at about one sign every three or four weeks when it's doing its normal motion through the signs of the zodiac going from sign to sign and forward in direct motion from degree to degree from zero to 30 degrees in each sign, and in the normal counterclockwise motion through the zodiac from Aries to Taurus to Gemini and so on and so forth. However, periodically Venus will go retrograde, which is when it slows down and it starts moving backwards for 40 days. Both backwards in terms of the signs of
5:48 the zodiac and instead of going through its normal movement of going counterclockwise, it starts going clockwise through the signs of the zodiac or backwards from Gemini to Taurus or from Taurus to Aries and so on and so forth. It also moves backwards in the order of degrees so that instead of going from zero to one to two to three to four degrees, it starts going from four to three to two to one for a period of about 40 days. So it literally slows down and it starts moving backwards in its normal motion. NDB: And sometimes that can take it into the preceding sign as well if that happens to cross the sign boundary. CB: Right. Yeah, so that's really important. And here is a diagram just to set up the astronomical
6:41 scenario that we're talking about where normally Venus is going forward, but then what it does is it slows down and then does almost like a U-turn and starts moving backwards in its normal order of motion. And then eventually after that 40-day period, it slows down again and does another U-turn and stations direct, and then it begins moving forward again after that point. So the retrograde or Venus retrograde period is just that span of time, especially right in the middle of that process when it's moving backwards. PW: And the middle of the retrograde is when Venus retrograde is conjunct the Sun, that's basically when Venus pauses between the Earth and the Sun.
7:27 So that's another way to conceptualize it astronomically what's happening is Venus is coming closest to the Earth and making that alignment between Earth and the Sun. CB: Yeah. I'm going to share my screen here for Solar Fire for those watching the video version to show people what that looks like just when plotted on an astrological chart. So here's today. And I forgot to mention the data. Today is Tuesday, June 13th, 2023. We started recording about nine minutes ago, so we started recording a little bit before 1:00 pm with Virgo rising here. NDB: Denver time. CB: Yeah, Denver, Colorado. Mountain Time. So today on June 13, we see that Venus is at seven degrees of Leo. And what will happen is we see
8:20 Venus is moving forward through the sign of Leo and it's moving forward in the order of degrees from, let's say, 18 degrees to 19 to 20 to 21. But the closer we get to the retrograde station, Venus actually starts slowing down so that it's not moving through those degrees as quickly. And then eventually when we get to here about late July around July 22nd, Venus will actually stop moving forward at 28 degrees of Leo and it will turn retrograde and begin moving backwards for 40 days. And going from 28 Leo, it'll move to 27 Leo, then 26, then 25 and so on and so forth. And then
9:08 eventually as Patrick said, at the exact midpoint or halfway point through the Venus retrograde cycle, Venus will conjoin the Sun and have an exact conjunction right in the heart of the Sun. Then eventually we get the second half of the Venus retrograde cycle and it keeps going backwards in the order of degrees until eventually in late August and early September, it starts slowing down again. And Venus will station direct at 12 degrees of Leo here around September 3rd and September 4th, at which point it will then start moving forward again. PW: That's right. And we might add that what happens over the course of this motion is as the
9:55 retrograde starts, Venus is visible in the evening sky after the Sun has set in the West. And then gradually as the retrograde progresses, it comes under the beams of the Sun where it's not visible for much of the retrograde. Although eventually as it approaches its direct station, it becomes visible again but this time as a morning star preceding the Sun in the eastern horizon rising before the Sun in the morning. And that's the sort of the fundamental shift at work with the Venus retrograde is that this cycle is starting anew. CB: Yeah, for sure. So it begins the cycle as an evening star where it's visible at night after the Sun sets, and it ends the cycle as a morning star
10:44 where it's visible in the mornings just before the Sun rises. Which is a little complicated unless you're already familiar with that technique but it's just good to know that there's something we'll come back to of the idea of Venus changing sides of the Sun and changing its visibility. PW: Yep. CB: All right, so there's that. And then you had an animation from an astronomy program that I want to share really quick, Nick. What was the name of this program again? NDB: Starry Night Pro. It's a top-notch astronomy program. I use it for animations. Well, I use it for a lot of things. But for video work, I use it because it makes these really great animations that you can use to illustrate things like the
11:31 Venus retrograde cycle here. You can see in the top left it's July 17th, 1820, now we're in August and you can see Venus making this retrograde loop and it's had the conjunction with the Sun already then it stationed direct. And now it's moving toward the Sun to make its next conjunction with the Sun, which will be the exterior conjunction. CB: Yeah. So in the video, just to describe it for the audio people, beginning shows Venus and it's moving forward and the Sun is earlier in the order of the signs of the zodiac at the beginning of this. But then when Venus slows down and does this U-turn, part of what happens is that then Venus both does a U-turn and starts moving back towards
12:16 the Sun, but also the Sun catches up to it because the Sun is still moving forward in zodiacal order. And that eventually leads to the two of them meeting up halfway through the retrograde cycle and conjoining, and then Venus switches sides and then suddenly Venus is earlier in the order of the signs the Zodiac than the Sun. And then eventually slows down and stations direct. NDB: Another facet of this loop is the way it sort of carries Venus across the ecliptic and back. You'll often see like if it's south of the ecliptic, it makes a retrograde loop going sort of northward. And then if it's traveling north, the loop will sort of take it southward. And I think that that interaction with the ecliptic seems to be another important facet of how it's going
13:07 to appear and how it's going to manifest. CB: Yeah, and the other thing that you focus on that we'll talk about later also is that the Venus retrograde then is also tied in with Venus having her greatest distance from the Sun or greatest elongation. NDB: That's right. This year, Venus had it's greatest elongation from the Sun on June 4th, which is about... It's about 50 days before the retrograde station. CB: Yeah. So the general point is Venus gets really far away from the Sun, and then at the retrograde it turns and starts moving back towards it. But both ends of the retrograde are in some way connected with Venus being as far from the
13:53 Sun as she can get because she can never get more than two signs away from the Sun, or about– how many degrees? It's like 40-something degrees. NDB: 40-something, yeah. Something like that. [crosstalk] CB: All right. So... PW: That's why the sextile is a Venusian aspect, right? Because it's the Venusian characteristic distance from the Sun. NDB: That's right. CB: All right, so let's see. That's kind of the establishment of the Venus retrograde. So this Venus retrograde period happens approximately every 18 months, I believe. Right? NDB: Yeah, yeah. CB: Okay, so every 18 months. Venus retrograde, it is an apparent phenomenon but it's still a symbolically important one as
14:44 we'll get into later and we'll get into some of the reasons why. One of the things that's important or one of the last important things astronomically is that Venus retrogrades only happen for the most part in about five signs, right? Because Venus will go retrograde every 18 months, but it actually has a pretty fixed pattern that it creates across the signs of the zodiac. NDB: Yeah, it's a very symmetrical cycle. The full Venus cycle is 2,920 days, which is eight years minus two days. And so if you think of eight years being a circle, the five retrogrades happen sort of in a symmetrical pattern apart from each other. And this is what illustrates the image of a five-pointed star. This is the reason why we have that universal image, the five-pointed star.
15:36 Something that appears on the American flag, the Chinese flag, the old Soviet flag... Well, a lot of flags. North Korea has one on their flag. So you know, everyone uses it. PW: Everyone loves Venus. [laughs] NDB: Everyone loves Venus. Right. And yeah, Venus being sort of the brightest star in the sky if you will, using the old school terminology for the word star, it sort of represents all stars in a way. So that five-pointed image that we all use, it really has this natural origin. It's not merely a sort of abstract. Well, abstract in one sense, but very literal in another. CB: Right. So Venus will go retrograde in one of these five signs roughly every 18 months, and then what's weird about it is that it will
16:27 repeat the same retrograde in roughly the same sign of the zodiac every eight years. I've got a diagram up right now that shows some of the Venus retrograde dates. And so when we're talking about this current one that's about to happen in Leo between July and September of 2023, that's going to happen in Leo. And if we go back eight years to the summer in the same timeframe of July-September of 2015, we'll see Venus also going retrograde in roughly the same area of the zodiac. And then if we go eight years before that to 2007 July to September, we'll see Venus going retrograde again in roughly the same spot of the zodiac. NDB: That's correct. CB: All right. So that'll be one of our interpretive principles that we'll come back
17:15 to later is paying attention to the repetitions in eight-year periods, and why that's important and how you can use that as a little astrology hack to figure out what the upcoming Venus retrograde period will mean for you is by looking back at past retrogrades in the same area of the zodiac or in the same spot in your own birth chart. NDB: It's a fantastic hack for any style of astrology. Following the Venus retrogrades no matter how you apply astrology, it really comes in very, very handy because any chart you look at, you immediately have a sense of how Venus operates in that chart if you understand the cycle. PW: Little side note as well is that the relationship of the number of retrogrades and the number of years that take place in five
18:04 retrogrades within eight years, that technically forms the golden ratio 1.6. So I think that's kind of another interesting [crosstalk]. NDB: Absolutely. Speak of introducing these natural, you know… PW: These natural phenomena. This comes from sort of the natural cycle; these ideas, these mathematical ideas, these archetypal ideas that come right out of the science. CB: Yeah, like mathematical formula are replicated in or actually are in nature and show up in nature in different ways. And then that also comes through in different ways in which that's connected to time and our
18:51 experience of time. And through astrology also, our experience of a different dimension of time, that time has a much more qualitative side to it than we're usually used to thinking of. All right, so those are the basics of Venus retrograde in terms of what it is astronomically just as an astronomical cycle. Let's talk a little bit about what Venus retrograde actually means from an astrological standpoint. So one of the things that's important is that a retrograde Venus will extend and intensify what are otherwise normally very brief Venus transits. Where normally Venus will, if you're
19:39 having a transit of Venus to one of your natal planets, it'll come and go over the course of a day because Venus transits are very brief kind of similar to Mercury or Sun transits. But when Venus goes retrograde, it will actually transit the same planet three times in your chart if you have a natal planet that it passes over around the time or during the time of the retrograde. So let's see. Going back to our previous diagram, if you just imagine that you have a planet right in the... I'll draw on it. Let's say you have a planet right here, it means when Venus
20:25 is first moving forward before the retrograde, it'll pass over that planet once. Then when it goes retrograde, Venus will turn around basically like she's driving over a planet in your chart. But then she stations retrograde and then puts the car into the reverse, backs over that planet like a second time, and then when Venus eventually stations direct, it will go forward and it'll move over that planet or that degree in your chart a third time. So that's really important again just as a basic astronomical phenomenon when trying to understand what a Venus retrograde means, in general, is that it means a normally fast Venus transit that would only come and go once
21:13 very quickly over the course of a day suddenly gets extended into a three-pass Venus transit that you'll experience in pretty quick succession over the course of a few months. Or it's not quick succession, a pretty long succession of three months, you'll have the same exact transit three times. So it's like if that's a positive transit, let's say your Jupiter is there, then Venus will conjoin your Jupiter three times and that could be something more experienced as more subjectively positive or auspicious. But let's say you have a more challenging placement there, then it could be experienced as something that's a little bit more challenging that then gets elongated over the course of a few-month period. PW: Yeah, it's like a big deal of a Venus transit
22:02 as opposed to a regular pass through that sign. CB: Right. So that's one thing it does. The other thing in terms of elongating transits, another way that it elongates or intensifies transits is that if you have especially a planet around the stationary degree, where Venus is going to station either retrograde or direct, then it means that you're going to have that transit not just pass three times really quickly, but you may actually have... For example, if you have a planet right here, like let's say your Sun or something, if Venus stations retrograde right on top of that, then it means you're going to have an exact
22:49 transit of Venus that's going to get extended over the course of a week or two as Venus is kind of hovering around that degree. Which just creates not just a very long Venus transit, but also a very intense Venus transit at that time. PW: Yeah. CB: Yeah. Any other points to add about that? NDB: Not specifically. No, beautifully done. CB: Okay, cool. So those are some of the ways that Venus retrograde is important. I meant to show this diagram because this is an illustration from Stella from Reddit who wrote this illustration for the current Venus retrograde period between July and September 2023, and just showing how it's activating that range of degrees especially between 28 and 12 degrees
23:39 of Leo, as well as the same corresponding set of degrees in the other signs that that are aspected or that Venus will aspect when it's retrograde in those degrees. For example, since Venus is going retrograde between 28 and 12 Leo, it's going to be opposed to 28 to 12 Aquarius. Or it's going to be squaring the same number of degrees in Taurus and Scorpio or trining the same number of degrees between Sagittarius and Aries and so on and so forth. So it's going to have an extended transit of whatever that aspect is where it's going to hold that aspect or hit it three times during the course of the retrograde period. PW: Yeah, the only other thing I'd add to that is you would also want to take into account the transiting planets that are aspecting Venus
24:29 as well during the retrograde because that will distinguish different Venus retrograde periods that happened in the same signs eight years apart. Those individualized conditions of the planetary arrangements of those periods will qualitatively distinguish the different Venus retrograde periods in the signs. NDB: Yeah. In other words, at once you're looking at Venus in this isolated sense where it's pattern sort of plays a role unto itself. But of course, always Venus is interacting with the different planets. And they're not moving in an-eight year cycle, so with every eight-year return, Venus's relationship to the other planets will be entirely different than the previous one even though Venus itself is just
25:17 sort of doing the same thing over and over. For instance, in 2007 the Venus retrograde in Leo interacted with Saturn because Saturn was moving from Leo to Virgo at the time, whereas in 2015, the Venus retrograde in Leo was interacting with Jupiter because Jupiter was in Leo at that time. And that, negatively or positively for different individuals, did sort of mold or shape the nature, more specifically the Venus retrograde transit and how it was experienced by different people. CB: Yeah, and I've got a diagram for that from the last Venus retrograde that Kyle from archetypalexplorer.com made for me where, with that Venus retrograde in Capricorn back in
26:02 late 2021 and early 2022, Venus stationed retrograde and it made a conjunction with Pluto around that time because Pluto is also in late Capricorn and Venus went retrograde in late Capricorn. So that ended up resulting in three exact Venus-Pluto conjunctions that were spread out over the course of a few months where the first exact conjunction took place December 11th when Venus was still direct, but then when Venus went retrograde, it backed up and then conjoined Pluto again on December 25th. And then eventually, Venus kept going retrograde and then stationed direct. And then after it went direct, it eventually caught up to and conjoined Pluto one last time on March 3rd at the end of Capricorn. So it's not just that Venus retrogrades can have this
26:55 triple transit to natal planets in your chart, but also part of the quality of Venus retrogrades is based on what planets Venus aspects during the course of its retrograde in the sky as well. PW: That was a loud one. [laughs] NDB: Yeah, you can say that again. Yeah, we'll come back to that one later. CB: Yeah. All right. So that's one of the things. It elongates and intensifies a normally brief Venus transit. Other things in terms of what Venus retrograde means, since it's a retrograde and since Venus slows down and starts moving backwards in the order of signs, it goes backwards to retread old ground or it returns back to degrees of the zodiac that it's already passed over and sort of
27:44 looks backwards for a period of time instead of looking forwards. And so symbolically, retrogrades in general can also involve looking back into the past and sometimes this symbolically or literally means looking back into the past during this period for people. Sometimes something from the past is brought back to you or is brought back into the present. Or sometimes the period can involve reconnecting with something from earlier chronologically, which can show up in a number of different ways, I think in a person's life. Right? NDB: Yeah. So... Oh, go ahead, Watson. PW: I was just going to say with Venus, especially exes, you know? It's probably the number one booty call transit, right? Where people from
28:33 your past who you thought were gone, they have a way of resurfacing. But not always. To just repeat the same experience can often serve as a kind of reminder of maybe the reasons you left it behind in the first place. So, I just want to add that. CB: Yeah, to the extent that Venus is like a planet of relationships, sometimes old relationships resurfacing or going back and re-looking at or revisiting old relationships is pretty standard. NDB: It's definitely one of the ways. It's not the only thing that can happen, but it's certainly one of the things that people find happening to them during these times. Yeah. CB: Yeah. Well, I've also noticed that it also depends on what house it's going through in your chart. And sometimes it can be revisiting
29:20 different types of relationships from the past but they don't necessarily have to be romantic ones. Like in 2020, we had a Venus retrograde in Gemini and it went retrograde and stationed on the degree of my IC which represents family and origins and roots and things like that. And I had an uncle that I hadn't seen in almost 20 years reconnect with me as well as meeting a cousin that I hadn't seen in over 30 years and another cousin that I hadn't met, but also talking with my uncle about my dad and learning about him a lot and his story. That was really interesting going back and reconnecting with my own roots in a way with Venus retrograde around
30:05 my IC, and some of those fourth house topics coming back or being revisited at that time. PW: Yeah, I definitely relate to that. CB: So that's a possibility. Another thing that comes up sometimes with Venus retrogrades is reviewing or reconsidering current relationships in your life of different types, because it involves Venus slowing down and looking backwards in order to decide, you know, sort of assess where it's currently at. But it can also act as a pivot point in terms of deciding where you want to go in the future. But sometimes when you're at a crossroads in your life, it's not just about looking forward but also looking backwards and trying to determine where you want to go from here based on what led you up to the present point.
30:55 PW: Can definitely function as a relationship stress test. And sometimes it survives, sometimes it doesn't. CB: Right. NDB: I think in many ways, the Venus retrograde transit involves reconsiderations or rethinkings and re-applications of strategy. Yeah, the principle you're describing is actually a lot more expansive than that in terms of the ways things can return or the ways that things change during this part of the cycle. Internally, externally, what have you. CB: Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned internally because that's probably important also because Venus slows down and goes retrograde and then it disappears from view and it goes under the beams
31:42 of the Sun and then conjoins the Sun, but that's when it's at its least visible and sort of hidden. And in some ways, there's an internalization that happens during that process where occasionally there can be especially periods of reflection or like the dark night of the soul types scenarios. NDB: Yeah, certainly. One sort of shorthand approach that I use Venus retrogrades for in consultations; if someone's got a rising sign that is one of the five signs where Venus goes retrograde-- so say, people with Leo rising coming this summer-- very often I find just in a broad sense, and everyone that comes to me for consultation tends to confirm this,
32:27 the idea is after a person has lived their full life and someone wanted to write a biography of that person, the periods when the Venus retrograde crosses the person's Ascendant makes these very sort of natural places to start a new chapter in that book. Like you know the way biographies are written, there tend to be, you know, if there's 20 chapters or 10 chapters or whatever, there's just very natural places. Even though you're describing real events in an individual's life, there are these natural places to sort of end one chapter and begin a new chapter of the book because the person moved from this phase in their life to that next phase in their life, whatever the context may be. And yeah, virtually without fail, you can always look to that particular transit as being at least one of those periods were like, "Boom! Chapter two.
33:16 And then so and so went on to do such and such." PW: They end up forming some of those unavoidable narratives of someone's life. NDB: Yeah. CB: Right. So it's like a transition point or a turning point or a pivot, which is really striking because astronomically as we saw in that animation from the astronomy program you use, literally in the sky, Venus does this kind of circle or this pivoting motion over the course of a few months. And a pivot or a turning point like that very much can symbolically mean a turning point in a person's life. NDB: Yeah. It's really really reliable technique and I'll put it right out there. CB: Sure. Another thing or another area for Venus
34:07 that's a major part of Venus retrogrades also is that a retrograde represents something that is symbolically, and from an astronomical standpoint, something that's anomalous, something that's weird, or something that stands out because it goes against the grain. Because normally all of the planets, or normally Venus most of the time is moving forward in the order of the signs of the zodiac. Normally, it's always moving forward in the order of degrees from zero to 30. But then all of a sudden during this brief period, it's doing something different and it's doing something that stands out as odd or kind of weird in a sense because it's contrary to what it's usually doing most of the time. So as a result of that astronomically, sometimes that shows up from a symbolic standpoint as well,
34:57 where it can coincide with events that relative to Venus are kind of weird or odd or go against the grain of something that is normal that comes normally for that planet. Yeah, we'll get into some specific examples of that, for sure. I know one of the things that you bring into that sort of connected with that is themes of social consensus. Right, Nick? NDB: Yeah. The rules that we all follow, be it how we dress or how we sort of consider certain kinds of relationships or... It's just
35:43 the sort of agreement and disagreement that we have as a society or as a community in terms of what is done and not done, as they say. Politeness and rudeness, you know? Again, I want to stress the dichotomy that the whole breadth of thing as opposed to like, a lot of times astrologers will talk about Venus and they'll just talk about the pleasant stuff. But Venus is absolutely the spectrum of pleasant and unpleasant. Cb: Okay. PW: Yeah, the social norms, the social contract. That is the sort of broader view of Venus. NDB: Yeah, and those who want to break the social contract or change it.
36:29 PW: Or preserve it. NDB: Yeah. Well, yeah, or restore it. Not preserve it. It's always either restore it or advance it or, you know? [laughs] It's not preserve, it's always about changing it. Either changing it or changing it back depending on the individual and the circumstance. CB: Right, revising the social contract. NDB: Yeah. CB: Okay. And then Patrick, did you have other points about that? PW: Well, since Venus has that social dimension because Venus is in some ways a compromised position, when it's moving backward it can coincide with delicate charged or really complicated social situations and social breaking points. Even if you look at your own chronology, especially if you've had relationships
37:22 in your life especially romantic relationships, you can often see how these periods where Venus is retrograde may coincide with important developments along those topics in your life. It can be the formation of new relationships, it can be breakups, it can be breaks in the relationship. It can also be times of marriages. So it's not always one thing or the other, but it just seems to highlight that those things are sort of happening. And oftentimes, the complicated social situations that can come up in relationships coincide with these Venus retrograde periods. Like I mentioned, breakups or divorces, sometimes you see cheating, infidelity, the sort of
38:10 naughtier side, I guess, of Venus retrograde. It just shows these things that sort of fall outside the norms of expected behavior. And so that's how you can sometimes see Venus retrogrades coinciding with those set of delicate or charged or complicated social situations because it's elevating the principle of desire in challenging ways, either progressive or regressive. NDB: And speaking of which, sure, things like extramarital affairs can occur during the time. But more specifically, the revelation of extramarital affairs can emerge. Venus retrogrades have a terrific history with regard to scandal because that's part of what you get when you're challenging the social consensus. You get a pushback like,
38:58 "What? So and so did what?" and that kind of thing. This is not done, again, that idea of this is done or this is not done. And you'll have two camps chanting one or the other. CB: Got it. Okay, cool. Well, I think that sets us up well to transition into the next section where I wanted to first talk about how sometimes Venus retrogrades show up sometimes importantly in important or notable world events. And then after that, we'll transition into talking about how Venus retrograde shows up in example charts in people's individual lives and isolated instances like that. So, sometimes Venus shows up in world events. In terms of Venus retrogrades,
39:45 I always think of in this current Leo retrograde that's coming up to this summer. I always think back to the last time that Venus went retrograde in Leo, which was about eight years ago now in the summer of 2015. And one of the notable things that happened in the buildup to that retrograde that always stood out, because we started doing the monthly forecast episodes of The Astrology Podcast around that time so it was like one of the first major events we commented on in doing the forecast episodes, and it was that on June 26th, 2015, the Supreme Court decided the case Obergefell versus Hodges, which essentially legalized same-sex marriage in the United States nationally pretty much overnight at that time. And I always remember that partially because there was
40:36 a Venus-Jupiter conjunction that was happening in the sky at that time that was actually very visible and very bright because Venus was pretty far from the Sun and so you could actually see Venus and Jupiter in the evening just after sunset and those two planets were coming together right as that happened. But also because that preceded a Venus retrograde that was about to happen and that was getting ready to happen in Leo, that was just getting ready to start at that time. And one of the things that ended up being really interesting in retrospect is that Venus then went retrograde in July just like it's about to do this year and it's retrograde for 40 days and 40 nights. And I read a Gallup poll later on that said that one in 10 weddings were same-sex couples
41:27 in the summer of 2015, and it said something like 96,000 same-sex couples were married between July and October of 2015, which would have been sort of centered on during the course of that Venus retrograde as well as the pre- and post-retrograde shadow periods which we'll get into I think a little bit here pretty soon and talking about that. But that was a really major and notable world event that occurred at that time. And for me, it was kind of interesting because it was characterized in a relatively positive way by the fact that Venus was getting ready to go retrograde and it was conjunct Jupiter at the time. And there was this positive basically social thing
42:14 that happened that affected a lot of people, and also was clearly directly related to Venus in that it was connected to the topic of marriage and who could get married, and allowing a lot of people to get married who couldn't previously. PW: If you think of Jupiter in terms of confirmation or validation, or even archetypally judges. [crosstalk] Yeah, the judicial confirmation and approval of Venus as a principle. NDB: Again, the distinction I'd make between Venus and Jupiter and their conjunction in this instance is beautifully illustrated. Because yeah, Jupiter is the law, whereas Venus is sort of the rules, you know? [chuckles] And so this was a merging of the consensus with law, if you will, of the unwritten rule
43:04 to the fact that people of the same sex do fall in love and do want to be life partners to the law sort of merging with that change. CB: Yeah. Well, and also maybe representing the changing of consensus, and those watershed moments where something builds up and consensus is changed. Because what was so striking about that is it wasn't too long before that, it was only in 2012 for example, I think, that during the 2012 presidential election, that Obama openly endorsed same-sex marriage for the first time as a leading presidential candidate whereas even before that in 2008, he didn't. And no candidates did prior to that time. But over the span of a relatively
43:54 short span of time of years, suddenly it's like the consensus in the country had changed enough that there were these important turning points. PW: He made that announcement in May of 2012, which was [crosstalk] Venus retrograde in Gemini. And then eight years prior to that in 2004, Massachusetts was the first US state to legalize gay marriage. So you can see the eight-year synodic cycle with the Venus retrogrades in Gemini kind of coinciding with these important developments for the progression of this topic. And there's another one- CB: Yeah, I was going to give a shout-out to... Maurice Fernandez pointed out to me, the astrologer Maurice Fernandez pointed out that the first country to legalize same-sex marriage was the Netherlands on April 1st, 2001,
44:41 and that was a Venus retrograde in Aries. It was right in the middle of the Venus retrograde cycle, shortly after the conjunction between the Sun and Venus in Aries. So Venus was at seven degrees of Aries, retrograde, and the Sun was at 11 degrees of Aries. So it was literally right after the Sun-Venus conjunction which is right in the middle of the Venus retrograde cycle. NDB: I was really thrilled Maurice reminded me because it just so happens I was living in the Netherlands in the spring of 2001. I was there when this happened and sort of witnessed the event. And it was an interesting spring, we'll get to another example I knew in a minute, involving the Netherlands during the same time period that also relates to Venus retrograde.
45:28 But yeah, it really did sort of... You know, here we were in a brand new century and I found myself in this generally speaking progressive country. Although you can misunderstand the Netherlands I think to some degree, more than anything, they're more pragmatic than progressive and any law they pass is because it makes common sense to them. That was a big part of the rationale behind their taking the lead in this in this situation as well. PW: Interestingly, Australia voted in favor of legalizing gay marriage in November of 2017 at a Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Scorpio. Venus wasn't retrograde but there was still that same Venus-Jupiter signature that we saw from June of 2015. So it's almost like astrology works,
46:19 you know? I'm almost convinced. NDB: That's crazy talk, Watson. That's crazy talk. [Patrick laughs] CB: Right. Get off this podcast. NDB: Where do you think you are? CB: Yeah, if I had known before I brought you on here. NDB: So embarrassing. CB: So, one other thing this brings up, we should mention, is I want to mention the pre- and post-retrograde shadow period. Because it's kind of been alluded to already when I talked about the three passes of Venus. So we're focusing here and we've been focusing up to this point largely on the retrograde period itself, and this is the 40 days and 40 nights when Venus is actually moving backwards from our vantage point astronomically. But during that time,
47:07 it's retreading a series of degrees that it already passed through when it was direct in the lead-up to the retrograde period. And so what we call this at this point, or what astrologers generally have started calling it over the past few decades is the pre-retrograde shadow period. It's the range of degrees that Venus first moves through that it will later come back to during the retrograde period. So an astrologer named Roxana Muse I think is the first person who coined this terminology and really started promoting it in the 1980s of paying attention to the range
47:53 of degrees that Venus passes through before the retrograde period. And that in some ways, the retrograde period kind of begins in some ways during the pre-retrograde shadow period because Venus starts moving through degrees that she will later come back to. And as a result of that, it can sometimes set up a sequence of events during the pre-retrograde shadow period that will then be revisited during a period of intensification during the retrograde period itself. And then eventually when Venus stations direct and starts moving forward again, it will go through the same set of degrees a third time. This is what's called the post-retrograde shadow period, which is sometimes like a cleanup phase where it's going over the same degrees again a third
48:44 time. And at this point, the third and final phase of the Venus retrograde story happens and we get the tail end of it. Sometimes there's a closing down or there's a third act or a final cleanup from the entire cycle. So sometimes this creates kind of three acts where you have the first act is the pre-retrograde shadow period. Then there's the second act, which is the retrograde period itself. And the third act is the post-retrograde shadow period. PW: I'd say electionally you'd almost prefer to maybe do something Venusey in that post-retrograde shadow because it's no longer going backward but it's sort of newly direct and moving forward with
49:36 that initial momentum of having stationed direct. And so when you're studying people's chronologies, you will often see that post-retrograde shadow period show up is when Venus is seemingly set up especially powerful almost as if you were to draw an arrow back and let it go. That post-retrograde shadow period I think is kind of underplayed or undervalued or overlooked. NDB: The thing about this part of the Venus cycle is it's not just the retrograde, but there's a whole sort of dance that indeed includes the shadow. So even though you've got the 40-day retrograde, the shadow periods are well over 30 days, between about 32, 33, 34 days before
50:30 and after the actual 40-day retrograde period. So it really does sort of expand that range but I think there are important points to mark, that if you're just focused on the actual retrograde motion itself, you're missing a bigger picture. That's really, really critical to understand. CB: Yeah. And to tie in with what both you're saying and what you said, Patrick, it means that sometimes if there's an event that occurs in the pre-retrograde shadow period, especially if Venus hits an important natal planet in your chart and if you have an important event here, sometimes it'll seem like that should be a one-time event because under a normal Venus transit that would be it. It's like you have a Venus transit, it comes and goes,
51:16 you have a good day, you have a good meeting with somebody or whatever and that's the end of it and Venus keeps moving on. But with this entire Venus retrograde cycle with the shadow periods, what can sometimes happen is if you have the first event during a pre-retrograde shadow period, sometimes you'll end up revisiting that event during the retrograde period when Venus comes back to that spot. And then finally, you may end up revisiting it for the last time under the post-retrograde shadow period when Venus passes by the same spot again for a third time. So, that can be important to pay attention to and that's going to come up because sometimes when we're talking about Venus retrograde periods, we'll be talking about not just the 40 days of Venus being retrograde, but we'll be giving some examples that include the pre- or post-retrograde shadow periods because
52:03 it's still tied in with the broader phenomenon of the Venus retrograde during that timeframe. All right. With that in mind, that's why we have in the diagram from Stella, we note not just the retrograde periods but also that the pre-retrograde shadow period this year begins on June 19th when Venus passes 12 degrees of Leo because that's the degree that Venus will later retrograde back to when Venus stations direct later on in September. So the pre-retrograde shadow period begins on June 19th when Venus passes 12 Leo, it goes retrograde on July 22nd at 28 Leo, it will retrograde and move all the way back to 12 Leo
52:50 before it stations direct on September 3rd. And then finally, the post-retrograde shadow period is not going to be over until Venus leaves and passes 28 degrees of Leo, which is the degree that it originally stationed retrograde at. And that final post-retrograde shadow period will end on October 7th. So when you look at it from that standpoint, it's kind of elongating the whole Venus retrograde timeframe from this 40 days and 40 nights that is the actual retrograde period itself and it's turning it into a much broader thing that's taking place between June 19th and October 7th of 2023. And although we're explaining this primarily within the context of this current retrograde
53:36 period, this is going to be applicable essentially to all future retrogrades as well. NDB: Yeah. And in astrology in a broader sense, we tend to look at any planet's retrograde phase, we tend to look at the shadow periods in that context as well. So it's not just Venus. But, yeah. CB: Right. Okay, so that's important because then again situating that within context of the 2015 Venus retrograde in Leo, when the Supreme Court decision happened, Venus was already in her pre-retrograde shadow phase. So in that way, the Venus retrograde circumstances surrounding that retrograde had already started to build up for many people in their life. Then Venus went retrograde in July, almost 100,000 marriages took place between different same-sex couples that
54:28 suddenly were able to get legally married in different areas that they couldn't previously, and then eventually, that whole retrograde and shadow phenomenon wasn't over until October. But interestingly, that just happened to coincide with this period where there's this great intensity that was noted in that Gallup poll of all these people being married between July and October. All right. That's one major example of Venus retrogrades and major world events taking place that are relevant to many people. In other types of Venus retrograde events there can sometimes be scandals, which you guys have both mentioned already, one of the most famous scandals was the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal broke during around the time of the Venus retrograde
55:18 in Aquarius and Capricorn in 1998, right? PW: Yeah, it was really close to the actual Sun-Venus interior conjunction itself. Yes, it was right in the heart of the retrograde and of course that was pretty explosive because it brought up all those questions about, you know, what's the right way to act? What are the boundaries of the marriage? [crosstalk] I mean, it goes on and on. CB: So here's the... So January 17th, 1998, the Sun is at 27 Capricorn and Venus is at 25 Capricorn and Venus is retrograde. So it's right in the middle of the halfway point in the cycle. And what happened was just that this is when the story first came out. NDB: Yeah. Matt Drudge, I believe, was the one who reported it, which boosted his career. The
56:08 famous Drudge Report would be infamous from then on. From there, it bled into mainstream media pretty quickly and yeah, exploded. I remember at the time, I was an astrology student at the time and the very early days of the internet, America Online and all that, and what astrology forums existed at the time. Astro.com, Astrodienst had this forum that myself and whoever was around at the time participated in and yeah, it was something that we were analyzing to death. It was, for me, my sort of entry into astrology. At that point, I had been a student for about three years. Yeah, it was where for me astrology started to merge with day-to-day politics and the
56:58 kind of work we're still doing now where we're looking at astrology in the world. Whereas in those first three years of study, I was mostly doing natal astrology. I was looking at transits, but really it started to make me aware of astrology happening in the world and astrology reflecting changes in the world. CB: Because Venus the planet of relationships was going retrograde, all the astrologers were talking about that. Because this would have been halfway through the retrograde cycle so you would have seen everybody already talking about how the planet of relationships is going retrograde and there should be major events with that. And then all of a sudden right in the middle of that, one of the most talked about and newsworthy and explosive relationship scandals of the decade happened right in the middle of that retrograde cycle. Every media outlet was talking about it constantly.
57:48 PW: Right. I also think the beginning of that story is so fascinating that Bill Clinton first met Monica Lewinsky at his birthday in 1995, which was on the day of a Sun-Venus exterior conjunction in Leo conjunct his Sun and conjunct her Venus. CB: Right. Yeah, so it's just part of the broader Venus cycle and the conjunctions with the Sun. In the synodic cycle, the important relationship between the Sun and the Venus is kind of at the core of this. And even though we're often focusing on the retrograde period itself, which is when Venus is really far away from the Sun, at the very core and the very heart of that is actually the conjunction with the Sun. NDB: Yeah, and there are also five exterior conjunctions between the Sun and Venus,
58:39 just like there are with the interior conjunctions with the retrograde. So you've actually got two five-pointed stars that have some perfect symmetrical overlay. The exterior conjunction in 1995 on Bill Clinton's birthday happened four years after and four years prior to a Venus retrograde interior conjunction in the same place in the Zodiac in 1991 and in 1999. So there's this eight-year facet to the Venus cycle with regard to perfect returns, but there's also a four-year operation where you get these opposing parts of the cycle facing each other in turn. CB: Right. Yeah, and I talked about this previously last fall in an episode with Arielle Guttman which was titled “The Venus
59:29 Star Point Cycle”, which is what she calls it. And you can find that on... It's episode 371 of The Astrology Podcast titled “The Venus Star Point Cycle with Arielle Guttman”. Yeah. Anyway, so that's an example and we'll move on from that. But just the significance of that, for people that weren't around at the time, was just that this scandal broke and then it ended up dominating and being the focal point of a large part of the remainder of Bill Clinton's presidency and legacy. He was also eventually impeached for it, which was a notable, important way that it impacted his career and legacy. And even though he stayed in office and it didn't end his presidency,
1:00:16 it ended up becoming a blemish on his presidency in some ways during that time, so it was a pretty significant event. NDB: Although immediately at the time, his popularity actually rose. He actually rose in the polls. I agree in the long term, it's very damaging for him. But during the presidency, he actually reached a peak in popularity after it was all over. CB: Well, but it wasn't because people were endorsing it. It was because he denied it initially and I think people weren't clear what the truth was or was going on. Yeah, but it was just a major event. It wasn't just a natal event for him necessarily, but it was also something that the entire country and US and the different
1:01:03 decisions even potentially that the US was making at that time. Some have speculated, I don't know if that's true, but even militarily whether there were decisions that were made that were partially connected with that or resulted from it and things like that. But it was a whole thing that happened. Anyway, that's one example of types of things that can happen sometimes under Venus retrogrades. Other things that are notable in terms of mundane things is sometimes, Nick, you talked about taste and what is in good taste or bad taste. And that can be a very Venusian thing. So, sometimes changes in trends or things that become trendy can be relevant during Venus retrogrades or around the time of Venus retrograde transits. One of the ones we've talked about is
1:01:53 that Nirvana released Nevermind, which kicked off the grunge fashion era as well as a huge change in music and fashion. And that was right after a Venus retrograde period ended, I believe. Right? NDB: Yeah. And it was part of the reason of the explosion. I mean, it was an excellent album. But in that summer just prior to the album's release-- or not too long before, it might not have happened specifically in the summer but it started to really change things in the summer-- was there was a change in how record sales were monitored and how records reached the charts. It went from being done just sort of eyeballed by record store managers, to being digitally scanned.
1:02:41 You had the barcode and a record was scanned, and so every sale was registered. So there was this sort of reality check that the music industry had where they realized that the records they were trying to promote and the records they were saying were the number one records on the charts weren't selling as much as say underground rock pre-grunge or hip hop. And then older people were listening to more country music than they thought. Garth Brooks's career got a similar boost to Nirvana for this very same change in the technology. So it completely revolutionized the industry. So there's the fact that yeah, Nirvana had this hit album that came out of nowhere and
1:03:27 changed the aesthetics of rock music. Everyone had been wearing what we called hair farmers, there was a hair metal, these guys with all this hairspray and these acid-washed jeans. And then suddenly overnight, everyone went to flannel and ripped jeans and dirty hair or dreadlocks and tattoos started becoming fashionable. CB: Right. Well, the end of the '80s type rock era in many ways? NDB: Yeah. CB: And I think you said that they recorded the video for their hit single Nevermind- NDB: Smells Like Teen Spirit. CB: Smells Like Teen Spirit. Yeah, yeah. And that was during the retrograde? NDB: That was during the Venus retrograde in Virgo, which was Kurt Cobain's rising sign. And yeah, maybe later when we're talking about
1:04:15 profections, we'll come back to that. CB: Yeah, that's a profection example too because he was in a Venus profection year. NDB: Yeah. He was 24, so he was in the first house profection year so you had Venus going retrograde in his rising sign as they filmed this video which was-- for those of you who haven't seen the music video, it's set in a sort of dystopian high school gym with these anarchistic cheerleaders and the janitor mopping to the music and all this. [laughs] And the video sort of erupts in a riot. So it's also sort of Venus retrogradey in that the relationship between the band and the audience is completely blurred and merged rather by the end of the song. CB: Sure. So this is the same Venus retrograde in
1:05:04 Leo that we're about to have. It's part of the same cycle if you take it back in eight-year increments. I don't know how many years is that since now. 1991... 30-something years. But also one of your points is that- NBD: 32. CB: 32 years, okay. NDB: Multiple of eight. It's a multiple of eight. It's always a multiple of eight. CB: Right. But one of your points... Even though one of your points is that Kurt Cobain, and maybe we could just mention it since we're already talking about it, but he was born with Virgo rising. And the Venus retrograde that summer it stationed retrograde in Virgo. NDB: Yeah, quite early in Virgo, basically opposite his Sun. Not quite on his Ascendant, but in his rising sign. So speaking
1:05:52 in terms of profections, it was yeah. And it's interesting because if you think about it, the retrograde in those days went from Virgo to Leo. These days it just happens in Leo. But he was in a first house profection year and the Venus retrograde went retrograde in his rising sign, but then it retrograded into his 12th house. Which if you think about it really reflects his story in terms of his relationship to stardom and fame. Like, he had a very sort of 12th house ultimately. Sure, he made this great album and he wanted people to like it and he made the video and hoped it would be a hit. But the thing he got, in the end, sort of pushed him back to the 12th house like, "Whoa, I can't handle this." CB: Right. Well, he's somebody that always had that tension of, on the one hand, he wanted to be a famous musician and pushed for that
1:06:42 earlier in his life and strived for that. But then also, he was a very sensitive and somewhat shy type of person. And so when they released that album, suddenly he became one of the most famous and sought-after people in the world and somebody that suddenly became the face of his entire generation. And he was completely unprepared for that level of fame and stardom. NDB: Yeah, and coming back to the matter of taste and distaste. As you know, I'm only a year and a half younger than he was and so we've all got the Pluto-Uranus in Virgo in that generation. We, Gen Xers, and especially from that little period of time, we're just mortified by anything commercial
1:07:30 or popular. And so there was this whole thing like, I think part of it for him was he found it distasteful to be involved in the music industry with other elements that he found distasteful. Like having to go on award shows or any of this kind of stuff that wasn't necessarily... It didn't suit his aesthetic, which is another great Venusian word. So yeah, the whole thing. He was changing the music world but also the music world was sort of changing him, and not necessarily as positively as the other way around. CB: Right. Yeah. And that goes to your point about if a Venus retrograde happens in your rising sign, sometimes that can be a really important year
1:08:18 and a really important turning point in your life. NDB: Right. And if you write a biography of Kurt Cobain exactly, starting a new chapter with filming the Teen Spirit video and the release of Nevermind and everything that changes is a perfect illustration of how that kind of thing works. In this case, this is actually someone that people do write biographies about. CB: And what were the dates on that retrograde, just in general? Do either of you have those? NDB: In the summer of '91, it would always be... Probably it was early August– August 1st or August 3rd, something like that– up until second week or third week of September. Second week of September, 40 days. CB: Right. And then with the shadow periods, that extends it on either side by a few weeks or a month?
1:09:04 NDB: Exactly. Yeah. CB: Okay. So, that's very striking. Let's just do the profection. So, what profection was he in again? NDB: The first house. He was 24. CB: Okay, so this is an example of that we'll come back to later that if the Venus in annual profections where you count one sign per year from the rising sign and it'll highlight an important sign for you that year. You can use that sometimes to determine if a Venus retrograde is going to be more important for you. Because one of the things is if Venus goes retrograde in the profected sign, that is going to mean that that Venus retrograde may be much more personally relevant for you than it might in other times. NDB: Exactly.
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