Hi my loves,
As a Libra Sun and Mars, I love anything Venusian. Give me peace of mind, heart, body, and soul. Then make it pink. But that has nothing to do with Venus, really. Those are just aesthetics and personal preferences. Let’s chat about Venus beyond the surface.
I have been tracking the Venus cycle for the past few years. Venus runs on an eight-year cycle, where it makes a conjunction or is directly aligned with the astrological position of the Sun at five points during that cycle.
Venus makes two types of conjunctions with the Sun. A superior conjunction is when Venus appears to be on the other side of the Sun and is not visible from Earth. On the other hand, an inferior conjunction is when Venus is directly aligned with the Sun, which makes it unable to be seen from Earth because it is lost in the Suns glare.
The image below shows the eight-year Venus cycle with its superior conjunctions in orange/yellow and the inferior in blue. You can see that Venus makes an inferior conjunction to the sun in 2025 in the sign of Aries. Followed four years later by a superior conjunction in Aries in 2029.
*Note – Venus makes both a superior and inferior conjunction in 2026 in the signs of Capricorn and Scorpio, respectively.
The lesson of Venus at its conjunctions depends on the role that you believe that the sun plays astrologically and psychologically. What does it mean when the sun shines so bright that we are lost in it’s light? What happens when Venus is hidden behind the sun and unable to be seen?
Let’s put this into conversation with three cyclic frameworks. First, there is the Hero’s Journey, which I won’t cover, but you may find it interesting to see how the Venus cycle may connect to this perspective.
I want to focus on the Heroine’s Journey proposed by Maureen Murdoch. We start off the cycle with separation from the feminine. This could be where Venus is moving away from its inferior conjunction after coming together with the sun as it has been reborn as the Morning Star. This would be the point of integration of the feminine with the masculine. Its opposing energy would be the superior conjunction where Venus is behind the sun at its furthest location from Earth. On the Heroine’s Journey this may be the point where we begin to awaken to feelings of spiritual aridity and death. Here, Venus descends into the underworld to meet the Goddess located beyond our immediate sight on the other side of the sun.
Of course you could read this the other way around with Venus inferior conjunction being the descent into the underworld where it experiences a review of its relationship to the topics of the sign it is in during its retrograde.
What matters most is not how or which theories or frameworks you apply Venus cycles to, but that you find something that you connect with. For example, here’s our last contender that I will feature here, The Psychic Life Cycle by Edward Edinger. This framework presents a perspective through which we can look at how the Self goes through ego separation, inflation, and alienation, which eventually brings the ego back to the Self. According to Edinger, we go through this process repeatedly in our lives.
Venus moving in conjunction with the sun could be the parts of the self within the unconscious being activated to bring the ego back to the Self. Our ego, the Sun aspect or Venus aspect separates from the Self. This inner part sees itself as a powerful entity or what Edinger would call going through inflation. Then, there is a moment of activation or a trigger that is experienced. This is the moment of alienation where the Ego realizes that it is not all-powerful and adjusts itself, sending portions of its characteristics into the unconscious. We then have to go through the process of reintegrating these suppressed aspects so that the Ego, the unconscious, and the Self can return to being one.
I have used all three theories in my astrological work. Venus’s descent into the underworld or the unconscious is sometimes associated with its retrograde. This is how I have previously worked with this energy. Venus disappears from visibility due to its superior and inferior conjunctions twice. During its superior conjunction, there is not as much discussion of Venus being in the underworld or transitioning from Morning Star to Evening Star. I find this to be fascinating. I’ve tested out applying Inanna’s underworld journey, Psyche’s transformation, and Oya’s buffalo skin tale to the Venus retrograde based on Venus relationship to the Sun. Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld has been applied to Venus’s cycle. It was an ok application. It felt a little restraining. I am experimenting this time with flowing with the infinity shape that Venus makes in the sky as it moves through its cycle.
Adam Gainsburg shows the Venus cycle as a letter M. Connecting Venus’s movement from beneath the horizon across the Eastern sky to it’s greatest elongation and max brightness before moving back towards the horizon as it goes from Morning Star to Evening Star. Then Venus climbs past the horizon again towards its greatest elongation in the evening sky as Venus can be seen setting in the West. You can read his application and thorough review of Venus in his book The Light of Venus. Venus also makes conjunctions to the Moon which have been used as a basis for working with this planet. I have not done as much research on this practice, but it may be a framework that works or resonates with you.
As a 3/5 projector, I’m excited to bring you all on this experiment with me.
See you on the other side my loves!
Kamilah Rose