Hi my loves,
Today is the day! Venus is now visible again as the Morning Star at 0 degrees Aries. Yet, Venus is still retrograde, signaling that the journey isn’t over quite yet. You might find yourself asking, “what’s left?”.
Mythology reveals to us how this story may play out over the next few weeks when Venus turns direct on April 13th.
In Inanna’s descent into the underworld, Ereshkigal gives Inanna’s lifeless body to the kurgarrau and the galatur for their acts of bravery in empathizing with her through her birth after they refuse her other offers.
With Inanna’s body in hand, Enki’s creations sprinkle the foods and waters of life on her corpse. And with that Inanna was reborn.
Following her resurrection, Inanna ascending from the underworld with the galla, underworld demons, at her back. While the ways of the underworld are perfect, not all of their rules can be circumvented. Inanna was able to leave, but she was tasked with choosing someone to take her place. She would not be the only one going through an underworld journey.
The details of Inanna’s ascent from the underworld illuminate what the next few weeks may look like for some of us. Over the last six months, Venus guided us through the night as the Evening Star. Taking us on a journey deep within to explore our relationship to ourselves and the other, carrying over themes related to the lessons we learned from Venus’s superior conjunction to the Sun in Gemini. Lessons around communication and clarifying our ideas about what partnership, relationships, and social connections mean to us.
Now, we find ourselves on the other side. Having come into contact with our unconscious aspects that have been silenced and suppressed. Brought to lean past focusing on the other and expand that to include our relationship with Source. To see the connection between our ability to relate to ourselves, the other, and Source as one. When one area is affected, it impacts all of the others.
When Inanna died in the underworld with her corpse hanging upon the meat hook, this impacted everything that she was connected to. Yet, like all who grieve, not everyone responded to her disappearance in the same way. When Inanna reached Ninshubar, the galla told Inanna to walk on that they would take Ninshubar in her place. Inanna vehemently refused. So the caravan continued on. The come across her sons who were deeply grieving her. The galla wanted them as her replacement and again Inanna refused.
Then they came upon Dumuzi, still dressed in his garments of power sitting upon his throne unmoved, playing his reed pipe. Here the galla moved to take him and Inanna, united with her Ereshkigal side speaks clearly to take Dumuzi in her place.
During these next few weeks, as Venus rises from it’s inferior conjunction to the Sun as the Morning Star, we may find ourselves encountering previous patterns, relationships, and places. This is our opportunity to apply what we have learned. To see what has changed in our absence. Then from there, we must choose how we want to respond. There will be those who have stayed true that we are happy to keep close to us and protect. Then there will be those who APPEAR to have stayed exactly as they were. They are on their own journey and we must allow them to find their own path towards inner work.
This is an ongoing cycle of coming back to the self and separating. Again and again. Just like with Dumuzi who asks Inanna’s brother (sometimes considered her twin) Uti to be transformed into a snake like being to escape the demons dragging him to the underworld, parts of us and the people around us may be avoiding facing their own descent. We avoid this work for many reasons. Yet, it is inescapable as we learn from Dumuzi’s dream that he shares with his sister Geshtinanna. Dumuzi’s demons will follow him until he faces them. The cycles will continue until they are made conscious and processed.
But this is just one possibility. Tomorrow we will look at another through the story of Oya and her buffalo skin.
May you see yourself clearly today. Meeting and embracing your unconscious aspects that are so deserving of love. Just as you are so deserving of love.
And as your light grows and you make another trip through the Rose of Venus, may you identify those parts of yourself that still need to be seen. And may you allow yourself to recognize when you see those parts of yourself in others. Lastly, may you know when others are projecting onto you so that you may name the projections clearly casting them into the underworld. Blessing them with a journey of reunification, re-memberance, and growth.
With love,
Kamilah Rose