Not yet, but it is in its shadow. Venus is direct at 8°26′ Scorpio, slowing, and stands still and turns retrograde at 8°29′ Scorpio on October 3 at 7:09 AM.
She turns to look at what she loved. For six weeks the looking is the whole of it.
| Entered shadow | August 31 at 2:43 PM | 22°51′ Libra |
| Stands still, turns back | October 3 at 7:09 AM | 8°29′ Scorpio |
| Stands still, turns forward | November 14 at 12:21 AM | 22°51′ Libra |
| Leaves shadow | December 15 at 6:36 PM | 8°29′ Scorpio |
Venus entered her shadow on August 31, at 22°51′ Libra, the degree whose image is the rooster’s full-throated call meeting the first rim of sun—a voice rising to greet the light returning. She has already begun to slow, and the ground she will retrace is under her now; every degree she crosses this month she will cross twice more. Astrologers treat the shadow as the season in which the retrograde’s questions first surface, most often as a faint dissatisfaction with something that seemed settled, a chair that no longer sits right in the room. This is the season of noticing, before the season of turning.
Retrograde from 8°29′ Scorpio, the degree of skilled hands at work in a small and sensitive place—the kind of attention that must go inside something in order to make it whole, back to 22°51′ Libra, the degree of the rooster’s full-throated call meeting the first rim of sun—a voice rising to greet the light returning. Forty-two days.
Venus today: 8°26′ Scorpio, the ninth degree. Skilled hands at work in a small and sensitive place—the kind of attention that must go inside something in order to make it whole.
Venus retrogrades when she passes between the Earth and the Sun, nearest to us and at her brightest, crossing from evening star to morning star like a woman leaving one room for another. From here she seems to back through Scorpio for about six weeks. Nothing in the sky reverses; the Earth has drawn level with her and is watching from the inside of the turn. Astrologers read the interval as the heart’s low tide. The appetite for the new goes slack. Old attachments drift back into view to be seen plainly, without the light they once had, and what one values is weighed rather than acquired. Purchases and vows made now have a long reputation for being reconsidered, and reconsidered is a gentler word than regretted; sometimes the second look is the one that keeps the thing. The retrograde ends when she stands still and turns on ; she is clear of her shadow on .
Venus retrogrades once every eighteen months or so, for about six weeks, and her five retrograde points over eight years draw a pentagram around the zodiac.
| Enters shadow | Stands still, turns back | Stands still, turns forward | Leaves shadow |
|---|---|---|---|
8°29′ Scorpio | 22°51′ Libra |
About 7 percent of people were born with Venus retrograde. Enter a date and time and Moondark will tell you, along with the Moon’s sign and phase and whether she was void.
All retrograde planets right now · Add Venus’s stations to your calendar
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